I suppose that, given the sheer amount of back-and-forth traffic, it’s inevitable that there are small numbers of people who would seek political asylum in the UK, even if they are coming from other western democracies like Canada and the U.S.
The Guardian says 60 people — 45 Americans and 15 Canadians — applied for asylum in recent years. All were turned down:
A US government source said the American applications were most likely submitted by self-declared “political refugees” claiming they faced discrimination under the last administration. The applications from the US peaked in 2008, the final year of George Bush’s presidency, when 15 Americans submitted asylum claims.
Between 2004 and 2008 there were 132,640 asylum claims made in the UK, according to government statistics.
The Home Office refused to reveal the rationale behind the claims or why they were refused, saying a manual search of the records would be required, exceeding the time limit for Freedom of Information requests.
But on various online forums, people claiming to be American refugees have outlined their cases. One Texan hoping to be allowed sanctuary in Scotland claimed he had been “persecuted as a political dissident against US government war-mongering”.
Liza Schuster, an asylum expert from the department of sociology at City University, said: “I don’t know the details of those cases, but assume the US citizens are deserting before being sent to somewhere like Afghanistan. With the Canadians I’m really not sure. It is, as is clear from the numbers, pretty unusual – if only because it is relatively easy for those people to leave their countries and settle elsewhere. Why not just apply for a work visa and renew and then apply for leave to remain?
Grant Hamilton
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