In 2007, the British Home Office refused asylum to a Congolese individual who claimed to have been persecuted by militia. In its refusal letter, the decision-maker speculatively found that ‘it is not considered credible that after going to the trouble of attacking your family in 2004, the militia would have then allowed you and the rest of your family to reside in peace for two years’. As with many such letters, the Home Office inferred that, because it found the applicant’s testimony to be incredible, they faced no risk on return. Had the case been public at the time, the tabloids would have most probably concluded that this was yet another case of a ‘bogus’ asylum seeker, lying through their teeth to gain access to the British benefits system.
This case is just one example of how judgements concerning the honesty of asylum seekers have become highly potent. The notion of the ‘bogus’ asylum seeker has become a familiar refrain by the tabloids and many politicians, casting most refugees as fraudulent ‘economic migrants’. Similarly, as the refusal letter exemplifies, the Home Office has made asylum seekers’ credibility the key question when deciding their claims, giving rise to its well-documented culture of disbelief in which decision-makers often presume their deceit from the start. The tabloids and the Home Office are united in one key respect: their assumption that to be dishonest in an asylum claim is to be undeserving of protection. Both effectively assume that if asylum seekers are insincere, they face no risk on return.
This assumption urgently needs to be challenged, not least due to its serious human consequences. The notion of the ‘bogus’ asylum seeker has done a good deal to weaken public support for asylum, heavily restricting the political space for more inclusive policies which would provide greater protection to refugees. At the same time, the culture of disbelief is one stage in an unjust process of exclusion which frequently leads to their destitution and deportation.
