AN asylum seeker who fled Nigeria after facing political violence in his home country has said the UK Government's new immigration rules feel like "sheer punishment".
Glasgow-based Bahawudeen Yahaya, 46, said a slew of new "dehumanising" policies announced by Labour this week are being driven by an "ugly narrative" designed to make asylum seekers "feel bad about themselves".
The UK Government has announced asylum seekers will be required to pay up to £10,000 towards the cost of their accommodation and support once they begin earning, something Yahaya says he will find "impossible".
The dad-of-four told The National that given asylum seekers have no right to work while their claim is being processed, Labour are creating a "huge trap".
"I feel so bad about it," he said.
"[Since] I saw it in the news, it has preoccupied my thinking and I’ve been trying to work out what has really brought out this ugly narrative.
"This is just like punishing the asylum seekers or people who are seeking refugee [status]. For me it’s sheer punishment to make them feel bad about themselves."
Asked if he would find it impossible to pay that money, he went on: "It’s definitely going to be impossible because there is no right to work [for asylum seekers] and when someone is just trying to get back to his feet, to try to get his life back […] it’s a huge trap for anybody because the money is a lot.
"Giving asylum seekers the right to work, the right to contribute, makes more sense to me. The system is not trying as much as possible to see how they can help some of us with this process and graduate from this process into living a normal life.
"Is this what you have to pay for actually exercising your fundamental right? Seeking asylum is a human right."
Yahaya arrived in the UK in 2022 after being kidnapped and held captive by political thugs in Nigeria, during which he "struggled to breathe" and believed he would die.
After two days in captivity, he returned home but was attacked again by the same assailants in a separate incident and his elder brother was shot and killed.
Fearing for his life and the lives of his family, he was forced to flee to the UK.
He lived in a Home Office hotel with his family for four months between December and March but had to leave after his autistic son struggled to leave the room at mealtimes. It meant he and his wife had to make hard choices between stressing their child out and not eating.
Yahaya, who is still awaiting an asylum decision, said he was also worried about plans to allow members of the public to be trained to decide asylum appeals instead of immigration judges.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has set out plans for a new independent body which officials say will prioritise cases in the public interest and high-harm offenders starting from late 2027.
The Independent Immigration Appeals Authority will be made up of “professionally trained and independently appointed” adjudicators from a range of backgrounds, similar to magistrates.
The UK Government hopes that broadening the eligibility criteria will allow for a significant increase in capacity and lead to faster outcomes.
But Praxis, a charity fighting for migrant rights since 1983, described this as a "reckless gamble with human lives" which would increase mistakes and create more appeals.
Yahaya said it would mean more unconscious bias would come into decisions.
"Ordinarily in some cases judges make mistakes, so if you are now assigning it to an ordinary person, as an ordinary person I can decide to bring sentiment into any case I have which is not going to help the overall result," he said.
"There’s going to be a whole lot of subconscious bias. Ordinarily a judge will look at evidence to pass judgement. They work based on the facts. An ordinary person might just think ‘I don’t like this person’s face’ and can decide to pass any judgement."
Labour have additionally said this week that asylum seekers should never be housed in new-build homes after plans to house more than 80 people at a new development in Shropshire were met with opposition from residents.
Mahmood has introduced "robust processes" to ensure new-build sites "can never be considered again" for asylum seekers.
Yahaya described this as "highly discriminatory".
"The way they have tried to talk about some of this is dehumanising," he added.
"What it means is that as an asylum seeker you don’t have the best.
"It’s one of those things to push the narrative and to show opposition politicians that they are doing something on immigration, that’s the way I look at it."
