Navigation guide Refugee populations in the UK: Algerians - ICAR

Key issues
The most significant issues facing the Algerian community in the UK can be grouped into eight categories:
asylum, undocumented status, detention and deportation, employment, isolation, the effects of anti-terrorist
legislation, contact with Algeria and the growth of the Algerian population in the UK.
Asylum
The large majority of the Algerian population in the UK (estimates range from 70% to 90%) has arrived over
the last ten years, during the period of conflict. The conflict is likely to have affected everyone in Algeria.
Most people are likely to know someone who has been killed or injured, many have witnessed the deaths of
friends and family and many more recount scenes of astonishing barbarity. The most pressing need for this
population is therefore for a secure period of residency elsewhere.
• Apart from the years 1998 and 1999, on average, Algerians were less likely to receive asylum in
the UK than other national groups.
• Many Algerians would prefer a shorter period of protection since the symbolic break with the home
country that is associated with refugee status deters many people from applying. 82
• The French system of ‘B-status’ ‘territorial asylum’, which lasts for a limited time and carries fewer
benefits than full Convention status was tailor made for the Algerian population.
• Both territorial asylum, in France and Exceptional Leave to Remain (ELR), in the UK have very
rarely been applied to Algerians; figures vary between one per cent and four per cent, depending
on the year. 83
• In 2003, the introduction of two new forms of subsidiary protection in the UK (humanitarian
protection and discretionary leave) to replace ELR has not affected the proportion of Algerians who
are granted subsidiary protection.
This information points to a very significant ‘protection gap’ for the Algerian population. Many Algerians, if
refused asylum, prefer to remain undocumented than risk returning to Algeria and more than half the
Algerian population in the UK is thought to be undocumented. Asylum has a number of disadvantages for
Algerians:
• The Algerian government has suggested that those people who are granted asylum in Europe are
more likely to be terrorists or deserters. 84 This is often repeated by undocumented Algerians as a
reason for not claiming asylum. Many are concerned what their family will think of them if they tell
them that they have claimed asylum. The director of the Algerian Refugee Council commented:
82 Collyer, M. (2002) ‘Explaining change in established migration systems: the movement of Algerians to France and
the UK’ University of Sussex, DPhil thesis, bound and recorded at the British Library; this point is also commonly made
in French literature on Algerian asylum requests e.g. GISTI (1999) Les droits des Algériens en France, Les cahiers
juridiques. GISTI, Paris.
83 Home Office statistical bulletins; Amnesty International Section Française (1997) l’Asile en France, Etat des lieux,
Paris; Delouvin (2000) ‘The Evolution of Asylum In France’ Journal of Refugee Studies 13(1), pp. 61-73.
84 Benyamina, A. (1998) ‘Foreign interference in the situation in Algeria: The Algerian government’s position’.
Cambridge Review of International Affairs 1998 vol. XI no.2, pp. 184 – 195.
Navigation guide to refugee populations: Algerians
©ICAR 2004, moral rights Michael Collyer
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