Effect of Immigration Policy on the Process of Asylum Seekers Families’ Integration (A Case Study of Kosovan Families in the East End of London, 2003-2004)

Janusz Balicki, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University

This paper will examine the effects of the limits set by the UK integration policy on the process of integration for asylum seekers families. This will be achieved by looking at the experiences of Kosovan families in London. Using the ‘snowballing’ method, we interviewed fifty respondents, between January 2003 and October 2004, pre-Amnesty and post-Amnesty and we held a limited number of in-depth interviews. We saw how the exclusion of the asylum seekers family from the integration policy programs which apply only for refugees effects the process of integration of all those who will become future refugees. It is too high a price for keeping the principle that only integration in the full sense of the word can take place only when a person has been confirmed as a refugee. It is necessary to recognize that the process of integration begins on the day of arrival in the host country.