UK launches crackdown on asylum seekers

"The statistics show that the number of applications has halved since October last year ... and record numbers of failed asylum seekers are now being removed at an average of 1,500 a month," the Home Office said in a statement.

Britain was Europe's prime destination for would-be refugees before Prime Minister Tony Blair's government vowed a year ago to halve the number of applicants by introducing tougher criteria for letting them in.

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In October 2002, 8,700 people applied for asylum. By September 2003, monthly claims had dropped 52 percent to 4,225.

The government announced on Thursday it was tightening the screw still further, with a bill that penalises both traffickers and asylum seekers.

Labour said it would strip failed asylum seekers of state benefits, reduce their right of appeal and could even remove their children to coerce them into accepting repatriation.

"The policy is not designed to make families destitute and we do not believe many, if any, people would put their children in this position," a Home Office spokesman told the media on Sunday.

The proposals have been condemned as draconian by refugee groups and shameful by the opposition Conservative party.

If the bill becomes law, human traffickers could be jailed for up to 14 years and asylum seekers found guilty of destroying their travel documents could spend up to two years in prison.

"Those claiming to be escaping death and torture must be honest with us. Those who cannot explain how they got here without travel documents should not expect to benefit from our protection," Home Secretary David Blunkett said in a statement.

The bill says that after May 2004, foreigners applying for asylum will only be entitled to legal advice if the British Legal Service Commission considers in advance that their claim is merited.

If their claim fails they will only be allowed one chance to appeal. If they refuse to let the government fly them home, their benefits will be axed and they will be forcibly deported.

The threat to take asylum seekers' children into care, which caused uproar when it was first revealed on Sunday, was not set out explicity in the Home Office's statement on Sunday. Observers said this omission appeared designed to ensure more support for the bill among Labour's own ranks.

But the government has confirmed the threat exists.

Blunkett sought to defend the measures in the left-wing Guardian newspaper on Thursday.

"We have to deal with failed asylum seekers who refuse to leave," he said.

"I have no desire to take children from parents and put them in care unless it is an absolute last resort... All we are saying is that if failed claimants continue to refuse our offer to fly them home and help them resettle, we cannot provide indefinite state benefits."

Currently parents who are refused refugee status continue to be supported by the state pending their deportation, which can take years. It is thought that up to 2,000 children could be affected by the clampdown.

The government said its asylum bill was aimed at "making the system work better for genuine refugees and encouraging the legal, managed migration which can make an enormous contribution to our economy and society".