ICAR 'Focus On' November 2009: DNA Testing for Asylum Seekers
19 November 2009
Latest government plans to test the credibility of asylum claims through DNA testing raises misconceptions about nationality and ethnicity more akin to the politics of the far right, argues ICAR intern Adam Alagiah.
The UK Border Agency's controversial plans to use DNA testing to assess the credibility of asylum applicants has caused an uproar. The 'Human Provenance Pilot Project', under which asylum seekers can be subjected to genetic tests to ascertain their ‘true' nationality, has led to an outcry from migrants' advocacy groups, the scientific community, and human rights organisations. But it also unearths old misconceptions about the connection between nationality and ethnicity.
Scientists have argued strongly against the ability to make such connections. Sir Alec Jeffreys, the inventor of DNA fingerprinting, explained in an email last month to Science Magazine that at best DNA could be used to connect a person to an ethnic group (and he was doubtful even of this). Yet still it would not establish nationality. He has gone on to say that DNA travels across borders and that the idea that race could be defined in this way was misguided and almost certainly morally flawed. Furthermore, Mark Thomas, a geneticist at University College London, said the type of DNA analysed in the scheme "will never have the resolution to specify a country of origin."
The scheme, which uses mitochondrial DNA to aid the refugee status determination process, will supposedly help the UKBA in catching out migrants who falsely claim to come from unstable or dangerous countries in the hope of being granted asylum here. Yet this ignores the possibility that people and populations move, which is especially relevant for the Horn of Africa, whose claimants are the focus of this trial.
This apparently misguided piece of policy making exposes misconceptions about the connection between nationality and ethnicity that were recently given an airing by Nick Griffin on BBC's Question Time. The leader of the BNP was publicly humiliated when he tried to pin some sort of genetic uniformity on the term ‘British'. To that Question Time audience the idea that to be British meant you had to be of a particular ethnicity (or race, in Griffin's terminology) was ridiculed.
Nationality is determined by national law in the country concerned, often dependent on place of birth or place and length of residence. Ethnicity on the other hand is a socially constructed category, based on cultural or religious practices, socio-linguistic affiliation, and self-identification. Even genes cannot indicate ethnicity. In this country, national law makes no reference to ethnicity or genes in its citizenship requirements, or, in other words, what it means to be British. Why has this apparently obvious logic that nationality has nothing to do with ethnicity escaped those behind the Human Provenance Project?
A second controversial element of the project is the use of isotope testing from hair and nail samples of claimants. However, this technique can only ascertain where the subject has recently been, not where they grew up. Isotope testing is sometimes used to trace the origin of corpses, but this uses bone samples not hair. Moreover, place of birth is not the sole criteria for determining nationality, so the rationale for this testing becomes obscure.
In fact the entire project is somewhat murky; the Home Office declined to offer any further details on the trial or explain which labs are being used, and some scientists have questioned the independence and statistical skills of the private labs presumably doing the work.
It appears imprecise scientific techniques have been adopted with poor rationale under a scheme that is by no means transparent. Griffin's genetic categorisation of Britain was derided by representatives of the same government that somehow see the issue differently when applied to the Horn of Africa. These double-standards indicate that the response to public concern about asylum is apparently to become more flexible about our scruples.
Consider, for example, our understanding of the term ‘voluntary'. The Home Office has responded to criticisms of this scheme by describing it as voluntary. Yet, UKBA's guidance on this for immigration officials, uncovered by the civil rights group Action of Rights for Children (ARCH), is enlightening. In instances where asylum applicants have refused to provide DNA samples and failed to provide a "reasonable" explanation for this, they are to be informed that:
"It is considered that a person in genuine need of international protection would assist the authorities of a safe country in establishing the validity of his/her application for asylum. Your failure to do so undermines your claim to be a refugee."
The government is being pulled in two different directions. While the UKBA's use of country of origin information (COI) has come in for criticism, they are also under increasing pressure to "turn round asylum seekers". Yet these conflicting pressures must not lead to the Home Office reneging on its commitment to refugees' rights. Subjecting asylum applicants to DNA tests oversteps Brown's commitment to be both ‘tough and fair', not to mention the scientific flaws. Unjustifiable asylum claims are certainly a tough issue to tackle in refugee status determination, but this is not the solution.
