Experts debate whether the law fair to asylum seekers

Host Clive Anderson asks his expert guests if the law makes it too hard for people to prove they have a legitimate claim to asylum.

Around 30,000 people with immigration status issues are currently being held in UK detention centres, some for considerable lengths of time and in what NGOs have described as highly unsatisfactory conditions.

The UK is the only European Union country with no time limit on immigration detention. Issues arising from the UK’s immigration detention system have led to a series of official inquiries.

Mr Anderson and his guests discuss concerns that it is currently too difficult for asylum seekers to prove who they are and where they have come from, or to convince the authorities that they have been persecuted because of their race, religion or sexuality. Campaigners claim that LGBT asylum seekers are often put though humiliating procedures to prove their sexual identity.

Listen to the episode on the BBC website