ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the impact of the policy of deliberate exclusion and second-class support on local authorities. It identifies some of the key issues for those organising resistance to the forced dispersal which forms one element in the intensification of internal immigration controls. From the early 1990s onwards, local authorities in the United Kingdom have been affected by successive attempts by government to make immigration controls more severe. Local authorities are required to provide specific, second-class forms of support to asylum seekers who are barred from receiving the services and benefits previously available to all within a welfare state. This process began in earnest with the 1993 Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act and became entrenched with the 1996 Asylum and Immigration Act, both passed by John Major's Conservative Government. After a Labour Government came to office in 1997, it promised to modernise the whole immigration and asylum system.
