The Morecambe Bay cockle-pickers' disaster has cast the government's asylum stance in a critical light.

Amir Majid calls for a measured approach

The deaths of 18 young Chinese men and two women - believed to be asylum seekers and illegal migrants - led to a rash of comment about the asylum regime.

On 7 February, The Daily Express said: 'The tragedy is further evidence of the country's immigration crisis.

It shows nothing humanitarian about a softly, softly approach to immigration and asylum.'

The disaster occurred when a group of more than 30 people, put to work by snakehead gangsters to pick cocklers from the perilous beds, were trapped by the rising tide of Morecambe Bay.

The shellfish cockles, which can be worth 6 million in a season, constitute a lucrative attraction.

The pickers who died were paid little as 1 for a nine-hour day.

To say that the UK immigration policy is a soft touch is total corruption of the reality.

The present home secretary has been the author of one of the most stringent regulatory systems in this field.

Only in 2002 - under section 95 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act - asylum seekers whose applications were deemed to contain an 'unfounded human rights or asylum claim' were obliged to launch an appeal from abroad.

Too bad if the Home Office makes a mistake and the failed asylum seekers finds themselves in the hands of the persecutors from whom they were fleeing.

Indeed, Amnesty International has accused the Home Office of making 'too many mistakes when deciding which asylum seeker should be allowed to stay in the country'.

It points out that 20% of the refusals (14,000 in 2003) were overturned on appeal.

And the government is reducing the appeal opportunities for applicants.

Circumscribing the grounds of appeal to the High Court, the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc) Bill before Parliament abolishes the Immigration Appeal Tribunal.

The aim is to deal with claims speedily by curtailing appeal rights.

This push for a more swingeing regime is continuing regardless of Home Office research that shows that migrants every year contribute 2.5 billion more than they cost the country.

The Home Office has aggravated the situation by its failure in removing clearly identified asylum seekers who had no further judicial recourse left to them.

To tackle this problem and prevent absconding by failed asylum seekers, the government is establishing 'reception centres' that are designated as category two prisons.

Many informed commentators have deplored this by saying that those who come to seek refuge in this country after suffering (in some cases) reprehensible persecution should not be treated like criminals.

But the Home Office and the relevant ministers have been impervious to this criticism.

At the beginning of last month, it was widely reported that ten male asylum seekers were being held in the Maghaberry high security prison in Northern Ireland, where they are locked in cells for up to 16 hours a day.

They are allowed no incoming telephone calls, and some are reported to be in total shock to find themselves in a prison.

While the UK cannot be labelled as a 'soft-touch destination' for asylum seekers, the majority of its population is committed to helping refugees in genuine peril.

Most newspapers commented humanely on the Morecambe tragedy.

Epitomising this mainstream attitude, Lancashire Police Assistant Chief Constable Julia Hodson highlighted the grieving families of the dead migrants and said: 'Nobody deserves to die in these circumstances.'

Barrister Amir Majid is a reader at London Metropolitan University's department of law, governance and international relations