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| | British Labor Party Appears Vulnerable on Immigration |
 | | Gwyn Prosser, the Labor member of Parliament from Dover, said the problem caught the government by surprise, but over the following two years, Labor instituted changes to the system that include stopping potential asylum seekers in France for initial processing, along with measures to speed up the decision-making process. |
 | | Statistics from the Home Office show that applications for asylum reached 84,000 in 2002 but by last year had fallen to 34,000, a decline attributed both to a falloff in nearby conflicts and to tighter rules for application. |
 | | Prosser and his rival, Watkins, agree that local tensions over asylum seekers have diminished since 2001, although they differ on how serious the problem remains. |
| www.washingtonpost.com /wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/02/AR2005050201514_2.html (552 words) |
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