Their right to challenge Home Office decisions could also be reduced from two appeals to one.

BBC News Online looks at the views of two people directly affected by the proposals being debated by MPs.

Tergat fears for her own and her baby's future

Tergat is a slight, frail woman whose girlish face belies her 26 years. Scraping 5ft, the Eritrean national is visibly weary. She is eight months pregnant but this is not the source of her fatigue.

Her story is a harrowing one.

Her eyes fill with tears when she speaks of her father and mother, who died with the rest of her family in the border war with Ethiopia.

Tergat tells how she was imprisoned in 1999 for her involvement with the Eritrean Liberation Front and refusal to do national service.

She speaks of two years of hell, of repeated rapes and beatings by the guards.

One day, during a national holiday, Tergat managed to escape the attention of her drunken jailers and with the help of a fellow inmate - a man of mixed Eritrean/Sudanese origin - flee the prison.

He took me to his house in Khartoum - he was a politician, but he raped me, treated me like a slave

But her torment was far from over.

"The man offered to help me. He took me to Sudan. We walked for three days. He took me to his house in Khartoum. He was a politician, but he also raped me. He treated me like a slave."

When he came to leave Sudan, the politician paid for a businessman to help Tergat leave the country.

She believes he felt guilty and wanted her out of the way so she would not expose what he had done to her.

The businessman brought Tergat to England. She says she had no idea where she was until they landed at Heathrow Airport, where the man left her.

Felt safe

She spent a night sleeping rough before being befriended by a Somalian who recommended a lawyer in Brixton, south London.

From there she went to Croydon to apply for asylum. She spent three months in a hotel where she says she felt safe for the first time in years and had people to talk to.

She was then relocated to South Shields on Tyneside.

"Here I shared a house with three people from different African countries. I couldn't speak to any of them."

At the end of a lonely and isolated eight months, Tergat heard that her application for asylum had been rejected.

Dogs are treated better than asylum seekers - I will fight to my death to keep my baby

The government is not returning people to Eritrea at the moment but anyone who wants support and housing is asked to sign a form saying they will agree to go back when told.

By this time Tergat was pregnant by a fellow asylum seeker. She refused to sign.

"I could not. I would rather sleep on the streets. I would be killed if I returned. And I feared for my baby."

Tergat spent time sleeping rough in Birmingham before finally returning to London.

She stayed with other asylum seekers for a night or two but they were anxious they would be turned out of their hostels and lose their own bid for asylum.

Emergency housing

Despite her pregnancy, three GPs refused to take on Tergat and she was missing out on vital ante-natal checks and care.

Finally, she heard about the Black Women's Rape Action Project (BWRAP) in Kentish Town, north-west London.

The group petitioned Camden Council to help her and the council agreed. Tergat now has shelter and the care she needs in the final few weeks of her pregnancy.

BWRAP has also made representations to Glenda Jackson MP requesting she be granted "leave to remain", and more recently to her new MP, Sara Teather in neighbouring Brent, where she is now in emergency housing.

But Tergat fears for her future and that of others if the proposals contained in the Asylum Bill go through.

Baby's sake

"This law is a bad law for a woman," she says.

"Take my baby? If I was dead, ok, but not in life. What am I - an animal? Dogs are treated better than asylum seekers. I will fight to my death to keep my baby."

Tergat says she does not mind where she is, which country, as long as it is safe.

"All I ask is shelter, a little bed, food, and only for now. I want to build my own life. I don't want donations and more donations. I am young. I am not blind or physically disabled. I want to work for the sake of me and my baby. She is my only family now."

Asylum seekers say the Home Office is treating them appallingly

Alain Job, aged 36, came to the UK from Cameroon in 2000 for political reasons.

He had worked as an intelligence agent.

But Mr Job was accused of collaborating with a political pressure group after he failed to report a series of anti-government rallies organised in his region.

He says he was put in a prison camp, beaten and tortured.

After five months he escaped and fled to the UK where his wife and daughter had been sent ahead and the family went to Nottingham.

Going back, Mr Job says, would be extremely dangerous.

They will go underground where they will face greater health hazards, education hazards and underpayment in dodgy jobs

"The risk is very, very high because most of all the elections are on the way and it's going to be really, really dangerous now to return to Cameroon."

His initial asylum application was turned down by the Home Office.

Mr Job's only chance at appeal takes place this month but he is confident that an adjudicator will rule in his favour.

"We know we have a good, genuine case and are not particularly worried.

"I will challenge the secretary of state's reason for turning down my application and the adjudicator will establish the credibility of my claim."

But Mr Job stressed that thousands of other asylum seekers were in a worse situation than his and would be made even more vulnerable under the proposed changes to asylum laws.

He says the planned changes to asylum law are "outrageous" and would not have the government's intended effect on asylum seekers.

One appeal

"They will go underground where they will face greater health hazards, education hazards and underpayment in dodgy jobs.

"The changes will undermine the security of children and parents and it's not going to force the desired effect of returning people to their countries."

He says allowing one appeal instead of two would also be ineffective and that there should be as many stages of appeal for asylum seekers as in other areas of the law.

Mr Job also points out Home Office figures show that around one in five of its decisions on asylum claims are subsequently overturned after appeal.

"In life and death matters I feel that people should go to the end of the process."

What is your reaction to the proposed changes in the Asylum and Immigration Bill? Will you be affected? Read some of your comments.

The following comments reflect the balance of opinion we have received so far:

The proposed changes do not go anywhere near far enough to stop economic migrants. A genuine asylum seeker will take refuge in the first safe country they arrive at and not travel halfway around the world.
David Thompson, Lincoln, England

Britain is nowhere near being "the nearest safe country" to these countries of origin. If it's really safety these people are looking for and not economic gain, why did they not seek asylum in any of the many countries that lie between their home country and ours? The proposed changes are too lenient, in my view. They should be tougher still and failed asylum seekers should be detained in secure facilities until they can be deported, not left to go voluntarily.
Jason Sinfield, Cardiff, Wales

The new bill further discriminates against genuine asylum seekers. Already there are many errors in initial decisions, and by taking away the right of appeal many will be refused asylum and either sent back to torture and death or left here totally destitute. Let them work and contribute to our country's welfare - that way no one can then complain about 'sponging' off the state. (Not that any of the thousands I have met are here for the benefits - they have a genuine fear of persecution).
Dave Smith, Manchester, England

All the war, chaos, economic hardships, which have forced these asylum seekers to come to the UK are to some extent the outcome of colonialism. So how is it that the UK is now rejecting and treating these poor and vulnerable asylum seekers in an inhumane way? Wake up UK.
Jeremy, Asmara, Eritrea

I don't even think we should use the term "asylum seeker". We should all be able to live where we want to live in the world. People shouldn't have to prove anything. In the USA they didn't, thus no one should! My prayers are that one day this will be true, everyone will live where they want to in peace!
Stephanie, Manchester, England (formerly USA)

I have to disagree with a point that Stephanie from the USA. Since when have you never had to prove anything to get into the USA? That is not my experience. When I first went there for a holiday I was grilled for 20 minutes as to why I wanted to be there... that was over 6 years ago. Genuine asylum seekers obviously have the right to be in a country if they earn their keep but not those who are just taking advantage of the economic system of a country. Logistics has to be taken into account too. The UK is an island so can logically only house so many people. USA is a continent and also harp on about being the land of the free and just... there's your answer.
Christopher, Nottingham, UK

I feel that the new set of rules will stop the economic migrants and failed asylum seekers from wishing to stay in the UK. The very fact that the new legislation will come into force only after all appeals have been exhausted is demonstrative of the government's commitment to genuine asylum seekers. The UK is not a charity and the number of people who refuse to leave after failed appeal hearings is unacceptable. We do not have a commitment to keep people who have no right to be here so this should hopefully force them to leave.
Mark, Glasgow, UK

Although these may be genuine cases, many are not. The new bill will hopefully help weed out the non-genuine. Keep the bill. I still believe genuine asylum seekers have nothing to fear.
Bill, UK