Home Affairs Committee

1. Introduction

1.1. Migrant and Refugee Communities Forum, or simply The Forum, was formed in 1993, in response to the needs of newly arrived refugee and migrant communities, as well as those that had settled in north and west London. A registered charity, The Forum is user-led and works to promote the rights of refugees and migrants in the UK.

The Forum’s work practically addresses the social exclusion of refugee, migrant and ethnic minority communities. The Forum brings together those with different migration experiences, origins, cultures and languages, to work together towards common goals; be it access to legal advice or petitioning policymakers, holding cultural events or running supplementary schools, fighting deportation or starting a charity, writing a blog on an issue of common concern or studying for a qualification verification exam. We also advocate strategically for change to national policies with the overall aim of achieving equality for all. The underlying purpose of all these activities is meaningful integration of all migrants and refugees into British society.

1.2. The Forum has been at the forefront of numerous attempts to improve the asylum process and the treatment of claimants, such as the Independent Asylum Commission (IAC) of which our director, Zrinka Bralo, was a Commissioner. The IAC produced four reports examining all aspects of the Asylum system in the UK. It made 180 recommendations for improvements and engaged UKBA in the process of the inquiry so that they had right to reply. All four reports were produced in 2008, but are still very relevant and can be found in electronic format online at/

We would urge the Home Affairs Select Committee to consider these reports as they contain very useful recommendations which are not only still relevant to the current system, but which may also save some time in searching for solutions and improvements.

In addition to the Forum’s policy and advocacy work, we continued to work with Citizens UK and for the past five years took part numerous negotiations with UKBA staff and cabinet ministers to advocate for the improvements and changes recommended by the IAC. The most notable success was ending the detention of children for immigration purposes.

1.3. Summary

The Forum’s submission is based on our experience of delivering casework support to individuals and working with migrant and refugee community organisations as well as years of advocacy for better functioning and fair asylum system in the UK. We will address only some aspects of the Inquiry, mainly from the perspective of support work we deliver for asylum seekers, structured around three broad areas of the Inquiry. Finally, we will draw Inquiry’s attention to our experience of the impact that negative media portrayal of the asylum issue has on our work as we did extensive research on the topic and our evidence has been included into the Leveson Report and recommendations.

2. The Process of Claiming Asylum

2.1. From our casework experience we know that the process of claiming asylum is a very difficult time for asylum seekers who are stressed out, traumatised and may not speak English and yet they are expected to navigate and negotiate a very complex bureaucratic system that has power over them. Asylum seekers often go through this process alone and without any advice as many are not aware of the limited support that is available to them.

2.2. The process of claiming asylum is adversarial throughout, and UK Border Agency (UKBA) staff are very unhelpful and often fail to inform applicants about their basic rights and entitlements. There are many conflicting issues that UKBA caseworkers have to deal with when making decisions and looking after the welfare of asylum seekers is not high on that priority list. Instead they have to enforce the law and policies which are usually focused on the reduction of numbers rather than a duty of care towards vulnerable people. Their work is hidden from the public eye and many aspects of the process are fragmented and contracted out (eg detention, removal, provision of housing, medical care etc.). Indeed, the Home Affairs Select Committee in the past has heard about the consequences of this lack of accountability by the UKBA. The Forum has seen countless numbers of cases where decisions cannot be explained by any objective criteria or where country of origin information has not been fully considered. Instead it is clear that immigration caseworkers have made decisions in line with their own values, which are based on stereotypes and ignorance, something which has been branded as a “culture of disbelief”178 and we urge the Home Affairs Select Committee to explore this issue in depth as it is a serious obstacle in reforming the system179.

2.3. Most recently the Forum supported an asylum applicant from India who was a victim of domestic violence and as a result of leaving her abusive husband ended up homeless. She also did not speak English and only spoke Telugu which was declared in her application. She came to our office in a panic because she had received an appointment letter for her asylum interview which stated that the UKBA would provide an interpreter in either Hindi or Telugu. The Forum’s staff had to call UKBA to explain that Telugu is one of the four official languages in India and is different from Hindi. This happened several times and each time a new appointment had to be arranged to allow for UKBA to find an interpreter as this vulnerable person did not have any friends who could translate for her. This wasted resources and increased the amount of time she had to live with chronic anxiety. She was given full protection once the UKBA finally found an interpreter and heard her case properly.

2.4. The process of claiming asylum is also made much worse through the lack of good legal advice.180 Last year one of the Forum’s members from Bahrain was told by a solicitor that his claim had no merit and was refused help. Luckily he spoke English and made his own application and was granted full refugee status within three months. As he wants to move on with his life and The Forum is overstretched we did not have the time nor the resources to make a complaint against the solicitor who had refused the service. Because the complaints process is very complicated many poor legal advisers are not reported nor dealt with properly.

2.5. Recommendations

2.5.1. UKBA (or its successor) should provide better information and support to applicants to make the process of applying for asylum a humane and fair experience. The process should not be adversarial, but should be focused on the issue of protection as laid out in the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. This requires a change in culture and properly qualified staff who receive ongoing training. Basic standards in treating applicants with dignity and respect should be observed, for example, offering high quality interpreters, being gender sensitive in screening interviews and offering adequate support and advice after the application, dealing with applications in timely and professional manner, communicating with applicants professionally at every stage of their application, supporting applicants to resettle and integrate.

2.5.2. Asylum caseworkers should have a “duty of care” towards all applicants, especially vulnerable people at the initial application stage, and ensure that victims of torture, unaccompanied minors, raped women, victims of trafficking, disabled people and people with mental health problems are supported properly as soon as they make an application for asylum.

2.5.3. Legal advice should be provided at the start of the application process to ensure fairness and justice for the applicant in this adversarial system, but also to ensure good quality first decisions, avoid appeals and backlogs and reduce the costs of the system. (Early Access to Legal Advice Project http://www.asylumaid.org.uk/data/files/ELAPbrief.pdf)

2.5.4. Country of Origin Information should be up to date, accurate and include a variety of sources and be utilised in a fair, accountable, transparent manner and in the spirit of protection and The 1951 Convention .

3. The Treatment of Applicants

3.1. Over the years The Forum has supported thousands of asylum applicants while they are waiting for an initial decision on their application and we have witnessed a deterioration in the treatment of applicants towards what can only be described as a culture of denial and punishment. Asylum seekers have no choice about where they will live, and are often dispersed into areas away from their communities or support organisations. They have no right to work or to benefits, feel isolated in poor accommodation and they can be left in this limbo for many years. The impact this has on individuals, especially children and vulnerable people is devastating. In December 2012 The Forum submitted evidence to the Parliamentary Inquiry on asylum support for children and family, chaired by Sara Teather MP, supported by the Children’s Society.181

3.2. Despite many promises from the UKBA that they will improve and reform the system, such as “the named Caseworker” who would communicate with the applicant and their advisor, thousands of people have been stuck in backlog, unable to trace their applications, forced to live in poverty and uncertainty for years. We are particularly concerned by the lack of care for unaccompanied minors who are often made to wait for an initial decision for years and then receive refusals after they turn 18. Their lives are on hold during this time and many of them struggle even after they are granted permission to stay. The Forum recorded some their experiences last year.182

3.3. The poor treatment of applicants by the immigration authorities leads to them being treated poorly by other service providers, such as health or social care providers and UKBA has not been helpful in clarifying the rights and entitlements of asylum applicants for other providers, thus creating confusion which often leads to asylum applicants receiving no services or support even if they were legally entitled to it.

3.4. One of our members, an asylum applicant from Nigeria, was refused a blood test for her premature three month old twins in an East London hospital. The NHS compliance officer told her that the hospital could perform the test but she would not be given the result until she paid. Luckily, she was accompanied by The Forum’s advocate who acts as her mentor, and who challenged the compliance officer and made a formal complaint, so that the twins received proper care. In addition to being denied care she and her children were entitled to, she was humiliated and disrespected in a setting where she should have been treated with dignity and respect like any other patient.

3.5. The Home Affairs Select Committee has heard evidence from The Independent Chief Inspector for Borders and Immigration about the lost letters and neglected files so we won’t take up time over that point, but we would like to emphasise the human cost of being ignored by a system which consistently fails to deliver. We have seen professionals who have been de-skilled because they were not allowed to work for eight years. We have seen women stuck in abusive marriages, unable to leave their husbands because they were the principal applicants and the women would not have had status or support alone. We have seen victims of torture whose mental health has further deteriorated through years of uncertainty while waiting for the outcome of their claim. We have seen families torn apart and those left behind suffering yet more as they are unable to join their loved ones who have no family reunion rights for the years that they are stuck in the asylum application system.

3.6. Recommendations

3.6.1. Asylum seekers can no longer be the collateral damage of a dysfunctional bureaucracy. In order to change the existing culture, improve the treatment of asylum seekers and improve the efficacy of the system as well as make it fair and accountable we recommend that asylum caseworkers in their treatment of asylum applicants adopt and implement a legal principle of a “duty of care”, in parallel with that between a doctor and a patient or a solicitor and a client. We believe that asylum seekers are effectively institutionalised by the state through lack of choices, freedoms and entitlements, and therefore the state or its representatives are responsible for all aspects of their welfare.

3.6.2. The policy of destitution must end and all asylum seekers who wait for more than six months for their claim to be processed should be given permission to work if they are able to do so. This might also be an incentive for caseworkers to make good quality and fair decisions within six months.

3.6.3. UKBA or its successor must deliver services that are of a high quality as should be expected in a highly developed country such as the UK. Its past record reflects poorly on the civil service, government and the country. There is a need for better training, communication and IT systems and greater openness and accountability. The civil society sector could help with delivery, training and accountability if there was a political will to genuinely improve this service. There are numerous models and examples of good practice for all different aspects if the UKBA operations, for example The National Archive is just one example of a good system for the management of records.183

4. Post Decision Outcome

4.1. This is the most Kafkaesque part of the experience for The Forum’s clients and staff. Clients who are granted status are forced into destitution before they can be helped. The tragic case of a nine month old baby boy who died from starvation and his mother who died two days later, despite being granted full refugee status is a sad example of the failure to support vulnerable people.184 The Serious Case Review by Westminster Council found that the family had become dependent on “ad hoc” charitable handouts despite a successful asylum claim because of “significant problems” transferring the family from the Home Office to mainstream welfare support services.185 The lack of public as well as official reaction and outrage at this horrible tragedy which occurred in one of the wealthiest borough in Europe is yet another example of how uncaring and desensitised we as a society have become towards the plight of refugees.186

4.2. The joy of finally getting a positive decision is quickly replaced by the worry of becoming homeless for majority of our clients. The Forum has tried to engage with UKBA about transition arrangements before applicants have been evicted from NASS accommodation and made homeless, but with no success. UKBA has refused to link up with the DWP to arrange for them to issue National Insurance Numbers (NiNos) to people granted status meaning that they were left to negotiate with another bureaucracy on their own and support organisations are left to do it on case by case basis. Waiting for NiNo extends and complicates the application process for all other benefits for people who are effectively held in compulsory care for a long period of time.

4.3. UKBA has failed to deliver even simple things, such as communicating a positive decision to applicants and their legal advisers. Our client Mr S. arrived from Afghanistan as an unaccompanied minor. He waited for a decision on his asylum case for years and during that time suffered from severe mental health problems including self-harm. He was granted full refugee status in June 2012 but his solicitor only received the decision letter in October 2012 , unnecessarily prolonging the uncertainty and hardship for this vulnerable young man.

4.4. We also know of cases in which a family have received refugee status and been given the standard 28 days to leave NASS accommodation before their financial support ends. But in one case the Azure card was stopped after only one week and in another case during their final week they were allocated 75% less money than they expected. This puts families and children at risk of homelessness, poor health and malnutrition.

4.5. Ms. V. was trafficked from Nigeria in 2006 and lived and worked undocumented until 2010 when she applied for asylum but was refused and the Home Office attempted to deport her two times, each with extended stays in Yarl’s Wood Detention Centre. After several appeals, she was finally granted refugee status and it was revealed that the main problem with her case was that they were confused about her real name and the pseudonym given by her traffickers. In July 2012, the Home Office finally issued her papers but under the wrong name. She got a NiNo, housing, and employment support allowance in November 2012 only because of extensive support from The Forum’s advocates. Between July and November 2012 she was destitute even though she had full status.

4.6. For refused asylum seekers life becomes a real nightmare once they receive a refusal letter. Navigating the appeal system in isolation and destitution and with almost no legal advice and very basic or no English is an impossible task. It is cruel and unfair to put vulnerable people up against such a powerful but uncaring state machinery. Many of them simply do not stand a chance and it is our belief that the appeal success rate would have be even higher if refused asylum seekers had adequate representation and they had a fair chance to survive with dignity during the period of their appeal.187

4.7. Instead asylum seekers are forced to survive on £35 per week on the Azure card188 and cannot afford to travel by bus or tube and are forced to walk hours to attend meetings and reporting centres. As a charity, we must reimburse travel expenses if we want to serve our clients because they cannot afford to travel for legal advice sessions. They also do not have cash to top up their phones to stay in touch with legal advisors and friends which further isolates them. The impact on their mental health is almost impossible to measure.

4.8. We have encountered examples of exploitation because of the Azure card. Individuals have told us that they have purchased vouchers using the Azure card and arranged to exchange these vouchers for cash in order to buy bus passes, cheaper food or clothing for their children. When exchanging the vouchers with individuals in the community they are taken advantage of and given cash for significantly less value (£20 cash for £35 worth of vouchers). We would also question the logic of spending taxpayers’ money on a profit making company to administer such a punishing system for vulnerable people.189

4.9. The impact a refusal has on families and children is devastating as none of them feel their cases were heard properly or fairly. We have had numerous cases where asylum seekers have lived and survived in this limbo for years and then have been granted leave to stay, but the damage done, especially to children, will stay with them for the rest of their lives. One of our clients was a maths teacher and waited for his status for years, he volunteered at The Forum because he wanted his children to see him do something meaningful as they never saw him working and did not know what he did as a professional.

4.10. Reporting requirements are often imposed on refused asylum seekers in an unreasonable manner, especially as they have no money to pay for travel. Detention powers are also exercised randomly at great cost to the taxpayer, as many refused asylum seekers cannot be deported either because their appeal is still pending or their country of origin will not accept them or it is simply too dangerous to return them. Refused asylum seekers often have no support to make bail and the system of indefinite detention is unfair and unjust.

4.11. Recommendations

4.11.1. A fair, humane and just system of care should be in place for asylum seekers regardless of the outcome of their asylum decision. Those granted stay need extra support and inter-departmental cooperation as they have been outside the normal rules for many years. It should be the responsibility of the immigration caseworker to help resettle asylum seekers granted status in line with the principle of a duty of care.

4.11.2. Those refused asylum should have access to good and timely advice and justice and should be treated with dignity until their appeal is heard. Allowing asylum seekers to work would solve some of the problems associated with their destitution.

4.11.3. We believe that detention of asylum seekers is unjustifiable and unacceptable. However, if the UKBA continues with this practice, the length of detention should be limited and detention should only be used in a limited number of cases, and not for administrative convenience, and only prior to removal and with legal safeguards in place. All detention facilities as well as contracts for private companies managing detention and removal should be open for public scrutiny.

4.11.4. Asylum seekers in an adversarial system, in which they are treated as guilty who need to prove their innocence, should have the basic legal protection extended to those accused of crimes and in line with what should be expected in a civilised country.

4.11.5. Establishing a fair, just and humane asylum system would save money, recover trust in the system by asylum seekers and taxpayers and would contribute to an accurate public debate about immigration.

5. Media Reporting of Asylum

5.1. We would like to draw Home Affairs Select Committee’s attention to The Forum’s evidence to the Leveson inquiry.190

The Forum’s interest in the Leveson Inquiry relates closely to our role as advocates for the rights and better treatment of migrants and refugees. Over the years we have witnessed an increase in scapegoating of this section of our population by sections of the British press, who have often resorted to inflammatory language, bias, inaccuracies, and even completely made up stories for example about asylum seekers eating Swans in parks. We are concerned that through their frequently biased, inaccurate, inflammatory and hostile reporting of immigration and protection issues, irresponsible journalists make a rational debate impossible. Further, such reporting is against the public interest, because it creates a false perception about a vulnerable group of people, damages race relations, aids in the rise of the extreme right and demonises vulnerable minorities.

5.2. We believe that a public debate conducted in such a manner has negative impact on the treatment of asylum seekers by the public and by the UKBA. In its Tenth Report on the Treatment of Asylum Seekers, the Joint Committee on Human Rights in 2007191 expressed the following concerns:

The treatment of asylum seekers by the media raises questions about whether the state is fulfilling its positive obligations to protect asylum seekers from unjustified interference with their right to respect for their dignity, private life, and physical integrity, and to secure their enjoyment of Convention rights without discrimination, consistently with the right to freedom of expression. Signatories to the 1951 Refugee Convention, which include the UK, have specific responsibility to protect people forced by a well-founded fear of persecution to flee their countries and seek asylum (p.98).

We are concerned about the negative impact of hostile reporting and in particular the effects that it can have on individual asylum seekers and the potential it has to influence the decision making of officials and Government policy. We are also concerned about the possibility of a link between hostile reporting by the media and physical attacks on asylum seekers (p 101).

5.3. The Forum’s evidence was included in Judge Leveson’s report and recommendations.192 On page 673 the Leveson report193 concludes:

8.51 Nonetheless, when assessed as a whole, the evidence of discriminatory, sensational or unbalanced reporting in relation to ethnic minorities, immigrants and/or asylum seekers, is concerning. The press can have significant influence over community relations and the way in which parts of society perceive other parts. While newspapers are entitled to express strong views on minority issues, immigration and asylum, it is important that stories on those issues are accurate, and are not calculated to exacerbate community divisions or increase resentment. Although the majority of the press appear to discharge this responsibility with care, there are enough examples of careless or reckless reporting to conclude that discriminatory, sensational or unbalanced reporting in relation to ethnic minorities, immigrants and/or asylum seekers is a feature of journalistic practice in parts of the press, rather than an aberration.

8.52 Overall, the evidence in relation to the representation of women and minorities suggests that there has been a significant tendency within the press which leads to the publication of prejudicial or pejorative references to race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or physical or mental illness or disability. Whether these publications have also amounted to breaches of the Editors’ Code in every case is debatable, but in the ultimate analysis is little to the point. That failure has, in the main, been limited to a section of the press and may well stem from an undue focus on seeking to reflect the views (even if unsuccessfully) of a particular readership. A new regulator will need to address these issues as a matter of priority, the first steps being to amend practice and the Code to permit third party complaints.

5.4. In the light of the above findings, we would urge the Home Affairs Select Committee to consider how Asylum System can be improved to deliver positive messages about contribution that refugees make to our society and restore pride in honourable British tradition of providing sanctuary to people fleeing war and persecution.

Zrinka Bralo
Executive Director
Migrant and Refugee Communities Forum

April 2013

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Prepared 11th October 2013