Home Affairs Committee
Bradford Ecumenical Asylum Concern [BEACON] works with other organisations in Bradford to address the Biblical injunction:
Matthew 25:35 “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you looked after me, I was in prison and you visited me.”
Whilst other BEACON projects focus on teaching English, hosting, and hospitality in the Asylum and Immigration Court, our McKenzie Friends project focuses on supporting Asylum Seekers whose initial application has been refused and who have no Legal Aid. Our McKenzie Friends volunteers have no formal legal qualifications and support Litigants in Person. This being so, our clients’ cases are rarely clear cut. Often they have just received the letter from their solicitor refusing them legal aid, and have only one or two days in which to lodge their appeal. Our support typically involves helping our clients to understand their papers, accompanying clients to court, and supporting them in moving through the appeals process.1 Typically the client has limited oral English, and is not literate—often not even in their own language.
We believe therefore that our experience is particularly relevant to the introductory paragraph of the Committee’s terms of reference:
“The Committee’s inquiry will include, but will not be limited to, analysis of:
The process of claiming asylum;
The treatment of applicants; and
Post-decision outcome.”
1. Our submission focuses on the second and third Terms of Reference, and adds points arising from our experience of the process of claiming asylum.
2. The use of Country of Origin Information and Operational Guidance Notes in determining the outcome of asylum applications.
3. People who cannot be returned to their country of origin, eg Eritrean women. Several of our clients are or have been women of Eritrean origin who have lived, and suffered discrimination, in Ethiopia. Several of them have attempted to get an Ethiopian passport but have been refused; they are too terrified of enforced Military Service/sexual slavery2 to approach the Eritrean embassy, even if we accompanied them. They are now living destitute in Bradford3, many for years, with no prospect of return or of legal documentation. One wonders what research such decisions are based on. This is the predicament for several of our clients. One in particular, whose initial asylum application was refused due to a lack of proof of her Eritrean nationality, went on to submit further evidence of her nationality, including witness statements from the Eritrean Community in London. The client also went to the Ethiopian Embassy, accompanied by one of our volunteers, to apply for an Ethiopian passport. She was both refused an Ethiopian passport and told that this refusal does not prove that she is Eritrean. The client is currently in limbo in a system which does not recognise her as she has been refused asylum yet has no country to return to.
4. Internal relocation to cities in a different part of the country is routinely recommended, often to countries deemed unsafe for UK citizens. In general, too many Immigration officers and Judges appear not to have considered the differences between the applicant’s life experience and theirs and apparently assume that society in all cities functions like the ones to which they are accustomed. They appear to base their decisions on what they—with all the advantages of Western education and culture,—think they would have done in a similar situation. For example, a single Pakistani Mother with no business or commercial experience was recently told she could easily relocate to an unknown city; given what we read in the media about Pakistani culture this is totally unrealistic. Young Muslim men from the Maghreb, the Horn of Africa or Afghanistan, often farm labourers or shop assistants fleeing Al Qaeda or the Taliban are routinely told they can relocate to a new city, in countries in turmoil where one’s only hope of survival depends on who one knows, and in which they are, convinced [rightly or wrongly, we can’t tell] that their enemies have all-pervasive surveillance systems. A young shepherd from a remote mountain village in Afghanistan, who had never been to school and who spoke only a low status local dialect and fled when the Taliban came looking for him because they could not find his politically active brother comes to mind. His story was disbelieved because he claimed not to know which country he arrived in first: he fled with an agent, and had several overnight or longer stops in the middle of forests whilst waiting to be transferred from one lorry to another. Because he said he “did work” during one of those stops it was assumed that the’ work” was paid—in fact he washed his garments and prepared food. When he exhausted his possibilities of appeal and was facing deportation he disappeared, as do so many of our clients, especially young males, and is presumably now destitute or being exploited in the black economy and so paying no UK taxes. The vast majority of our clients tell us that they came to the UK intending to work and contribute to the economy; it seems strange to them that the law prevents them from contributing to Society.
5. Living arrangements: appellants are routinely disbelieved when talking about traumatic events that took place in their home, because, for instance, they appear to be inconsistent in referring to events happening inside or in the open air; in fact, in many Muslim or hot cultures, homes are less like the British experience of a house, and more like a compound or campus, which contains several buildings and in which much of daily life takes place outside.
6. Family structures or naming systems: again appellants are disbelieved because a far higher level of sharing of information between parents and children, of whatever age, is assumed than is the case in many traditional cultures. Because of this, appellants are not believed when they say they do not know how money was obtained, or how parents earned a living, or details of a proposed enforced spouse. Problems also arise from different naming systems in which referrals to, siblings, uncles or cousins are different from the British. This can make it difficult for the unwary to follow stories that are often confusing anyway, told in interviews during which the Asylum Seeker and Immigration Officer are in severely contrasting states of mind. Added to apparent obliviousness of the normal vagaries of human memory, this leads to huge numbers of appellants being refused as “unreliable witnesses” [see Recommendation 2,II below]. “Lost in translation” and “guilty until proved innocent” are phrases that come readily to mind.
7. Such cultural insensitivity, not to mention downright ignorance, is hard to justify.
8. The assessment of the credibility of women, the mentally ill, victims of torture and specific nationalities within the decision-making process and whether this is reflected in appeal outcomes.
9. Generally we encounter a culture of disbelief: asylum seekers have to prove their credibility, rather than having it disproved by immigration officers. The fact that young people dragged from inside or underneath a vehicle, often in the middle of winter, and questioned in a foreign language after a very brief break, are unable to give a coherent account of their usually traumatic experiences, with accurate dates and locations, is deemed proof that they are “not a reliable witness”, as in 2 IV above. So is their failure to abide by the finer details of the UK asylum procedure, of which most of our clients have no knowledge at all. So is their lack of documentation; many of our clients have come to the UK without valid documentation for fear of being turned back at their own border, or were too frightened to approach their own government to get a passport, let alone to ask for protection. In many countries, as is well documented, the authorities are feared far more than they are trusted.
10. Gender bias: Clients often tell us that they did not really realise that they had a right to demand an interviewer or interpreter of their own gender: they are too traumatised and just want to tell their story. They often have no concept of legal procedures. A young woman fleeing from a Sub-Saharan West African country was refused protection because she had not sought the protection of the local police when fleeing an enforced marriage to a rebel soldier. She had been interviewed by men, and her Asylum Application rejected because she was deemed an unreliable witness. It was only when she collapsed during an interview with a female, and luckily very experienced, McKenzie Friend after her initial appeal had been refused that it emerged that she had been routinely raped by her husband’s “friends”. She had not gone to the police because women were never believed by them, and because no investigation had been made after she had witnessed her mother being killed by her father. When she escaped her family she was smuggled across the border by a women “friend” and, eventually tricked into being trafficked to the UK as a domestic “servant”. She has now been given limited leave to remain.
11. Again, female McKenzie Friends accompanying female clients often recount tales of male interpreters and HOPOs engaging in routine chit-chat before the entrance of the judge, completely ignoring the female McKenzie friend and client and establishing, probably unwittingly, a hostile climate. Male interpreters also tend to talk down to female Asylum Seekers in would be avuncular fashion, often apparently with the best intentions, but the unspoken message is one of taken for granted irrationality and unreliability.
12. Sexual Orientation: whilst not specifically mentioned in the terms of reference, we are often bemused by demand for “proof” of gay or lesbian applicants’ sexual orientation. Many of our clients have grown up in clients where their orientation is considered not simply illegal, but totally shameful. It is extremely difficult for them to talk about it at all, let alone provide proof of the sort that might be available in the UK: familiarity with the partner’s extended family, joint rent books, names dates and exact locations or casual encounters. Often partners are also on the margins of society and too fearful of consequences, or traumatised by previous experience in their country of origin, to testify in court. One is often forced to wonder exactly what proof immigration officers would accept.
13. In the case of a Nigerian male the judge decided that as there was no evidence of a long term homosexual relationship or co-habiting, the appellant did not have a genuine homosexual orientation. The judge also said that even if he accepted that the appellant had had regular sexual intercourse with the witnesses, that he had only done this to fabricate a claim for asylum. The appellant was sent back to Nigeria, and has not been heard of since. Representatives of Refugee Action who visited us last year were unable to give any statistics about the welfare, or otherwise, of people accepting voluntary return. We are surprised, and worried, by this inability.
14. UKBA’s own Operational Guidance Notes for Nigeria state: “3.11.2 Nigeria’s federal criminal code punishes consensual homosexual conduct with up to 14 years in prison. In states applying Sharia, consensual homosexual conduct among men is punishable by death (stoning), and by flogging and six months in prison in the case of women.”
15. Islamophobia on the part of immigration officers [fed more by tabloid press than by Geneva Conventions or UNHCR Guidelines] seems to us a constant undertone of Letters of Refusal, with their regular references to unreliability and their apparently total ignorance of Muslim social and family structures. This is particularly obvious in culturally inappropriate expectations of women. It is all the less comprehensible here in Bradford, where there is every opportunity to learn about them.
16. At this point we feel it is important to commend the absence of Islamophobia and the steady friendliness and helpfulness shown to McKenzie Friends and their clients by the administrative staff at the Asylum Court at Phoenix House [between Bradford and Leeds].
17. Religious Persecution: A very active Pakistani Ahmadi came to the UK with documentary evidence of his vigorous promotion and of his faith and of the persecution and threat to him when in Pakistan. He was unjustifiably fast tracked, and detained with his family in Yarlswood. A deluge of letters to his MP from his many different friends in Bradford and beyond, testifying to his missionary tendencies and contributions to the wider community, added to other publicity, led to his release and, within days, to his being granted Refugee status. What was going on there? Incompetence? Justice swaying to public opinion?
18. Additional points arising from our experience of the process of claiming asylum.
19. We have highlighted the issues that are specific to the work we do, but we cannot overlook the variety of other issues experienced by our clients as a result of the Asylum system, many of which have been covered by other bodies we work with. In particular we regularly hear about:
20. problems with translation, already alluded to in reference to house/compound above, 2 III. We often suspect errors in translation, but are rarely in a position to be sure. However, one of our Volunteers has a degree in French Studies, and regularly spends time staying with French families. She worked on the case of a young man from a sub-Saharan country whose case was substantially weakened by mistranslations. A letter in French from the police titled a Convocation was translated as a Notice, rather than a Summons. A Press Communiqué, ie a document in the public domain, was referred to in English as an “Announcement”, which, again, is weaker. Décénnies, meaning decades, was mistranslated as years, though the etymology, or reference to a French dictionary, makes its meaning clear. These three mistakes, in an accredited and expensive translation of a widely known European language closely linked to Latin and to legal English, substantially weakened his initial case. It is surprising that they were not noticed by immigration officers or by the adjudicator. This experience led us to wonder about mistakes in translating from languages far more different from English. [Only accredited translations are accepted, and there is no provision for their finance for refused asylum seekers. Voluntary organisations can rarely afford to pay for them].
21. The Azure card restricts Asylum Seekers access to cheaper sources of food, such as the ethnic foods stocked in local markets as they are only valid in certain retailers. Equally, they are often forced to choose between buying food or paying for transport, for example to medical or legal appointments. It also means they have no money to use to make phone calls, thus making staying in touch with friends, organisations and solicitors very difficult.
22. Transport: refused Asylum seekers of all ages and conditions who still have to sign on often have to walk the ten miles each way to Waterside in Leeds to do this, no matter what the weather.
23. Recommendations:
24. In response to the experiences highlighted above, we submit the following recommendations:
25. Permission to work/End to Enforced Destitution
26. See footnote iii. As mentioned above, many of our clients, facing deportation to a country in chaos where they are convinced they will be caught on arrival and subject to inhuman treatment of one form or another, disappear, presumably into the black economy. Here they are vulnerable to exploitation and unable to pay taxes or contribute publically to the mainstream economy. They came here assuming that they could work, integrate and contribute. They sought Justice, not Charity. We feel that if their case has not been settled within three months they should be allowed to work and contribute to the economy and to the tax base of the UK.
27. Better training for Immigration officers.
28. Many of the decisions received by our clients, several of which are identified in the examples above, highlight a lack of information, or a lack of use of the available information, regarding country of origin and the reality of life in countries of origin, and of the psychological implications of the routinely suggested internal relocation. We consequently put forward three main recommendations;
29. A greater commitment to the implementation of the Immigration Appellate Authority’s Asylum Gender Guidelines4—While the Refugee Convention does not acknowledge gender specifically, they cannot be ignored. The need for a gender sensitive asylum process is evident from the example above and is recognised through various research, notably that done by Asylum Aid.5 Immigration Officers need to be aware of and actively drawing upon these guidelines in order to ensure women are afforded equal access to the legal system.
30. The incorporation of psychological research conducted within the legal system into the process of interviewing clients, assessing credibility and in making decisions—The Centre for the Study of Emotion and Law (CSEL) has published a range of research examining the way in which decisions are made on asylum claims and the impact of emotions and memory, specifically when in the context of a traumatic experience, on recollection of events and the effect this has on the outcome of an asylum decision.6 The Reasons for Refusals and Considerations of Submissions which our clients bring to us demonstrate that even the most basic consideration of the evidence noted above is regularly absent in the decision making process. As a result, many people have their claims refused due to disputed credibility as a result of, what are often, minor discrepancies (notably dates and times) which fail to acknowledge the reality in which the clients provide information and tell their story. The issues raised in this research demonstrate notable flaws within the system and we are therefore calling for those involved in the decision making process to receive training covering the issues noted here and that this training be reflected in the decisions received and the explanations for such.
31. Increased training regarding the application of the Country of Origin Guidelines—Country of Origin guidelines seem to be increasingly overlooked in many of the cases of the clients we see. This is evident in both the Reasons for Refusals/Considerations of Further Submission and suggestions of internal relocation. Immigration Officers need both a strong knowledge of Country of Origin information in addition to an ability to understand each individual’s place within it and the reality of life they have faced/would face upon return.
32. Legal Aid
33. Many of our clients have been dropped by their legal representative, very often without enough warning to make other arrangements, or have no access to legal aid, yet go on to gain Leave to Remain, either on their own, with the help of charitable organisations or through a solicitor working on a pro bono basis. This demonstrates that the current system for legal aid is not working so that many appellants with a valid claim for asylum are being denied their human rights as a result of lack of access to the legal system.
34. We are aware of the limitations of the provision of Legal Aid and are grateful to those solicitors who are unable to take on our clients yet still give their time to provide us with advice and it is with these acknowledgements that we make the following recommendation(s):
35. Solicitors should be obliged to ensure that sufficient time is given between declining a client and the deadline for their appeal application. Many clients first come to us having just received a letter of refusal from their solicitor, and an appeal deadline so imminent that it is too late for us to help them make a plausible submission. The work of our sister organisation, CHAT, which provides hospitality at the court, suggests that a great number of individuals never manage to find help submitting an application to appeal, and therefore lose the opportunity of a having a fair hearing.
36. The numbers of asylum seekers who have no choice but to rely on charitable organisations highlights severe flaws within the system. We believe our recommendations would create a more effective system, allowing those seeking asylum in the UK to have their rights upheld and the opportunity to have their case heard fairly.
37. Improved monitoring of, and financial provision for, accredited translations and interpreters.
38. The cases discussed above speak for themselves.
39. Improvements in quantity and accessibility of information about the outcomes of voluntary return programs.
40. This would either increase the numbers of people opting for voluntary return, or decrease the cases in which it is recommended. Either way it would lend credibility and effectiveness to a project in which these are currently remarkable by their absence.
41. In short, we advocate a change from Fortress Britain, with its culture of disbelief, to the spirit of Equality Before the Law embodied in the Geneva Conventions.
Bradford Ecumenical Asylum Concern [BEACON]
April 2013
References
1. BEACON McKenzie Friends statistics October 2011 to 30 September 2012
NO. OF CASES : 56
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Iran 14, Nigeria 5, Pakistan 5, Iraq 4, Eritrea 4, Ethiopia 3, Algeria 2, Malawi 2, Zimbabwe 2, Afghanistan 2, and 1 each from Palestine, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Ghana, Sudan,
Mali, Chad, Sri Lanka, India, Libya, Jamaica, not known 2
|
Type of Case |
|
|
Help to prepare statement and accompany to 1st Appeal Tribunal |
23 |
|
Help to prepare application for Upper Tribunal |
13 |
|
Helped to prepare Further Submission |
16 |
|
Asking for advice / Combination/ Other |
15 |
|
Accompanied to 1st Tribunal and successful appeal |
1 |
|
Prepared for 1st Tribunal and passed to Solicitor and successful |
2 |
|
Accompanied to 1st Tribunal and refused |
20 |
|
Application to Upper Tribunal or Further Submission |
29 |
|
Passed to Solicitor or Agency |
20 |
|
Took Voluntary Return |
1 |
|
Client did not reply to “phone calls |
7 |
|
Nothing we could do |
3 |
|
Ongoing case |
10 |
|
Not clear |
13 |
Figures in Type of CASE and OUTCOME do not add up to 56 as categories overlap.
2 UNHCR ELIGIBILITY GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSING THE INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION NEEDS OF ASYLUM-SEEKERS FROM ERITREA, Sexual and Gender Based Violence [p18] and Minority Movements and Religious Groups [p23].
3 See eg separate submissions by Bradford City of Sanctuary, and Destitution Concern Bradford’s No Return, No Asylum, Destitution as a way of life? 2012
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-i8CGHbuYiMc1ZBNC1xekFrQUk/edit?usp=drive_web&pli=1 ,
4 http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/category,POLICY,GBR_AIT,,,3ae6b3414,0.html