Home Affairs Committee

1. ASSIST Sheffield is a registered charity, founded in 2003 in order to give material support to asylum seekers in Sheffield who are made destitute when their appeal rights end. ASSIST is based on the simple humanitarian principle that no-one should be left entirely without food and shelter. The support given has expanded to include a place to stay when possible (we cannot accommodate all those who ask for this); a night shelter for the most desperate whom we cannot accommodate and who would otherwise be sleeping rough; support in obtaining medical care; signposting to free food sources; signposting to free activities; a small amount of money per week (currently £15 maximum) and sometimes a bus pass. We accompany those who want support when reporting at the Home Office in Sheffield, since this is experienced by many as a frightening event. Sometimes we pay bus fares to the Home Office in Leeds or Liverpool if someone needs to make a fresh claim. There is no government source of funding for these fares, although the application can only be made in person, and by definition the majority of applicants are without asylum support since they have no pending claim.

2. We have close working relationships with local advice, health and welfare agencies, and we signpost and refer for legal advice, support under the National Assistance Act 1948 for those in need of care and attention, specialist medical help and various kinds of social support. In all but exceptional cases ASSIST support is limited to a maximum of one year. Most of our work with asylum seekers is done by volunteers. ASSIST is one of the popular organisations in Sheffield with which to volunteer, and we have 190 active volunteers.

3. This document has been written by ASSIST trustees, and one of our most experienced volunteers, Victor Mujakachi, who is a refused asylum seeker, and speaks from his own experience and that of many others he talks to.

The prevalence of destitution amongst asylum applicants and refused asylum seekers

Executive summary:

4. Destitution occurs when appeal rights are exhausted, but also due to mistakes in the system, and when asylum seekers get leave to remain but the transition to mainstream benefits is delayed. Is a condition of hunger, homelessness and social exclusion. It has devastating effects on physical and mental health. Asylum seekers whose claims have been refused may nevertheless be unable to return to their countries of origin.

Continuing to deprive them of basic living conditions is inhumane. The combination of destitution with the impact of asylum refusals which are felt to be unfair is devastating. Where people are in practice not able to return voluntarily and where the Home Office does not in practice enforce removal, the physical and mental health of some individuals is being severely damaged by living in a trap from which there is no way out.

Life on section 4 cashless support is also a life of destitution, and should be replaced by cash.

Length of time in destitution

5. ASSIST supports around 200 destitute refused asylum seekers each year; around 60 at any one time. Our intention is that ASSIST support is a short term recourse which will give our clients a chance to find another way out of destitution. This may be launching a successful fresh claim and obtaining status, or at least being able to obtain section 4 support. Those with serious health problems may obtain National Assistance. Some may choose voluntary return. Increasingly however we are finding that ways out of destitution are difficult to achieve. Destitution is becoming entrenched and long term, and we are seeing clients coming back for their second year of ASSIST support and some now even for a third year. They have not been able to find any other solution to their situation.

6. Even after the closure of the Case Resolution Directorate, we see a number of people who have been destitute for years. For example, we know two refused asylum seekers who have been destitute for 12 years. They both have complex histories involving disturbed psychological states which have been difficult to diagnose. They both sleep rough at times, when there is no-one who will take them in. While their situations are anyway insecure and depressing, being without status or any prospect of change, the absolute lack of material resources exacerbates the intolerable strain that they live under. Every day survival is a challenge which takes effort. People sit for hours in the waiting rooms of NGOs and doctors’ surgeries, not because they have an appointment but just to keep warm and perhaps find someone to talk to, or get a cup of tea.

Typical situation of our destitute clients

7. Typically people come for ASSIST support in one of two situations. Firstly, they come when they receive the letter from the Home Office which tells them that they must leave their accommodation because their appeal rights are exhausted. Many are distressed and anxious. Many simply do not know what they will do, and are desperate for help. Since our accommodation is in short supply, the first advice is always to try to find a friend with whom they can stay. Many do this, but arrangements are normally transient and fragile, and numbers of our clients have to circulate between different friends and acquaintances. Their hosts often do no not have much space, so the client may be sleeping in a living room, perhaps in a shared house where they cannot rest until the last person goes to bed. Other family members may object to their being there more than a night or two per week, or the host may not be permitted under their own accommodation terms to have guests staying for extended periods, or the asylum seeker may have to move on when a girlfriend or relative comes to stay. Some may not be allowed to use cooking facilities because of family issues or cost. Sometimes the small amount of money we are able to provide enables the asylum seeker to keep a place with a friend, since they are able to contribute to food or bills.

8. This lifestyle of constant insecurity and movement presents other practical problems too such as difficulty in receiving post. Many use ASSIST as a postal address in order to have some security and continuity, but this means that they normally only receive their post once a week at our Helpdesk. It is easy for appointments to be missed, which can have serious consequences.

9. Secondly, people come to ASSIST when they have already been destitute for some time and their other options have run out. Their friends can no longer support them. The crisis is often immediate, and they may need to sleep in our night shelter while we try to find accommodation. The night shelter is a church hall, run by volunteers on week nights. At weekends we try to find someone who will give a space to stay to the people who have no-one else to turn to.

10. By definition our clients are people who are not afraid to be in contact with an organisation. We are aware from our refugee volunteers and contacts that there are others who are afraid of contact with organisations.

How the situation has been changing—asylum seekers who in practice cannot be returned

11. Numbers of new callers at our Helpdesk have dropped slightly from 268 in 2010 to about 190 in 2012. However, the number of actual consultations at Helpdesk has increased slightly from 1,196 in 2010 to around 1,300 in 2012. This seems to reflect the experience of volunteers, which is that more people are coming frequently with more problems and greater distress. Over the last two years we have seen an increase in incidents where asylum seekers have bursts of anger, and an increase in mental health problems. There are more people with higher levels of distress and agitation. The reasons are not far to seek. People from countries to which removal or voluntary return are, for all practical purposes, impossible, have no way of changing their situation. Not surprisingly, the most distressed clients are often from Iran or Eritrea to which return is almost impossible. Additionally, time in destitution is getting longer for asylum seekers from other countries too, as resolving their asylum case is an elusive goal.

12. For a refused asylum seeker who wants to return, section 4 support is available if they can prove that they are taking all reasonable steps to return to their home country, even if these efforts are unsuccessful. But the extreme lengths to which a person has to go to prove this are beyond the resources of many individuals, who are already despairing. Since advice services locally have been cut, there is even less chance of their being able to get access to the support, advice and resources such as fax or contact or making visits to embassies in order to satisfy the onerous requirements to prove that they cannot return.

13. For those who remain afraid of return, even these efforts are not an option. Ironically, although our clients fear detention and removal, some also say that after years of living in limbo, it can be also a relief that enforcement action brings a fresh opportunity to get their case before a court, and at least something is happening. In the case of countries to which in practice removals do not happen, there is not even this relief. The fact that this is not publicly acknowledged, and the asylum seeker has to continue in a false situation, without any way of taking action to change things, yet entirely excluded from the activities of mainstream society—even buying a newspaper—this is crazy-making. It is no surprise that people are driven to fury and despair.

14. Neither we nor other local agencies, who also perceive this change, have the resources to cope with the increasing problem that is being created. Just a few people, who are in the most entrenched and difficult situations and are the most distressed and disturbed, absorb a disproportionate amount of time of all agencies including health care and police. Much of this would not be needed if the people concerned had some form of material support.

Effects of destitution on health

15. Many people suffer significant deterioration in their physical and mental health because of destitution. The effect of long periods without adequate food and shelter is extremely debilitating. Particularly at risk of significant harm are those clients who have chronic illness such as latent TB, asthma, diabetes. The destitution of pregnant women who are not entitled to support until the late stages of pregnancy also risks the health of the unborn child.

16. Women are under-represented among our clients. This may be partly because women with care of children still have asylum support, but also the likelihood is that some destitute women get a roof over their head by entering oppressive and exploitative situations. The Swansea University and Oxfam report265 makes it apparent that the women sometimes avoid sleeping rough by accepting protection from someone who is exploiting them. Sometimes when women do reach us we are aware that their recent past is hard to talk about. Some have become pregnant through rape.

Destitution within a culture of disbelief

17. As the Oxfam/Swansea report expresses well, destitution is not just a material lack, it is a devastating form of social exclusion. Despite their material need, many asylum seekers who come to ASSIST say that the most precious thing they have received through ASSIST is friendship.266

18. The distress of this exclusion is compounded by refused asylum seekers’ relationship with what was the UK Border Agency. The natural fear at regular reporting, the reality of the risk of removal and the power that the Border Agency has over asylum seekers’ lives tend to generate an ongoing background sense of insecurity and anxiety. Sleep problems and nightmares are very common among our clients. This comes on top of the impact of the refusal of their asylum claim. The material loss of becoming homeless and the hopelessness of having no remedy are felt all the more keenly because these events follow a decision-making process which often the asylum seeker has felt to be unfair and in which they have not felt that they were heard.

19. Frequently the basis for the refusal is that the asylum seeker is not believed. Cogent reasons for this disbelief are often not offered. This is not to say that all asylum seekers tell the truth, but rather that decision-makers are still prone to disbelief without foundation, and to treating the asylum interview and decision-making process as adversarial rather than as an exercise of an international protection obligation. Since the asylum seeker’s story invariably involves distressing events, and sometimes deeply traumatic ones, the effect of being disbelieved can be devastating. A parallel can be drawn with survivors of sexual abuse, for whom not being believed has been a further trauma.

20. At minimum the Border Agency’s disbelief may be experienced by an asylum seeker as a personal slur, as for any of us if we are told that we are lying. It may generate despair, disillusionment with and disengagement from the asylum process. Even the use of Country of Origin Information, which ought to introduce objectivity, may be experienced as a further blow if done ineptly. An asylum seeker’s knowledge of their own country may be contradicted by a UK-based person on the basis of a brief internet source, or the decision-maker’s interpretation of it. One example known to us is that of an Eritrean woman whose Eritrean nationality was disputed on grounds including that she described the Eritrean flag as ‘blue, red and green with a yellow thing in the middle’. This is a fair description of the flag.

21. It is extremely distressing to be thrown into destitution following a decision-making process in which many asylum seekers have felt disrespected and humiliated. Destitution and the shortcomings of the decision-making process work together in the most damaging way.

Destitution after being granted status

22. This is something we have started to encounter over the last year or two, and marks another change in the extent and profile of destitution. We now see a number of people at our Helpdesk who have received some form of leave to remain but have not yet received state benefits, and are destitute. Because this has not formed part of our work, and we have no resources to study the causes, we do not know whether this is because of the closure of advice services, or the RIES service, or changes in the way that mainstream benefits are being administered.

23. We are very reluctant to step into the breach in these cases, since the public does not give money to us for us to subsidise a shortcoming in the national benefits system. However, people in this situation are just as destitute as our other clients. This is evidently a serious and growing problem.

Public support

24. We are reliant for our existence on the goodwill of the public. ASSIST has always attracted and continues to attract volunteers from all walks of life and across the political spectrum, and the donations which keep us going. ASSIST is very well known in Sheffield, and is probably one of the city’s most popular charities. We want the Committee to be aware of the extent of public support for asylum seekers, whatever their status, to not be left destitute. In our experience the majority of the public believe that in a civilised country no human being should be degraded through hunger and homelessness.

25. There are now numerous studies on destitution and asylum seekers, some of which are listed below. The authors of these studies describe our experience and that of our clients. There is no shortage of publicly available data and research on the effects of destitution, and we urge the Committee to read at least a selection of the many reports that have been produced.

Levels of Asylum Support

26. The fact that we work only with destitute refused asylum seekers who are not receiving any state support does not mean that we think that the rates of asylum support paid are adequate. Many of those on asylum support, especially on section 4, are in effect destitute. We know many families on section 4, and although we do not give them any material support from ASSIST, in many ways their life without cash is parallel to that of our clients. While our clients cannot afford a bus fare, asylum seekers on section 4 have nothing with which to pay a bus fare. Life on section 4 support is a life of absolute poverty and social exclusion.

27. Some of the problems of life on section 4 support, and the impact of being made homeless, are described by one of our experienced asylum seeker volunteers in the following two paragraphs.

28. When an asylum seeker applies for section 4, and the application is accepted by the UKBA, they are provided with accommodation, but are not entitled to payments for subsistence. They are instead issued with ration cards that carry a fixed monetary value from which they are required to make purchases of goods from designated retail shops. The cards are called azure cards and one of the most restrictive methods of providing means of sustenance to asylum seekers. Azure cards cannot be exchanged for cash, only goods. The cash amount on the cards has a weekly time limit and cannot be saved for the following week. If the monetary value on the card is unutilised for whatever reason within the week it applies, it gets forfeited. It operates like an imprest system, and it stays the same week by week until support is discontinued. The azure cards have serious flows in that they are not cost effective. Asylum seekers are required to purchase items from designated shops which are expensive for items that could be acquired cheaply elsewhere. The azure cards compel asylum seekers to purchase food items that are not traditional to them and mostly not to their liking. There are food items that are stocked by off licence traders which big retail shops do not sell. Asylum seekers also encounter technical problems at points of sale in supermarkets, where if there is inadequate money on the cards, due to problems beyond their control, they endure the embarrassment of returning goods they intended to purchase because the card would not have the requisite amount of money or at times nothing at all as a result of administrative problems emanating from NASS. The azure cards do not give allowance for travel in between reporting times. If an asylum seeker wants to visit a doctor, they have to borrow money for travel or walk. A female asylum seeker who had just given birth had to walk in snowy conditions with her baby in her arms after being discharged from hospital because she had no money to board a bus or hire a taxi although she had an azure card with just enough monetary value to purchase goods. Buses and taxis do not accept azure cards for payment of fares.

29. The worst form of treatment which the UKBA which metes out to asylum seekers is the eviction of refused asylum seekers from accommodation that they were provided with during the asylum process. The eviction procedures can be brutal, ruthless and insensitive. Asylum seekers are literally thrown into destitution and homelessness when evictions are carried out. The question is, why subject refused asylum seekers to such treatment in the first place when their cases are rejected? Why not leave them in the allocated accommodation? The UKBA has the power to come and collect them from those houses and take them straight to the airport for removal. It is the lesser of the two evils when comparison is made to sleeping rough and as with the case of women, being taken advantage by being abused in whatever manner when they are at their most vulnerable as a result of being destitute and homeless. Subjecting failed asylum seekers to destitution and homelessness is a treatment that is not dissimilar to the brutal treatment that they are escaping from their tyrannical rulers in their countries of origin.

32. We endorse and elaborate on the recommendations of the Still Human

Still Here coalition:

• — Provide asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute with sufficient support so that they can meet their essential living needs until they are returned to their country of origin or are given permission to stay in the UK. This must include accommodation;
• — Provide free access to healthcare for all asylum seekers while they are in the UK;
• — Grant asylum seekers permission to work if their case has not been resolved within six months or they have been refused, but temporarily cannot be returned through no fault of their own;
• — Improve decision making and ensure that all those in need of protection receive it.

Additional recommendations:

The azure card system should be abolished. It’s not cost effective and it’s not practical.

33. A few of the research reports on destitution:

Morag Gillespie, (2012) Trapped: Destitution and Asylum in Scotland, Scottish Poverty Information Unit, Institute for Society and Social Justice Research, Glasgow Caledonian University

John Lever, (2012) No Return no Asylum: Destitution as a Way of Life? Bradford Destitution Concern

Heaven Crawley, Joanne Hemmings and Neil Price (2011)Coping with Destitution: Survival and livelihood strategies of refused asylum seekers living in the UK, Oxfam and Centre for Migration Policy, Swansea University

Hannah Lewis (2009), Still destitute, Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (reiterating destitution problems of Adie et al. 2007 report, JRCT)

The Process Of Claiming Asylum—Some Priority Issues as Identified by a Volunteer Refused Asylum Seeker

34. Asylum claims should be made at the point of entry in the first town that the asylum seeker arrives. Dispersal arrangements can then be done after the screening process in the town or city that the asylum seeker first enters. Valuable time is often wasted for the asylum seeker when they are required to approach the Croydon UKBA offices, as late claimants may be penalised, and this may be used as evidence against asylum seekers by case workers when the asylum case is assessed.

35. The atmosphere during the initial screening process in Croydon is very intimidating as the officers can be subjective in the assessment of cases during screening. When an asylum applicant presents their case they may be told there and then that they are lying and that their story is a fabrication. This may be recorded in the screening interview form. The screening interview form from Croydon, when sent to the caseworker who does the substantive interview, becomes the basis upon which the case worker formulates the case, arrives at a decision and makes the final verdict at the substantive interview. In other words, the caseworker depends very heavily on the information passed to him from the initial screening interview in Croydon and doubt is often cast about the objectivity of that information.

36. It must be noted that in both instances during the initial screening interview and the substantive interview, the asylum seeker is not represented by a solicitor. The questioning and probing during these two processes is not favourable to the asylum seeker in that very often they do not provide vital information on their case because they are alone, and when they eventually get legal representation, and have provided adequate information, this situation then weighs heavily against them, causing solicitors representing them having difficulties in making legal arguments in their favour when the asylum seekers finally appear before immigration judges.

Recommendation:

Asylum seekers should have legal representation from the outset of the initial screening process, and counsellors should be available for asylum seekers that are traumatised.

The Treatment of Applicants: Some Issues as Described and Identified by a Volunteer Refused Asylum Seeker

37. Asylum seekers receive cash payments during the time when their initial claim is being considered. The weekly stipend is below the national figure for someone on benefits and it is from this amount that they meet travelling expenses to and from Home Office reporting centres. Home Office staff appear to operate on an ad hoc basis when issuing travelling passes, and at times it really depends on who serves the asylum seeker. Staff do not apply uniform rules. On a given day, one might be told that they are not entitled to travelling passes and when an asylum seeker meets a different officer, they are issued with one. It depends on the apparent generosity of the staff member who serves the asylum seeker and not on policy regulations. Very often asylum seekers are scared to argue because they not aware of their rights; they might not argue or ask questions due to linguistic barriers.

Recommendation: Uniform application of policies and ensuring that UKBA staff adhere to these policies.

38. Growing up as the child of an asylum seeker or refused asylum seeker is like growing up in a governmental child apartheid system. These young men and women go through untold periods of horrendous uncertainty. If they came here very young they do not often remember what life was in their countries of origin. Most have lost the skill of speaking the languages of the countries they came from. The only form of life they know is the British one. If they turn eighteen years of age before their parents’ asylum cases are resolved they become excluded from the society that brought them up. They are often denied the right of further education or looking for employment and suffer the anguish of seeing their British school mates proceed with further education or finding employment whilst they get stuck in a time warp of uncertainty. The society that brought them up suddenly rejects them at the age of eighteen, and the system starts treating them as aliens. The feeling of anger, disillusionment, despair, betrayal and frustration envelopes them when it dawns on them that all the while the life that they have been living was an illusion and a mirage. When eventually, some of their parents’ asylum cases are resolved, these young men and women become guarded in their relationships with their British counterparts because the seeds of mistrust have been sown in them. The seeds of mistrust are sown as a result of seeing their parents’ plight and of having themselves being ostracised by a system that begins to quarantine them, and treat them as if they were never part of this society in which they grew up.

Recommendation: Review asylum law and practice from the perspective of respect for family life.

Gina Clayton
(ASSIST Chair)

Victor Mujakachi
(ASSIST volunteer and refused asylum seeker)
Asylum Seeker Support Initiative—Short Term [ASSIST]

April 2013

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Prepared 11th October 2013