Structures of Sanctuary: destitution support in the age of austerity

A derelict working men's pub in the heart of central Manchester could soon be transformed into a support centre for destitute asylum seekers in the region. Volunteers from The Boaz Trust and other supportive organisations will renovate the ageing pub into a shelter for individuals who have been made destitute by our UK asylum system.

The most common cause of destitution for asylum seekers is in the post-refusal limbo created by our immigration laws. Once all avenues of appeal and re-appeal have been exhausted, any previous asylum support - meaning housing, government vouchers, any benefits - is withdrawn within 21 days. The government expects asylum seekers, after months of excruciating legal procedures and recalling trauma, to be able to leave the UK within 3 weeks of receiving their refusal.

Some individuals who fit a difficult criteria qualify for 'Section 4', a post-refusal government support system that is given to those who cannot return to their country of origin due to personal safety or other reasons, but agree to return when it is possible. It is worth noting the slight contradiction in terms that a 'refused' asylum seeker is granted support rather than status when their situation is considered too dangerous to return. According to a study by the Joseph Rowntree Trust, many refused asylum seekers are too scared to apply for Section 4, fearing that further correspondence with the authorities will result in their deportation, not their support. Section 4 only provides quasi-derilict housing and £35 in government vouchers per week, a small fraction of what the government considers adequate income support for 'native citizens.'

A recent report by the Red Cross revealed that 59% of questioned asylum seekers had been destitute for at least 1 year. Unable to work - either when awaiting status or whilst destitute - asylum seekers are forced either onto state support (which is incredibly limited) or into poverty and destitution. In 2009, the London School of Economics estimated that there were 500,000 refused asylum seekers in the UK. With the onslaught of government cuts, these precarious lives are reliant on the support of various charitable organisations, compassionate friends and relatives or on handouts from faith groups. Britain acts as a place of survival, not sanctuary.

Considering the horrific situations many asylum seekers are escaping from, it is not surprising that many are unwilling to immediately leave the UK. It is important to remember that many of the negative initial decisions of the UKBA are overturned on appeal; a quarter of refused asylum seekers were unjustly asked to leave the UK in the last quarter of 2011.

When the coalition is unlikely to make the necessary drastic changes to our asylum and immigration policy, initiatives such as the destitution support centre in Manchester are all the more important. This is not government-sponsered Big Society, but government-enforced Big Society; independent charitable organisations are forced to fill the gaps created by dwindling state support. We should not thank the generous government, but this is not a reason to turn our backs on crucial social issues. We must use this opportunity to create autonomous centres that promote dynamic social change. We do not have to follow Cameron's "big society" narrative; it is time for communities to take back authorial power.

Image (c)AmnestyUK

Yorkshire Academics Reveal Fear Over New Asylum Housing Contracts

A open letter written by a wide selection of academics and researchers revealing their fear over the new asylum housing contracts has been published in todays Yorkshire Post. Signed by academics from all across the Yorkshire region, including lectures from Leeds University and Leeds Metropolitan University, the letter explains that:

As researchers and university teachers in the fields of housing and immigration in the Yorkshire region we oppose the plans of the Coalition government, through the UK Border Agency (UKBA), to award national contracts of around £135 million for managing asylum seeker social housing to the three multinational security companies who manage most immigration detention centres, and forcible deportations in the UK; G4S, Serco, and Reliance.

Continuing to detail the various problems, both practical and ideological, with the contracting of these private companies to deliver crucial social services, the authors focus on the multinational corporation, G4S, that has been awarded the contract for the Yorkshire and Humber region. G4S is the second largest private employer in the world (on a similar level to Serco, another private company awarded a social housing contract for asylum seekers in England) and have numerous government contracts that amount to around £600 million.

Considering that some of these private companies have dubious records in their previous dealings with asylum seekers, it is hardly surprising that these new contracts are being met with such suspicion. The coalition can only remove state support if they are able to seamlessly integrate private companies to fill the gap. We must be critical, sensitive and resistant to these drastic changes to the fabric of social welfare, or we can expect to see it gradually destroyed by an influx of underregulated, profit-hungry private business. In the words of these Yorkshire academics, "We believe few people in Yorkshire if they were told would believe their taxpayers money should be awarded to such a company to manage asylum seeker housing."

Fortress Europe

A set of statistics gathered by UNITED for Intercultural Action, a European network against nationalism, racism, fascism and in support of migrants and refugees, has shown that between 1993 and 2011, 15,551 refugees died as a consequence of border militarisation, asylum laws, poor accommodation, detention policy, deportations and carrier sanctions (amongst other features of Fortress Europe).

Faced with a terrifyingly detached set of numbers and columns, it is important to remember the people behind the statistics. 15,551 individuals died as a direct consequence of European attitudes to freedom of movement, settlement and identity. Destructive asylum and immigration policy is not an abstract error; it has unmistakably human consequences.

This Week's News

Here's a summary of the last week's refugee-related news, the good, the bad, and the ugly:

Another Daily Telegraph story proving their "guilty until proven innocent" approach when it comes to asylum seekers and refugees. According to their reporter, certain asylum seekers fabricated their ages in order to claim higher benefits from the UK. The Daily Telegraph, February 1st, 2012.

The Irish Times reveal that many LGBT asylum seekers often risk deportation as they are terrified of revealing their sexuality to border officials. Fleeing terrible persecution in their respective countries, many asylum seekers are unaware that they are able to claim asylum on the basis of their sexual orientation. The Irish Times, January 31st, 2012.

The Irish Examiner runs a story on recent criticism of the 'draconian' asylum and immigration system in Ireland. Responding to statements made by the Justice Minister Alan Shatter speaking in advance of the National Holocaust Memorial Day on Sunday, the reporter highlights the fact that rather than learning from the "inconvenient truth" that Ireland's doors were firmly closed to German Jewish families fleeing the Holocaust, Ireland's 21st century approach to asylum is little different. The Irish Examiner, February 1st, 2012.

The controversial deportation of Lydia Beesong, a highly acclaimed writer, and her husband has been delayed. High profile authors, such as Michael Morpugo, wrote to the Home Office in her defence. Speaking to the press, Morpugo stated:

"How this country treats asylum seekers is the measure of what kind of people we are. Lydia was oppressed in Cameroon. That there is a risk she will be imprisoned and abused again seems undeniable. Her stand against oppression is clear."

This is North Devon, January 31st, 2012.

The incredible stories of the Afghan boys who, seeking safety and sanctuary, walked to Europe. The Guardian, January 29th, 2012.

A school near Heathrow Airport bucks national trends with excellent exam results. Educating many asylum-seeking children, and with 66 different languages spoken between them, the rest of the country has a lot to learn from this school of sanctuary. The Independent, January 27th, 2012.

The Express, The Telegraph and MP Priti Patel

One of David Cameron's new ministers, Priti Patel, has received a large amount of attention from The Express and The Telegraph over the past few days.

Presenting a written question to the current Minister of State (Immigration), Damian Green, she demanded to know how much the running of Morton Hall immigration removal centre cost the "public purse" in the last financial year. These figures, coupled with the "revelation" that only 9% of people detained in the centre over the last 5 months have been deported, has sparked inflammatory articles from both The Express and The Telegraph bemoaning the "stranglehold" of the European Human Rights Act.

Quoting the Home Office, both papers revealed the heavily euro-sceptic and isolationist approach of the current Coalition towards the rights of migrants and asylum seekers. Claiming that "foreign offenders" are abusing the rights given to them by the Human Rights Act, a Home Office spokesperson stated that "we will shortly be changing the immigration rules to reflect the public interest in seeing the removal from the UK of those who should be removed."

Priti Patel, MP for Witham and one of the Conservative Party's 'bright young things', has already made a name for herself as a hard-line, quasi-Thatcherist. In one of her earliest TV appearances on BBC's Question Time, she stated her controversial support for the re-introduction of capital punishment as a "deterrent" in the UK's penal system. In a similarly brash approach to human rights, she revealed to The Express and The Telegraph that "[illegal immigrants] should be put on the first plane out of Britain with no additional costs to taxpayers."

Whilst this traditionalist Conservative Party view is hardly surprising, Patel's careless approach to the clear differences between illegal immigration, seeking sanctuary and criminality suggests a deeper cancer in the Conservative New Wave's approach to migration. Morton Hall is an all-male facility that houses foreign national prisoners, failed asylum seekers and migrants who no longer have 'right to remain' in the UK. Those incarcerated at Morton Hall, therefore, are under different charges and require very different legal approaches and support. To state that those detained at Morton Hall are all illegal immigrants and should be treated as such is both inflammatory and false.

This confusion is symptomatic of an underdeveloped asylum system in the UK that penalises, rather than supports, those seeking sanctuary. Asylum seekers ‘illegally’ enter this country because there is no legal way to travel to the UK specifically to seek asylum, something that was recognised in the 1951 Convention on the status of refugees. There is nothing illegal about filing a claim for asylum and it is impossible, in legal terms, to have an "illegal asylum seeker." Yet the Home Office’s Five Year Strategy for asylum and immigration published in 2005 revealed their pledge then was to “… move towards the point where it becomes the norm that those who fail can be detained”.

Considering that in the last quarter of 2011, 27% of appeals made by refused asylum seekers were granted, it would suggest that some of those refused asylum seekers incarcerated in Morton Hall have been unfairly denied sanctuary. With the recent revelation that many failed Congolese asylum seekers who had been returned to the Democratic Republic of Congo have either 'disappeared' or have reported instances of torture and intimidation, Priti Patel's approach to repatriation is shockingly ill-informed.

In an interview before the Conservative Party Conference in 2011, Iain Dale, a political commentator, said that Priti Patel was a hard-nosed member of the "hang 'em and flog 'em right." With a myopic protectionism defining her approach to the global question of migration, I can't help but agree. To dismantle a cross-country agreement on unified Human Rights sets a uncomfortable precedent for further erosion of the rights of vulnerable people in the UK and Europe.

Happy New Year!

Only slightly belatedly, Press Gang would like to wish you all a happy new year! As we trundle into the 31 overcast days of January, it's always good to remember that the days are getting longer, the nights are getting shorter, and it is gradually getting a little bit warmer in Yorkshire.

You may notice that our blog looks a little different... We've combined a few web-pages we had into a single site, hopefully making it all a lot easier to manage. Keep an eye on our News Page for a regularly updated selection of the best and worst articles on refugee related issues and our Events Page will let you know what's happening with Press Gang over the next few months.

Our next meeting is on Wednesday 18th January at 6pm - check your emails for the location. For those of you new to Press Gang, please drop us an email and we'll get back to you.

Hope to see you all there,

PG x