Where is Gloria now? Nobody knows

As the case of a deported frail and mentally ill woman shows, our stretched asylum system fails the most needy and vulnerable

Late on Thursday evening, Gloria, who has lived in the UK for more than 14 years, was deported. No one has a complete picture of Gloria’s life. She was “clearly vulnerable” according to the UK Border Agency official who interviewed her when she applied for asylum, and might have learning difficulties too. She has mental health problems for which she has been receiving treatment. Read more

Immigrants should not be in jail, says prisons watchdog

Brook House Removal Centre: ‘Immigration detention should not be the same as prison’, says Dame Anne Owers

The United Kingdom Border Agency should be stripped of its responsibility for detaining asylum seekers and illegal immigrants, the Chief Inspector of Prisons has said.

Dame Anne Owers, who for nine years has been the prisons watchdog, today warns of the conflict between the forced removal of failed asylum seekers and the proper care of detainees held in immigration custody. Read more

Permission to Work

We’ve teamed up with Still Human Still Here to urge the government to get behind more sensible rules for asylum seekers which allow them to work if they’ve been in the UK for more than six months.

E-mail your MP now in 2 minutes and ask them to sign a declaration which supports asylum seekers being allowed to get jobs to pay their own way if they’ve been in the UK for over six months. If they change the rules, taxpayers won’t be paying benefits to support people who are able to work, but aren’t allowed to. It means that asylum seekers won’t be relying on charity to get by. And those who are allowed to stay in the UK will find it much easier to become part of British society if they’ve already been given a chance to work.

Just enter your postcode to get started – it will only take 2 minutes.

http://www.38degrees.org.uk/page/speakout/PermissionToWork

Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit – Urgent: We need your help

On 28th June 2010 we received news of the decision by the Legal Services Commission to cut our legal aid contract to provide immigration legal advice and representation from October 2010. See our statement below.

It amounts to a 70% cut in the amount of legal aid we can provide.

We will not take this lying down, and we need you to help us to fight this.

We work with some of the most vulnerable people for whom the asylum system has already done an injustice. Daily we see people who have been un-represented because they weren’t able to get legal advice, or they got advice for their asylum claim but when it came to appeal their legal representative turned them away – because the work isn’t profitable.

This is what you can do Read more

BECOMING VULNERABLE IN DETENTION: Jesuit Refugee Service -Europe

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The objective of the DEVAS project was to investigate and analyse vulnerability in detained asylum seekers and
irregular migrants: both the way in which pre-existing vulnerable groups cope with detention, and the way in which detention can enable vulnerability in persons who do not otherwise possess officially recognised vulnerabilities and special needs.

In partnership with NGOs in 23 EU Member States, JRS-Europe oversaw the collection of 685 one-on-one interviews with detainees. The size and scope of the sample reveals that, despite the diversity of personal circumstances of the detainees, detention does have a common negative effect upon the persons who experience it. In addition to detainees, project partners interviewed detention centre staff and other NGOs operating within the centres, and conducted a survey of asylum and immigration laws in their respective countries. This data is included within each of the 22 national reports that are published in the full DEVAS report.

This study builds on previous reports and projects that investigated vulnerability in detention. It analyses the situation of individuals and groups that possess officially recognised special needs, such as minors, young women with children, the elderly and persons with medical illness. But this study also analyses the situation of detainees who often go unnoticed: young single men, persons without stated physical and mental health needs, and persons in prolonged detention. Most importantly, this study pushes the discussion on vulnerability and detention one step further because its results are based exclusively on the voices of detainees. Thus the understanding of vulnerability that emerges from this study characterises the experiences of detainees as they told it themselves.

Full report here: JRS-Europe_BecomingVulnerableInDetention June 2010

Destitution in Leicester 2010

Launched during Refugee Week, June 2010

Executive summary

Between 1 and 26 February 2010 six organisations (Refugee Action, British Red Cross, the ASSIST Surgery, LASS, the Leicestershire Congolese Mutual Group and the Welcome Project) from within the LVSF collaborated to conduct a snapshot survey of destitute asylum seekers and refugees seeking help and assistance from each of the projects.
• A total of 225 individual asylum seekers presented who were destitute at the time they were surveyed.
• 24 reported that they had slept rough the previous evening.
• 37 confirmed that they were ‘sofa surfing’ between friends’ houses on an ongoing basis.
• 131 had been technically destitute for more than a year.
• 145 did not have an HC2 at the point of survey.
• 48 had been destitute for a period of more than five years; the longest of which was 13 years.
• 96 became destitute as a result of their asylum applications being rejected (and any rights of appeal having been exhausted).
• Seven had become temporarily destitute because of delays in receiving housing and benefit support after receiving a positive decision on their asylum applications. Read more

RAGE AND DISMAY GREET RMJ COLLAPSE GOVERNMENT URGED TO REVIVE REFUGEE & MIGRANT JUSTICE

END CHILD DETENTION NOW PRESS RELEASE 28 June 2010

LEADING charities and clergy and prominent figures including Colin Firth and Michael Morpurgo have greeted with rage and dismay news that Refugee & Migrant Justice has been allowed to collapse.

Refugee and Migrant Justice, formerly the Refugee Legal Centre, was the largest specialist national provider of legal representation to asylum seekers and other vulnerable migrants.

RMJ was awarded the Liberty/Justice Human Rights Award in 2005, in particular for its litigation work with Zimbabwean asylum seekers. Last week RMJ went into administration as a direct result of the government’s refusal to make legal aid payment until after cases are closed. Read more

Refugee Children’s Consortium – A debate on alternatives to child detention

Read the full document RCC_briefing_alt_to_detention-1:
Groups involved in support for migrants and asylum seekers cannot in conscience support the government’s aim of increased family removals, when return is too often the outcome of a system where the odds are so heavily weighted against claimants that it is fatally flawed and cannot do justice.

The Refugee Children’s Consortium (RCC), a coalition of thirty immigration and children’s organisations, appreciates this difficulty and refuses to engage in any removals project. As it points out in its briefing for the parliamentary debate:

* ‘Ending the detention of children is not dependent on establishing “alternatives to detention” projects, or new processes for families. Read more

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