Vulnerable Children will lose access to justice with cuts to legal aid

If you believe in access to justice, please join the campaign and take action now. For more information on what you can do, go to: Save Legal Aid, Justice For All and Sound Off for Justice.

On 13^th December, the rights of children were centre stage at a meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Legal Aid in Westminster. Speakers including Baroness King and the Children’s Commissioner for England, Dr Atkinson, discussed how children and young people will be affected by Government plans to cut free legal advice and representation. This debate was perfectly timed as the bill setting out the cuts should enter the Lords committee stage on 20^th December. If it becomes law, children will lose out on a massive scale: 6,000 children under 18 would go without legal advice and representation, and 140,000 children would be affected because their parents could not get legal aid support. 2,500 children will lose direct legal assistance each year for immigration cases. Read more

QARN: Statement about destitution

  Why many asylum seekers are destitute:  Minimal support  – and none

For those seeking asylum the money allowance historically has been set at 70 per cent of normal income support. Most people now receive less, and at the best an asylum seeker receiving financial support will be living on £5 per day.[i]

Asylum seekers whose claim has been refused lose their financial support and accommodation after 3 weeks unless they appeal. They are expected to leave the UK immediately. If they agree to return or they appeal they may qualify for even lower ‘hard case’ Section 4 support’,[ii] provided only in around 3% of cases. Because they are terrified of return, or for other reasons frightened of bringing themselves to the attention of a system they already know to be harsh, many do not apply. The remainder are not allowed to work and receive nothing. Women who are homeless because of domestic violence also end up destitute as do victims of trafficking. Tens of thousands of people are in this situation. The parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights[iii] said in 2007:

We have been persuaded … that the Government has indeed been practising a deliberate policy of destitution… We have seen instances in all cases where the Government’s treatment of asylum seekers and refused asylum seekers falls below the requirements of the common law of humanity and of international human rights law.

Four years later with a different government things are just the same.

Why are refused asylum seekers still here? 

• They are afraid to go back: Most destitute asylum seekers are from countries considered extremely turbulent[iv] like Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Zimbabwe and Iran.

• The numbers allowed to remain have fallen: The number of people given permission to stay has fallen significantly in recent years[v]. 

• They believe they have a case: Even if a person is correctly refused asylum, it does not automatically follow that their claim is unjustified[vi]. If the government accepts you were persecuted, you may be refused asylum unless you can prove it will happen again.

• The system makes mistakes: Experts have long expressed concerns about whether some asylum seekers receive a full and fair hearing of their claim[vii].

• Because they cannot go back: The Government cannot return people to countries at war, with uncooperative governments or unreliable means of travel.

Once the Government stops supporting an asylum seeker it may lose track of their whereabouts, which makes their removal near to impossible. The policy of making people destitute is therefore ultimately self-defeating.

December 2011

…

Footnotes and additional information

Proposal for an inspection of the UKBA’s administration of the asylum support system

From: Mike Kaye, Still Human Still Here, 17-25 New Inn Yard, London EC2A 3EA

Att: Inspection Plan Consultation,

To: Independent Chief Inspector of the UK Border Agency, 5^th Floor, Globe House, 89 Eccleston Square, London, SW1V 1PN

25 November 2012

RE: Proposal for an inspection of the UKBA’s administration of the asylum support system

Dear Chief Inspector

I am writing to you on behalf of the Still Human Still Here coalition in response to your invitation for stakeholders to provide views on areas of the UK Border Agency’s work that could be considered for inclusion in your inspection plan for 2012-13. Read more

A thematic inspection of how the UK Border Agency manages foreign national prisoners

Executive Summary
1.The UK Border Agency is responsible for deciding, in accordance with the law, whether foreign national prisoners should be deported from the UK. Where deportation is being considered, it also decides whether a person should be detained at the end of their prison sentence or released into the community with a requirement to report to the Agency if deportation has not occurred prior to the end of the prison sentence. This inspection assessed the effectiveness and efficiency of the Agency in managing foreign national prisoners. Read more

Mapping Statelessness

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The research maps the number and profile of stateless persons in the UK and puts a human face on their situation. It also examines the UK’s legal obligations to stateless persons under international law and analyses the impact of current policy and practice. Based on these findings the report makes recommendations for improvement. While the work owes a debt to previous studies, this is the first time that this hidden issue has been subject to such comprehensive quantitative and qualitative research.

The 1954 Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons defines a stateless person as “a person who is not considered as a national by any State under the operation of its law”. Read more

The use of country of origin information in deciding asylum applications: A thematic inspection

Executive Summary

1. The UK Border Agency is responsible for considering asylum applications. In order to do so effectively the Case Owner must fully take into account relevant information from the applicant’s substantive interview and any evidence submitted on their behalf. This is then reviewed in conjunction with available country of origin information, relevant case law and the credibility of the applicant’s statements before a decision can be made on whether the applicant qualifies for protection. Read more

On the anniversary of Mubenga’s death in deportation, we call on the government to end these needless abuses

Emma Ginn
Wednesday 12 October 2011

A year ago, Jimmy Mubenga died after being restrained by G4S guards contracted by the British government during an attempt to deport him to Angola.

Medical Justice will join the family of Jimmy Mubenga and others at a vigil on Friday at noon outside the Crown Prosecution Service to mark a year since his death during a deportation attempt.

Independent doctors volunteering with Medical Justice regularly visit immigration detainees who have sustained injuries during attempts to deport them.

In 2008 we published our report, Outsourcing Abuse, on nearly 300 allegations of assault during deportation. Injuries included a punctured lung, a dislocated knee and a broken finger, 42 deportees complaining of having their breathing restricted and some suffering neck injuries from having their head pushed forward between their knees.

We warned that abuses we had seen would happen again. They did. In October 2010, Mubenga died in front of British Airways crew and passengers after being restrained by G4S guards contracted by the British government during an attempt to deport him to Angola. Witnesses say that Mubenga complained repeatedly that he could not breathe.

Police are still investigating the case and considering whether to charge the three guards involved in relation to Mubenga’s death. The guards were recently bailed until December.

Medical Justice and many others warned the UK Border Agency again but they failed to demonstrate any concrete changes that will prevent further abuse and death.

During the year since Mubenga died, abuse and death is indeed what we have seen.

Reliance Security Task Management has since won the government contract to escort people being deported, yet allegations of abuse and use of excessive force have continued. Medical Justice volunteer doctors continue to see deportation injuries.

Sadly, the context is that based on medical evidence from many hundreds of detainees that we have assisted, we have documented the disturbingly inadequate healthcare provision that detainees are subjected to in immigration removal centres.

This, combined with the perilous and frightening conditions of detention, and the fear of deportation, is a lethal cocktail, a disaster waiting to happen yet again. Lessons urgently need learning, especially following the deaths of three immigration detainees in one month this summer.

The culture of disbelief towards detainees is literally fatal. While being restrained, Mubenga said that he couldn’t breathe. UKBA habitually disbelieves asylum seekers, accusing them of fabricating accounts of persecution in their country, and declaring as fact that they are not in danger if deported to that country. Yet some detainees choose death rather than deportation and take their own lives – as one man reportedly did in Campsfield detention centre near Oxford in August. The Home Office has confirmed the police and prisons and probation ombudsman are investigating the death.

UKBA and its contractors have demonstrated contempt for deportees’ lives. The government is ultimately accountable and we question the efficacy of its ability to monitor and control UKBA and its contractors.

We repeat our warning yet again. All deaths in immigration detention are avoidable as detention is optional. No one held in immigration detention is accused of a crime – their imprisonment is not part of any criminal sentence and there is scant judicial oversight.

The damage caused by indefinite and often arbitrary immigration detention and the use of force during deportation is so widespread that the only solution is to end these practices before another tragedy happens.

Yarls Wood detainees forced to use O2 phone service

New detainees arriving at Yarl’s Wood immigration prison, run by outsourcing giant Serco, are being given new mobile phones locked to O2 SIM cards with the back covers glued on so that no other SIM cards can be used, Corporate Watch can reveal. The new system, criticised by campaigners for isolating, monitoring and exploiting detainees even further, follows a similar scheme introduced by G4S in Tinsley House, near Gatwick airport. Read more

UKBA fails to act in accordance with its own procedures: Lydia and Bernard

RAPAR: the Manchester-based Human Rights Organisation: LYDIA AND BERNARD MUST STAY CAMPAIGN

LAWYERS TO APPLY FOR INJUNCTION TO STOP DEPORTATION OF LYDIA BESONG AND BERNARD BATEY ON SATURDAY – DECISION ON CASE TAKEN THREE WEEKS AGO BUT COUPLE NOT TOLD UNTIL MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 5^th. 

Veteran broadcaster Joan Bakewell and “Billy Elliot” creator Lee Hall join hundreds of supporters throughout the UK who have written protest letters to Home Secretary this week.

Lawyers for Cameroon playwright Lydia Besong and her husband Bernard Batey will seek an injunction tomorrow to stop the deportation of the couple from the UK on Saturday. Read more

QARN: Statement on Indefinite Detention of migrants and people seeking asylum

Statement on Indefinite Detention of migrants and people seeking asylum

As Quakers we believe that there is that of God in everyone. We see the Testimony to Equality as clearly relevant to our concerns about those migrants and asylum seekers who are kept in detention. They are treated much worse than those born British.

Public outrage – and indifference

The right to liberty is a fundamental right enjoyed by all people in the United Kingdom, whether British citizens or subject to immigration control. It is a right established in common law as well as protected by the European Convention on Human Rights. Recent anti-terror legislation that allows for terror suspects to be locked up without being charged has been controversial. The time limit has now been reduced to 14 days. There has justifiably been an outcry about this situation. However, thousands of people are kept every year in detention by the UK Borders Agency with no date set for their release, yet there is no public outrage about this.

The Immigration Act 1971 first included the power to detain immigrants; later legislation has extended or amended that power. People can be detained on arrival in the UK as immigrants or when seeking asylum, if considered likely to abscond, or when they have already been refused the right to remain and deportation is expected to be imminent.[1]

 Immigration officers decide

The decision to detain is made by immigration officers without reference to a court. In theory each detainee has the right to apply for bail after 7 days, but many people are unaware of this procedure and find it difficult to access legal advice. The immigration court ‘judges’ do not have to be trained or experienced to the level of judges in the criminal and civil courts, inadequate records are kept, and in many cases the Home Office view that the applicant is likely to abscond is accepted without evidence.[2]

In theory it is Government policy not to detain survivors of torture or those with serious medical conditions or mental health problems, but in practice even proven survivors of rape and torture, pregnant women, and those with severe mental and physical health problems are often found in detention. Many innocent men, women and children who have been locked up in immigration detention centres have suffered severe mental health problems, with detention in many cases adding to trauma already suffered in their home country. [3]

Our Objective:

 ‘That which is morally wrong cannot be politically right’ 1822   QF&P 23.26

 We call for the ending of indefinite detention, which is fundamentally unjust and causes much suffering to its victims.

Website: http://qarn.org.uk

See also: Detention Action http://www.detentionaction.org.uk

 

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