On a slightly different note

As so many of our students are escaping from countries that Amnesty International are trying to keep an eye on, I thought it only right and proper to publish their Shell ad which the FT pulled from publication today.

See AI's response here:

http://amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=18768

Tortuous torture

What on earth is going on? It's the most ridiculous situation. I have people coming to me each day telling me that they have just received their refusal through the post. It's all over, they have to leave the country despite having a really good case. They are broken. They don't know what else to do, they don't know why they have wasted 7 years of their life waiting for the UK Borders Agency to believe their awful stories of the fear they have of going home only to receive a refusal through the post from their new caseworker in Liverpool. They go through anger, tears, hatred, bitterness and sheer disappointment in front of me.

Within a week the same people are coming back to me declaring that they have received a new letter from Croydon Home Office containing confirmation of Indefinite Leave to Remain. Not only this, but these letters are dated January and February. They have been held back in Croydon, they just haven't been posted and during the time that these letters have been in existence a whole other branch of UKBA is issuing refusals to the same people. How is this possible? Why is it being allowed? The Home Office cannot surely be so inept. It's appalling treatment of people who have already had their emotions played with for years. It's cruel and unnecessary.

Yes, admittedly, this is the result they have been waiting for and yes, we are happy for them. But to have to go through all this first. You put people at a point where they are feeling helpless and suicidal and then just as they are at the edge they are given that one thing they have desperately waited for. Is it simply to manipulate them into gratitude?

Trauma Fatigue

These last couple of weeks have been pretty hard simply because every day seems to bring more news from one or other of my students of issues that have arisen because of their status.

One really lucky guy has been given leave to remain. I'll be honest, I don't know why his case was more deserving than any other but at least he is out of the loop. Or not. He was given notice of his leave to remain and mere days later he was informed that he was evicted from his home as he was no longer being supported by NASS (the support agency for asylum seekers) and would have to find his own home and his own support. Fair enough really, he ought to do as any of us would if we lost our job and find his own place and money. But most of us get at least a month's notice; he got a few days. He has missed so many classes now because he is trying to reassemble the pieces of his life. Although, to his credit, he handles it all with a smile.

He's lucky. Another student has been summoned to the Home Office with instructions to bring all his belongings; surely a sign that he is about to be detained and deported. Last week several people were deported back to Iraq and Afghanistan, the safest of all countries to be in right now. They didn't know they were going to be deported - they were just taken from the Home Office when they went to their weekly signing. My student now has this doubt cast over him and has to live with the fear until he finds out on Monday. And it is by no means a foregone conclusion that he will go: time and time again people are called into the Home Office with the same instruction to bring their belongings and they return a couple of hours later with no change to their circumstances. It just seems like a sick joke; a need to keep them in suspense, to keep torturing them.

A further student, an older lady who recently spent some time in hospital having an operation on her foot, found last week that she had lost her bus pass. She needed it particularly on that day as she had to submit some new evidence to her solicitor to make a case against the Home Office as they recently evicted her and left her destitute. With no bus pass and no cash she had no choice but to walk, despite her recent operation, for two hours to finally get to her solicitor with five minutes to spare. She has since missed classes whilst she recovers from the damage she did to her foot. She is recovering where she sleeps on her friend's floor.

I can't write anymore. There are so many other stories just this week alone. They all feature the same fear, the same physical and mental suffering, the same needless torture. They are just people. They don't deserve this. I can't hear any more stories as I don't think I have the capacity to hear about so many people in so much pain. Quite selfishly now, I just want it to stop. It shouldn't be this way.

Recent media response

So who do we blame for this. In the media we blame the asylum seeker. This label is thrown out at any given opportunity as short-hand for everything which is evil in the world: terrorism, murder, rape, theft - all down to the asylum seeker. But in fact, we are talking about people who are living in fear and are just trying to get a just decision based on the facts. Thankfully, finally, there appears to be some acknowledgement of this in the media. In the last couple of weeks there have been articles about the Borders Agency and their flawed system. the Daily Mail chose to portray this as a failure to be quick enough to deport, but other sources chose to highlight the human suffering caused by this failure.

The BBC have reported on the investigation into the backlog and the lack of care about human suffering and the Guardian too reported under the title Asylum failings damage lives. What seems to come up time and time again is that due to UKBA failings people are kept waiting for years for any real decision to be made. If any other government agency failed so miserably to do their job we might be in line for some compensation. Their compensation for this waste of their life is, if they are really lucky, a positive decision, a pat on the back and an order to leave their accommodation immediately. If they are unlucky, it is a deportation notice and arrest. Never an apology in sight.

But they have been refused - accept it and go home!

This is the response I have had from everyone I have spoken to about this. Even the most sympathetic people, people who work with asylum seekers, people who protect asylum seekers. This is what makes my point of view so controversial, as once an asylum decision has been made by the Borders Agency it is assumed that the decision ought to be accepted and the applicant ought to return to their home country.

I would absolutely agree with this course of action but unfortunately the Borders Agency have not, by any means, been making fair decisions on asylum applications. In 2006 they were given the target of 6 months to make a decision and in many cases the pressure of targets led to decisions being made which did not take into account all the evidence presented or did not truly take into account the fact that human lives were being dealt with. This meant that blanket stereotypes were used to make decisions rather than the story of the person presenting their application. Individual need was not taken into consideration. People were no longer treated like people. The person about whom I wrote to the Home Secretary was refused because his solicitor failed to send the translation of death threats he had received in time to be considered. His claim was refused. And yet you say he ought to accept it and go home.

It is clear that the decisions which have been made in the last 6 or so years have been flawed, mainly because they have been driven less by the cause of humanitarian protection and more by targets and this belief is upheld by the Home Office's own inspection into the immigration system. This means that people have a right to appeal, and when they appeal they are no longer supported as true asylum seekers but instead as Section 4. This is when they essentially become illegal immigrants. All because the Home Office hasn't been doing its job very well.

Of the myriad people I know who are refused asylum seekers and therefore trapped in the Section 4 loophole not one of them wants to go home. Yet when you speak to them about their lives they tell you they miss their families terribly or they are lonely and wish they were around more people who spoke their language, or simply that they are homesick. So when the Home Office gives them the opportunity to go home don't you think they would take it if they could? Wouldn't that be preferable to this life where they are nothing and are treated like pariahs? Unless, of course, they are genuinely too afraid to return.

Letter to the Home Secretary

More comment to come, however for now read the letter sent to Home Secretary Alan Johnson.

This letter has so far gone unanswered. It relates the case of just one of my students and does not, by any means, cover the entirety of his suffering.

One week

Could you imagine life as a Section 4 asylum seeker, just for one week?

You arrived in the UK desperate and asking for protection from the torture you had undergone in your own country. Your family are dead, you know that people are hunting you down. You are covered in scars from injuries inflicted during your beating/torture/rape. Your request for help and protection is turned down because your immigration solicitor didn't really see the urgency of sending your documents, or because the Home Office decided they didn't believe you, or indeed they did believe you but they think that your rape and torture is unlikely to happen again because they're sure your country is just fine now.

But you don't want to leave as you are afraid of being hunted down and killed as soon as you get home. I am not exaggerating. This is the experience of the majority of failed asylum seekers that I know. They have been refused help or protection and are now essentially destitute. This is the stage at which they are put under Section 4 support. This means they will receive a roof over their head and £35 vouchers for their nearest supermarket. This must suffice for all food, toiletries, clothes and any other requirements. Fine in the short term I'm sure. Not for several years though. Not, in the case of people I know, for over 3 years. And if I'm honest, I don't think I could survive like that for one week let alone such a protracted amount of time.

Apart from the primary consideration about making your money last there is the added indignity of having to be identifiable as a voucher user. Knowing that you have nothing and everyone else knowing it too. The fact that you are a social pariah being aired every time you go to buy a loaf of bread. But hold on, if you just want a loaf of bread you would waste a whole heap of money, because the supermarkets are not allowed to give change. So popping to the shops for a couple of bits is no longer possible. You have to plan it out.

Can you perhaps understand why so many exchange their £35 vouchers for £25 cash? But should you be really prudent and save up your pennies by barely eating each week so that you can buy yourself something remember that you don't qualify for contents insurance and you can't pay for it. So when your place gets broken into and all your meagre belongings stolen you have no way of reclaiming it. You might think this is a little extreme. I have known one man in particular who has sadly been through this. It happens.

Add to this the fact that you are not allowed to work and you are probably a trained lawyer, doctor, nurse, teacher. How horribly frustrating for anyone with a bit of intelligence to have to fester and not be allowed to use the talent or training you are lucky enough to have. So you decide to volunteer; no-one could have a problem with that. But a recent application for volunteer work resulted in a refused asylum seeker being asked for 5 forms of ID, such as bills. People under Section 4 have an ID card and confirmation of their support (usually a few years old). They have no bills or bank statements. Nothing. They have no status. They appear on no lists. They do not exist in a day to day reality. They occupy a space beneath the real world and no-one sees them there.

And the irony is they have no choice but suffer like this. There is no escape. They have no travel documents so it's not like they can just up and leave and tell the UK government where to stick their 'support'. It is illegal for them to travel. They can't even leave their address for a week as they have to regularly report to the Home Office. They are imprisoned here. They are utterly trapped. Section 4 is the new Catch 22.

Can you imagine this, really? I don't think you can truly contemplate it. I find it hard and I'm faced with people suffering like this every day. I can't imagine having no identity, status or rights for the best part of a decade. That's an appalling thought.

Recent Developments

Very recently the Home Office, in an apparent acknowledgement of its own ineptitude, sent letters declaring it was going to try to resolve the backlog of these so-called 'legacy' cases by 2011 at the latest. These letters were written in 2009, so only another possible 2 years to add to the near decade of wasted life then. The way they plan to 'resolve' the cases was not explicitly stated so for a further two years these people are to continue waiting, in fear, for the day they receive news either of discretionary leave to remain or enforced deportation.

The next letter was equally vague. It asks those people who are supported on Section 4 to provide 4 passport photos. To what end they do not know. So they provide them, hoping that this is for the identity documents. To many people, this was a hopeful sign: 'they want the photos to give me a passport! At last!'. To others it was far more sinister. It came with no explanation, no promises. Just a request.

In the past two weeks I have been informed of two cases: one where a family were, in their entirety, given leave to remain. The second was a young man who was sent a final refusal letter and informed that he was no longer eligible for any support. One week later his landlord, a private agent providing accommodation, chucked his belongings into a bin bag and physically threw him onto the street. His support had been cut, he had no further advice on how to survive, he had no knowledge of what would happen next. He only knew that now he was homeless. He is lucky that he has friends who will take him in for the night and share their food with him, though, with £35 vouchers only, it won't go far. And at the same time, they too are wondering if they have the same fate to look forward to.

The situation has now become urgent for me. I wrote to Alan Johnson in December after several of my students had received the photo request letter and were concerned about its meaning. He has yet to acknowledge my letter and suddenly people I know and have a duty of care towards are being forced onto the streets and left destitute. They are being treated like criminals and yet they came here for help. After years of not being allowed to leave the UK and being forced to live in humiliating circumstances they are being further punished by having the last pathetic bit of support taken away from them. It is with a sense of urgency that I am posting these opinions, whilst hopefully drumming up support from other sympathetic sorts who will also help to publicise this horrific discrimination at the hands of our own government.

Why so angry?

So, why am I angry about this policy?

Let me first say, I acknowledge that we have a problem with control of immigration in the UK. There needs to be an overhaul of the entire system to ensure that the right people are being given asylum and I'm sure there are plenty of folk who come here for economic advancement rather than due to genuine fear of persecution.

That's not really what I'm concerned about here.

The Border Agency currently claim, on their website, that "We now aim to conclude all new asylum applications within six months". This is why, they say, that asylum seekers are not offered permission to work or study, it would stop them integrating so that it's not so hard for them when they are chucked out because they won't have made any ties. And yes, I agree this may be a sensible policy but if, and here is the crux, only if the decision time is indeed under 6 months.

However, the people that I know who are currently under Section 4 support are suffering from a decision-making process that has gone on for years and years and years. These people, despite the Home Office's best efforts, are integrated. They speak the language, their friends are here, they have families here, they are married here, their children are here. Some of the youngest have spent nearly a third of their lives here. Indeed, those young asylum seekers may be able to survive here, know how to rent a house or how to get a job or travel around, and may have no idea how to do that in their home country. The Home Office do not resolve their cases within 6 months and it has lead to this pseudo-imprisonment. Indeed, according to the Section 4 guidance referenced in my previous post, the housing contracts that the Borders Agency signed to house Section 4 clients have recently expired due to the extended length of time taken on decisions and in some cases people are being evicted and being left destitute.

I am not necessarily arguing against the return of asylum seekers to their home country (although I'm sure I could be tempted!); I'm arguing about the return of those people who have been kept waiting so long due to the Home Office's incompetence that they have now made the UK their home. Despite having no real status or rights.

One particular Section 4 asylum seeker I know, on hearing he may be up for Indefinite Leave to Remain, was primarily taken with the fact that he 'would be able to pay taxes' and was keen to start taking care of his new home. 'I would pick up any litter I saw on the streets if I had a passport'! I wonder how long that would last! But the sentiment is clear.

What is Section 4?

Firstly, what is it not? It is not the newest Gears of War release. Neither is it a mythical area of land, as yet unacknowledged by the government, from which strange lights and stories of suspect autopsies are emitted.

It is more sinister than that.

Section 4 is a little bit of legislation under the Asylum ruling of 1999 which came to prominence in 2004 as it sought primarily to deal with the glut of Iraqi asylum seekers coming to the UK to seek protection. It was based upon the assumption that, 'we got rid of Saddam, what's there to be scared of anymore' and suggests that those whose asylum claim has been refused ought return to Iraq, regardless of whether their original decision was fair. Unfortunately, it didn't really take into account that the political situation was not necessarily as 'stable' as they would have hoped (ha!). This was the message also given to those Sudanese asylum seekers who had the cheek to remain here after the news channels stopped coverage of the Sudanese wars. It seems that if the government aren't hearing about it on Sky News, it's simply not happening.

Section 4 didn't target all Iraqi asylum seekers. Just what appears to be an arbitrarily selected bunch.** These unlucky sods were put in the position of choosing between two evils: "Go home, we'll pay, and hey, it's safe now" *big, insincere grin*! or "Stay here, but if you do, you get nothing. Well, we'll give you £35 Asda vouchers each week to buy your food and you will live under the constant threat of the police bursting in and evicting you, because, let's face it, you gots no rights!" Strangely, they all seemed to sign up willingly for the latter option. Could their fear of persecution really be that powerful? It would seem so.

At the same time, colleges were told that Section 4 asylum seekers were definitely not eligible for funding for free English classes, as they had been in the past. This essentially left these people, who, if we remember, had come to the UK for protection, in a situation where they had a place to sleep and some money for food and nothing else. Not allowed to study, not allowed to work. Only able to buy clothes if their local Asda had a clothing section and they didn't want to eat for a couple of days.

Lucky them! At least they have food and shelter, you might blithely say. But let's think about this. Can you imagine not doing anything, at all, not being allowed or being able to afford to do anything, travel anywhere, meet people, read, watch TV, see a film for 6 years? Because that's what it's been. 6 years. Longer for some. Had they been imprisoned instead they would have had education, sport, TV, food cooked for them.

'But at least they have their freedom', you might add. What is their freedom then? They have to report to the Home Office or Police Station every week and sign to say they are still patiently waiting for ... something. Theirs is a house arrest without any of the benefits of imprisonment. At least if you are imprisoned you know your sentence. You know when you are due to get out.

Since 2004, these people have lived in a limbo with no updates and no hope of appeal. Very little communication from the Home Office and what they have had has been less than enlightening.

They are lucky that they have some support from the community of ESOL teachers who were forced for a year to turn down their requests for classes. In 2007, a group of college lecturers gathered to protest about the denial of English classes, making the pertinent point that without English, how could they integrate and wouldn't we be creating a climate of alienation wherein anger and aggression to the jailor state could develop! It seemed that this rang true and thankfully Section 4 Asylum seekers were once more allowed to attend English classes. Lucky them. Something to get out of the house for!

Ok, so this is a pretty one-sided view of Section 4 legislation. I thought it was only fair to include a link to the real thing here

**I'm sure the Home Office would disagree with me here. They would insist that those claims they have refused had no reasonable fear of persecution whereas those they granted had a legitimate claim. I would reassert that it certainly seems arbitrary as I have met hundreds of asylum seekers, and many of those who have been refused often have far more harrowing stories than those who were lucky enough to get refugee status. Personal stories from asylum seekers hopefully will appear in a later post. But if you still think the Home Office are totally objective please follow this link to an article that would suggest not...