tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/uk-asylum-system-47727/articlesUK asylum system – The Conversation2023-11-16T15:47:58Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2178652023-11-16T15:47:58Z2023-11-16T15:47:58ZRwanda plan: Rishi Sunak has insisted on pushing ahead – here’s where he could take it next<p>The UK supreme court has ruled against the government’s plan to deport some asylum seekers to Rwanda for processing. But this isn’t the end of the story – a version of the plan is likely to resurface in some form. The initial reactions from the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, and his new home secretary, <a href="https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/rishi-sunak-rwanda-statement/">James Cleverly</a>, shed light on where the government plans to take this next.</p>
<p>After months of legal challenges, the UK supreme court ruled that the Rwanda plan was unlawful. The ruling was not about the concept of off-shoring the asylum process to another country. Rather, it found that Rwanda in particular is not currently a “safe country” in which to do this. The court found that people sent to Rwanda would be at risk of ill-treatment and forcible return to the countries they had fled in search of protection.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-rules-rwanda-plan-unlawful-a-legal-expert-explains-the-judgment-and-what-happens-next-217730">Supreme court rules Rwanda plan unlawful: a legal expert explains the judgment, and what happens next</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLfXy_xnsN4">statement</a> in the Commons, Sunak made it clear that his government was intent on ploughing on, and that his commitment to stopping small boat crossings was “unwavering”. He also stressed that Rwanda was only part of the overall strategy on “<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/illegal-migration-bill">illegal migration</a>” that he intends to see implemented, and that the strategy is already working with irregular crossings declining. </p>
<h2>How could the government get around the ruling?</h2>
<p>Most telling is the emphasis <a href="https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/rishi-sunak-rwanda-statement/">Sunak</a> placed on the court’s ruling indicating that the principle of sending people to a safe third country is lawful. “This confirms the government’s clear view from the outset,” he said. </p>
<p>In other words: our thinking is right, all we need to do is either find another country that the courts will deem “safe”, or make Rwanda “safe” by law to implement the plan. Both routes are already being pursued.</p>
<p>The search for alternative safe countries has been ongoing for months. This has involved official visits by ministers including Suella Braverman, and memorandums of understanding with countries like <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-and-turkiye-strengthen-partnership-to-help-tackle-illegal-migration">Turkey</a> and <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/milestone-reached-in-uk-albania-agreement-on-illegal-migration">Albania</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6Iyz-ybvEEo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Sunak has also announced a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG2_tDD46kQ">new treaty</a> with Rwanda as part of the plan, and emergency legislation to declare it a “safe third country” in law. </p>
<p>But this would still likely face legal challenges going up to the European Court of Human Rights, which interprets and upholds the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). In announcing the emergency legislation, Sunak said that he would “not allow a foreign court to block these flights” to Rwanda. </p>
<p>The political battle over the European court is an arguably fundamental part of this story. Since conception, the Rwanda plan was, for some, there to test the boundaries of the law and act as a Trojan horse for the Conservative right to push the UK outside the ECHR.</p>
<p>However, a key point from the supreme court ruling is worth emphasising here. While reading his summary of the judgment, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/c040946a-c294-4a89-808e-46c8b2f2f414">Lord Reed</a> noted that the ECHR is only one part of the relevant legal framework. So, even if the UK did leave, there are several UK and international laws that would still get in the way of removing people to Rwanda.</p>
<h2>Another approach: exporting immigration detention</h2>
<p>Up to now, the government has framed the Rwanda plan as fulfilling a dual purpose: a deterrent – if people know they risk forced removal to Rwanda by crossing the Channel, they would not make the journey – and as a tool to manage the spiralling <a href="https://www.transformingsociety.co.uk/2023/01/11/who-is-breaking-the-asylum-system/">backlog of asylum claims</a>. </p>
<p>But the response to the supreme court ruling may lead to a shift, moving the purpose away from managing the asylum processing system, and more towards managing migrants who breach immigration law. The latter route is backed up by the new Illegal Migration Act, which increases sanctions for irregular crossing and human smuggling. </p>
<p>This would mean separating the removal to Rwanda from the asylum process, and instead using it as a place to expand the UK’s immigration detention capacity. </p>
<p>While likely to face legal challenges, there is already a template for this: the controversial plan <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/foreign-prison-rental-to-ensure-public-protection">announced in October</a> to rent prison cells overseas “to ensure dangerous offenders can be locked up for longer”. </p>
<p>Where does this leave the Rwanda plan, or any future iteration? </p>
<p>Arguably, the implementation of the plan was never the priority – and it could hardly be sold as a one-size-fits-all solution. While politically, the plan has been very effective in mobilising Conservative membership, logistically it is a different story. Even if implemented, Rwanda would be able to host (at a high price) only a fraction of those the UK government deems subject to removal. </p>
<p>Both Sunak and Cleverly have been at pains to highlight their plan has inspired similar approaches in Europe (namely <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/04/giorgia-meloni-turns-to-rishi-sunak-to-take-battle-against-migration-beyond-eu">Italy</a>, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/germany-migration-asylum-plan-far-right-b2443676.html">Germany</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/02/austria-seeks-to-adopt-uk-rwanda-style-plan-for-asylum-seekers">Austria</a> and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/denmark-talks-with-rwanda-transfer-asylum-seekers-2022-04-20/">Denmark</a>). Despite this major legal blow, they still very much see themselves as leading the way in immigration solutions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217865/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nando Sigona receives funding from ESRC (ES/V004530/1) and Horizon Europe/UKRI.</span></em></p>We haven’t heard the last of plans to ship off the UK’s asylum seekers.Nando Sigona, Professor of International Migration and Forced Displacement and Director of the Institute for Research into Superdiversity, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2116862023-11-15T17:44:31Z2023-11-15T17:44:31ZHow the Welsh language is being promoted to help migrants feel at home<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550026/original/file-20230925-22-4zy1hu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=43%2C0%2C4819%2C3174&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Welsh government has announced plans to make Wales a 'nation of sanctuary'.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/second-severn-crossing-wales-november-2018-1229207257">Ceri Breeze/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>You can read this article in <a href="https://theconversation.com/maer-gymraeg-yn-cael-ei-defnyddio-i-annog-ymfudwyr-i-deimlon-gartrefol-217503">Welsh</a>.</em></p>
<p>The UK government alone decides who can enter the country and how migration and asylum policies are made. But devolved governments have scope to use <a href="https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8599/CBP-8599.pdf">their powers</a> in fields such as housing, education, health and social services to shape the nature of the support that is subsequently offered to new arrivals.</p>
<p>In recent years, the Welsh government has <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369183X.2023.2198809">looked for ways</a> to use its powers to help refugees and migrants integrate into Welsh society, taking into account the role of the Welsh language. </p>
<p>Overall, this is an approach that seeks to create a welcoming and supportive environment in Wales. It contrasts with the UK government’s commitment to <a href="https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/long-term-international-migration-flows-to-and-from-the-uk/">reducing net migration</a> and to create a “<a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/what-is-hostile-environment-theresa-may-windrush-eu-citizens-legal-immigrants-145067">hostile environment</a>” for refugees and asylum seekers.</p>
<p>The most prominent step taken to date was the publication of the Welsh government’s <a href="https://www.gov.wales/refugee-and-asylum-seeker-plan-nation-sanctuary">plan in 2019</a>, which set out measures aimed at turning Wales into a “<a href="https://www.gov.wales/written-statement-wales-nation-sanctuary">nation of sanctuary</a>”.</p>
<p>However, another significant – but less obvious – aspect of the Welsh government’s work are the steps taken to ensure that the Welsh language plays a more prominent role in the process of welcoming migrants and refugees.</p>
<p>Reflecting on this work, <a href="https://www.gov.wales/jane-hutt-ms">Jane Hutt</a>, Wales’ social justice minister, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/cymrufyw/64811421">has argued</a> that the Welsh language could become “an extremely powerful integration tool”.</p>
<h2>Hospitality and integration</h2>
<p>The shift to viewing the Welsh language as a resource that can facilitate integration is evident when tracing the evolution of English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) provision in Wales.</p>
<p>In 2013, the formal link between ESOL provision and the process of gaining UK citizenship was <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/tougher-language-requirements-announced-for-british-citizenship">unpicked</a> by the then Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government.</p>
<p>An unforeseen consequence of this reform was that it created an opportunity to initiate a distinct approach to language education for migrants in Wales. Hence, a year later, the Welsh government published its first <a href="https://www.gov.wales/english-speakers-other-languages-esol-policy-statement">ESOL policy for Wales</a>. It was the first of its kind to be developed by any of the UK’s four governments.</p>
<p>The original ESOL policy did not make a link between the Welsh language and linguistic integration. But a <a href="https://www.gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2019-11/english-for-speakers-of-other-languages-esol-policy-wales.pdf">later iteration</a>, published in 2019, called on ESOL providers in Wales “to integrate the Welsh language into their classes”. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/esol-english-classes-are-crucial-for-migrant-integration-yet-challenges-remain-unaddressed-204415">Esol English classes are crucial for migrant integration, yet challenges remain unaddressed</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This was deemed necessary as the “the Welsh language can be a valuable skill in the workplace”. And also because learning Welsh can facilitate “social integration”, particularly in “predominantly Welsh speaking communities”.</p>
<p>Coinciding with this, the <a href="https://learnwelsh.cymru/learn-welsh-with-us-croeso-i-bawb/">National Centre for Learning Welsh</a> worked in partnership with <a href="https://www.adultlearning.wales/cym">Adult Learning Wales</a>, the umbrella organisation for adult education providers across Wales, to develop a novel Welsh for speakers of other languages (WSOL) provision. Introduced for the first time in 2019, <em><a href="https://learnwelsh.cymru/learn-welsh-with-us-croeso-i-bawb/">Croeso i Bawb</a></em> (“Welcome to Everyone”) is a bespoke course that aims to introduce the Welsh language to migrants and refugees.</p>
<p>A Welsh government-commissioned <a href="https://www.gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2023-07/review-english-speakers-other-languages-esol-policy-wales.pdf">review</a> of ESOL provision in Wales this year reiterated the value of introducing Welsh for promoting a sense of belonging. The review also called for the National Centre for Learning Welsh to be integrated fully into existing educational networks that work to support migrants in Wales. </p>
<h2>Implications</h2>
<p>It is important not to overstate the scale of these changes. Overall, English remains the primary medium of integration for the majority of immigrants and refugees settling in Wales.</p>
<p>Yet the increasing emphasis on the Welsh language in integration efforts reinforces the sense of a distinctive Welsh approach to welcoming migrants and refugees. The new WSOL provision <a href="https://wales.britishcouncil.org/en/blog/migrants-multilingualism-and-welsh-language">challenges</a> the monolingual image of life in the UK and promotes multilingualism and multiculturalism. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qgjVx8bTMfg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Adult Learning Wales’ information on WSOL.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10993-019-09517-0">research</a> suggests that learning Welsh can enhance the employment opportunities of migrants and refugees. It can also facilitate their ability to access a variety of new social networks. </p>
<p>But if there is to be a serious effort to offer a route to integration, it will not be sufficient to merely focus on offering formal opportunities to learn the Welsh language, important as that may be.</p>
<p>Policymakers and activists should consider other ways to make Welsh language learning more accessible. Providing opportunities for learners to interact socially through the medium of Welsh is also vital.</p>
<p>While the UK government seems set to continue emphasising English as the only way to integrate successfully, the current evidence suggests that Wales wants a different, more multilingual vision.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211686/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This article has benefited from financial support offered by the Independent Social Research Foundation (ISRF) as part of a project on the ethics of linguistic integration.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mike Chick is affiliated with the Welsh Refugee Council as a Trustee.</span></em></p>The Welsh government has taken steps to ensure that the Welsh language plays a more prominent role in welcoming refugees and migrants.Huw Lewis, Senior Lecturer in Politics, Aberystwyth UniversityGwennan Higham, Senior Lecturer in Welsh, Swansea UniversityMike Chick, Senior Lecturer in TESOL/English, University of South WalesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2136722023-10-11T15:43:19Z2023-10-11T15:43:19ZDeaths and abuse in UK immigration detention – my research shows extent of mental health problem<p>The death of 39-year-old Frank Ospina, a Colombian man in immigration detention in the UK, <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/colombia-heathrow-immigration-removal-frank-ospina-death-b1106975.html">shocked his family</a>. Ospina was awaiting deportation, and his mental health appeared to deteriorate rapidly. He is thought to have taken his own life in March 2023.</p>
<p>I study trauma in the aftermath of war and conflict, and have researched what life is like for the thousands of people in <a href="https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/migrated/finalmqld.pdf">immigration detention</a> in the UK. For me, Ospina’s death is a horrific reminder of how detention centres are failing to meet the complex needs of the people in them.</p>
<p>Last year, more than 20,300 people were held in immigration detention, which includes both immigration removal centres (IRCs) and <a href="https://www.gov.uk/immigration-removal-centre">short-term holding facilities</a>. People may be detained while awaiting their identity or claims to be established, or to be deported. </p>
<p>A 2017 BBC <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fp0QLDKgME">Panorama investigation</a> into Brook House immigration removal centre near Gatwick airport was a rare look at the conditions in these facilities. The revelations prompted a public inquiry, which has <a href="https://brookhouseinquiry.org.uk/main-page/">now been published</a>, revealing many serious incidents over a four month period in 2017, including “credible evidence” of breaches of human rights law.</p>
<p>The inquiry describes a “toxic” environment, where detainees self-harm, and staff lack compassion and use inappropriate and unnecessary force. In one disturbing incident, a witness described an officer making “inappropriate and humiliating comments towards [two detainees] as they were attempting to take their own lives.”</p>
<p>“The abuse that took place at Brook House in 2017 was unacceptable”, a Home Office spokesperson <a href="https://homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk/2023/09/19/brook-house-inquiry-home-office-statement/">said</a>.</p>
<p>Government guidance says detention should be used <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1114683/Detention_General_instructions.pdf">“sparingly and for shortest periods necessary”</a>. But there is currently no limit to how long someone can be detained. For some, it has been years. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/manston-holding-facility-does-the-uks-treatment-of-asylum-seekers-violate-the-law-194001">Manston holding facility: does the UK's treatment of asylum seekers violate the law?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>According to the Brook House report, the negative impact of unlimited detention is exacerbated by very challenging, noisy living conditions, lengthy lockdowns in rooms, overcrowding and understaffing. These conditions, the inquiry found, are particularly detrimental to acutely vulnerable detainees who may have experienced prior trauma, torture and other harm. </p>
<p>The report concludes that although there were adequate safeguarding procedures in place, these were not used appropriately. What I have found in my research indicates current systems and staff (including healthcare staff) cannot adequately combat the distress created by detention, nor detainees’ preexisting mental health needs.</p>
<h2>Mental health in detention</h2>
<p>With colleagues, I have conducted ethnographic research and interviews inside <a href="https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/30541/1/8329_Kellezi.pdf">several</a> <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2867358">immigration removal centres</a>, including <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2448404">Brook House</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ejsp.2543">Our findings</a> show many reasons why the current system of detention cannot meet the needs of detainees, including those who are self-harming or having suicidal thoughts. On the contrary, the distress of detention can exacerbate these feelings.</p>
<p>In detention, people are cut off from family and friends. If they are being deported, this separation may be permanent. In a time of extreme vulnerability, a key source of support is taken away. </p>
<p>Detainees we spoke to <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2867358">described</a> emotional pain, feeling trapped or unable to escape. Many feared returning to the countries they left, because of the threat of persecution or extreme poverty, having borrowed vast sums of money to migrate in the first place.</p>
<p>Some were influenced by their surrounding detainees – other people experiencing high levels of distress, and in some cases self-harming or dying by suicide. As one of our <a href="https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/30541/1/8329_Kellezi.pdf">research</a> participants said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Never in my life I thought that I would hurt myself, burn myself. I don’t even feel it when I’m doing it. Sometimes I’m scared to be in the room by myself. But they don’t care. Since I been inside the facility I’m staying right now, two people died. One of them hang himself.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Detainees <a href="https://iaap-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/aphw.12263">described feeling</a> surrounded by processes and systems they did not fully understand. They distrusted staff and health professionals, worried that talking about their mental health would negatively affect their cases and lead to deportation. Some also described finding it difficult or impossible to access sufficient legal support.</p>
<p>The Home Office says <a href="https://homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk/2023/09/19/brook-house-inquiry-home-office-statement/">changes have been made</a> to immigration detention since the abuse uncovered in the Panorama report, including improved training for staff on use of force and better monitoring of safeguarding.</p>
<p>But the death of Frank Ospina is evidence that the effect of detention on mental health continues to be severe and, in some cases, deadly.</p>
<p>None of the reported improvements address one of the key changes needed to immigration detention – limiting the time people spend there to 28 days. Given what I’ve found in my discussions with detainees, I agree.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213672/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Blerina Kellezi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An inquiry into conditions at Brook House immigration removal centre found ‘credible evidence’ of breaches of human rights.Blerina Kellezi, Associate Professor in Social and Trauma Psychology, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2140142023-10-03T16:43:02Z2023-10-03T16:43:02ZSuella Braverman warns of ‘unmanageable’ numbers of asylum seekers – the data shows we hardly take any<p>A migration “hurricane” is coming, Suella Braverman has warned. Speaking at the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/suella-braverman-conference-speech-live-b2423149.html">Conservative party conference</a>, the home secretary claimed that without action by the Conservatives, millions more people will come to Britain, “uncontrolled and unmanageable”. </p>
<p>The idea that there is a “right” amount of migration has a long history in Britain, despite not being <a href="https://theconversation.com/net-migration-how-an-unreachable-target-came-to-shape-britain-206430">very helpful as a metric</a>. But let’s play along, as it’s clear that migration and asylum – largely discussed in terms of numbers of small boat arrivals – will be a major campaigning focus ahead of the next election. </p>
<p>The reality is that, compared to our European neighbours, the UK does not currently take a fair share of asylum seekers.</p>
<p>Home Office statistics released in <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-june-2023/how-many-people-do-we-grant-protection-to#international-comparisons">June 2023</a> reported that in the past year, the UK received the 6th largest number of asylum applicants in the EU and UK. But when measured per head of population, the UK ranks 21st – taking just under 10% of the total number of asylum seekers received in the EU and UK.</p>
<p>This is despite the fact that, in 2022, the UK received more asylum applicants than it has in 20 years. <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/12/8/451">Asylum applications in the UK</a> peaked at 84,130 in 2002, falling sharply to 17,916 in 2010 and fluctuating between about 20,000 and 40,000 for the following decade.</p>
<p>The European migration “crisis” – referring to the increase in arrivals of refugees into Europe in 2015 – largely passed the UK by. The UK received 39,720 applicants in 2015 and 39,240 in 2016, accounting for just 3.3% and 3.4% of all asylum applications in the EU during those two years. Germany, which had the most applications in the EU, received 441,805 and 722,270 <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/MIGR_ASYAPPCTZA/default/table?lang=en">respectively</a>.</p>
<h2>Why applications have risen</h2>
<p>Arrivals to the UK and Europe generally in 2022 were due to increased political instability, particularly in Afghanistan, Syria and Eritrea. The most significant difference for the UK was the higher number of applications from Albanians, which was not reflected across the EU – possibly because Albanians can travel visa free for <a href="https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/commentaries/albanian-asylum-seekers-in-the-uk-and-eu-a-look-at-recent-data/">90 days in the EU</a>.</p>
<p>But it is not simply an increase in asylum applications that has affected the UK.</p>
<p>As applications have risen, the speed at which officials have made decisions on applications has declined. This has been true every year since 2011, leading to the current backlog of asylum applicants. The most recent count is that <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn01403">138,000 people</a> are awaiting a decision.</p>
<p>There are another 41,200 people whose applications have been rejected and are waiting to be removed from the UK. The number of removals of rejected asylum seekers has also fallen.</p>
<p><strong>UK asylum applications with a positive decision, 2004-2021</strong></p>
<p>Although decisions are taking longer, a greater proportion of them are positive. In 2021, 77% of all decisions resulted in a grant of asylum, after all appeals. This is a new high, up from only 27% in 2004. In every year since 2012, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/immigration-system-statistics-data-tables#asylum-applications-decisions-and-resettlement">more than half</a> of all applications for asylum have resulted in applicants being granted refugee status.</p>
<p>In addition to seeking asylum, refugees may arrive in the UK through resettlement and other <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn01403/">country-specific schemes</a>. Between 2014 and June 2023, 51,000 people arrived through these schemes, mostly from Syria and Afghanistan. A further 179,000 Ukrainians have arrived and in 2022, an estimated 52,000 British National (Overseas) visa holders arrived from Hong Kong.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Asylum seekers walking ashore on a beach after leaving an RNLI rescue vessel" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550195/original/file-20230926-17-7ehf99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=221%2C51%2C5465%2C3419&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550195/original/file-20230926-17-7ehf99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550195/original/file-20230926-17-7ehf99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550195/original/file-20230926-17-7ehf99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550195/original/file-20230926-17-7ehf99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550195/original/file-20230926-17-7ehf99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550195/original/file-20230926-17-7ehf99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/dungeness-kent-uk-29th-august-2022-2198927701">Sean Aidan Calderbank/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The need for safe and legal routes</h2>
<p>By most measures, the current government is the most aggressively anti-refugee administration in British history. They have passed laws threatening to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, and have <a href="https://theconversation.com/performative-cruelty-the-hostile-architecture-of-the-uk-governments-migrant-barge-210300">stuck them on a barge</a>. </p>
<p>The language ministers use to discuss refugees has been linked with <a href="https://scottishrefugeecouncil.org.uk/research-reveals-link-between-governments-anti-migrant-rhetoric-and-far-right-activity/">increasing hate crime</a> towards refugees. And their landmark piece of legislation, the Illegal Migration Act 2023, is widely considered to breach the UK’s <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/news/press-releases/uk-illegal-migration-bill-un-refugee-agency-and-un-human-rights-office-warn">international legal obligations</a> by organisations such as UNHCR. </p>
<p>But despite appearing tough on borders, this government has recognised a greater proportion of asylum seekers as refugees than any previous administration. It has also enacted the largest refugee support scheme in UK history with Homes for Ukraine and the Ukraine Family Scheme.</p>
<p>In addition to these, there are a significant number of people from Hong Kong and Afghanistan currently arriving through specially designed schemes outside the asylum system. Such programmes demonstrate an important direction for future policy – even the current government recognises the need for safe and legal routes for vulnerable people to reach the UK.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214014/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Collyer receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council. He is chair of Sanctuary on Sea, Brighton's City of Sanctuary group. He is also (voluntary) chair of the Independent Advisory Group on Country Information. </span></em></p>The numbers on how many asylum seekers the UK accepts.Michael Collyer, Professor of Geography, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2121342023-08-30T15:07:23Z2023-08-30T15:07:23Z‘When you get status the struggle doesn’t end’: what it’s like to be a new refugee in the UK<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544768/original/file-20230825-21-kmgcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=299%2C154%2C5416%2C3085&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/italian-passport-pages-visa-stamps-1704424636">Maramade/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When someone applies for asylum in the UK today, they may be waiting months or even years for their application to be decided, thanks to the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66603767">record-high backlog</a> that the government is failing to tackle. </p>
<p>The vast majority of asylum claims are successful. Up to 77% of applications have been granted refugee status since 2021, a substantial increase from the pre-pandemic years, when only one-third of applications received a positive decision. But approval of an asylum application is not an instant guarantee of a safe and secure life in the UK. On the contrary, new refugees are immediately thrust into another period of limbo that puts them at risk of poverty and homelessness.</p>
<p>While awaiting their decision, new refugees in the UK are housed in accommodation <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9831/#:%7E:text=Contingency%20hotels%20have%20been%20more,in%20hotels%20in%20October%202020.">provided by the government</a> – currently in hotels, dispersal accommodation, or sites such as the Bibby Stockholm barge – and receive a small amount of money (£6.77 per day for adults) for food, clothing and toiletries. When awarded refugee status, they must leave their accommodation and are cut off from government support. </p>
<p>They can now work, rent a house and access state benefits, including social housing. But this transition happens very quickly, and new refugees have only 28 days, including weekends and bank holidays, to access the essential services they need to rebuild their lives. </p>
<p>Organisations supporting refugees <a href="https://www.redcross.org.uk/about-us/what-we-do/we-speak-up-for-change/improving-the-lives-of-refugees/refugee-move-on-period">have called for</a> the period to be extended to 56 days, to give people adequate time to set up their lives in the UK and give local government time to offer needed support. This has been discussed in both houses of parliament, but no progress has been made. </p>
<p>It would also bring this period in line with existing legislation on <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/homelessness-code-of-guidance-for-local-authorities/chapter-12-duty-in-cases-of-threatened-homelessness-the-prevention-duty#:%7E:text=12.1%20Section%20195%20of%20the,prevent%20them%20from%20becoming%20homelessness.">homelessness reduction</a> which requires local authorities to work to try to find accommodation for anyone at risk of becoming homeless in the next 56 days. </p>
<p>Yet the Home Office appears to have moved in the opposite direction. Refugee organisations <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/15/thousands-of-refugees-could-face-homelessness-after-home-office-policy-change">have reported</a> that some people are receiving just seven days’ notice to leave their accommodation. </p>
<p>The Home Office has said that the policy has not changed, telling the Guardian that “an asylum seeker remains eligible for asylum support for a prescribed period from the day they are notified of the decision on their claim”. </p>
<p>Previously, new refugees received a letter informing them that their existing support and accommodation will end in 28 days. This letter is crucial to start homelessness proceedings at local authority level, and to give refugees a timeline to plan for changing circumstances.</p>
<p><a href="https://freemovement.org.uk/home-office-change-in-practice-increases-risk-of-homelessness-for-recognised-refugees/">Any shortening</a> of the guaranteed 28-day notice period would put impossible pressure on local authorities to help refugees find accommodation and would further push people into poverty and homelessness.</p>
<h2>The ‘destitution gap’</h2>
<p>In my ongoing research, I’ve conducted dozens of interviews with new refugees, as well as representatives from local authorities and charities in the north of England. Their comments reveal how this 28-day period often results in homelessness, labour exploitation and financial destitution. </p>
<p>The British Red Cross has labelled the time between the end of government asylum support and access to universal credit and other resources the “<a href="https://www.redcross.org.uk/-/media/documents/about-us/research-publications/refugee-support/the-costs-of-destitution.pdf">destitution gap</a>”. During this time, new refugees frequently turn to food banks and charities, or take on exploitative jobs. As one person explained:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Twenty-eight days is not enough to sort anything, and your money is cut … you ended up being homeless, not having a place to go and not having something to eat.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>New refugees are not allowed to work while awaiting a decision, and therefore are unable to save money, effectively meaning many cannot support themselves straight away.</p>
<p>To access benefits such as universal credit they need a national insurance number. But my research highlights that this is not given to a new refugee until their identification card is sent out, which can be several days (or weeks) after the positive decision, and many cards arrive containing errors. </p>
<p>Even a timely application can keep new refugees in the destitution gap – it takes approximately <a href="https://www.gov.uk/universal-credit/how-youre-paid">five weeks</a> for the first payment of universal credit to arrive in a bank account.</p>
<p>New refugees also face difficulty finding somewhere to live. Accessing the private rental market is near impossible without a deposit, job, or reference. Social housing is in short supply in the UK, and the local authorities I interviewed rarely found accommodation for new refugees within 28 days. </p>
<p>Many new refugees become <a href="https://naccom.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/NACCOM-Homelessnesss-Report_2018-05-20_EMAIL.pdf">homeless</a>, and are moved into hostels, bed and breakfast accommodation or end up on the street. Children may move schools, and new refugees are uprooted from their support systems, faith networks and communities. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two men stand on the pavement outside of a JobCentrePlus" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545556/original/file-20230830-20-2kxf1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545556/original/file-20230830-20-2kxf1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545556/original/file-20230830-20-2kxf1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545556/original/file-20230830-20-2kxf1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545556/original/file-20230830-20-2kxf1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545556/original/file-20230830-20-2kxf1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545556/original/file-20230830-20-2kxf1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Seven days is not enough time to find a job or housing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/westonsupermare-uk-august-26-2015-two-311273393">BasPhoto/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Local authorities and support organisations help to bridge this gap. They work with new refugees to find accommodation, take them to Job Centre appointments, set up bank accounts and navigate the online world of benefits. But even their help is limited in such a short time frame. As one local authority representative told me:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[People] are moving from one terrible system that’s falling apart to another terrible system that’s falling apart … they might be safe in some ways but that doesn’t mean that everything is going to be OK now.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This high level of change in a short period causes acute anxiety for new refugees, affecting their ability to move on and settle in the UK. Given that refugees have often experienced significant trauma, the threat of homelessness, financial destitution and a lack of access to food when they are granted status can be incredibly difficult to cope with. As one refugee, a single mother with a child recounted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When you get refugee status the struggle doesn’t end. It is another big struggle which starts. I need to leave this property, I need to apply for universal credit, I need to leave everything. Am I going to be homeless? What’s going to happen?</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212134/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah M. Hughes currently receives funding from The British Academy. She has previously received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council.</span></em></p>New refugees have just 28 days to access the essential services they need to rebuild their lives in the UK. In the ‘destitution gap’, many will become homeless.Sarah M. Hughes, Assistant Professor in Human Geography, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2117962023-08-25T12:13:41Z2023-08-25T12:13:41ZHotels and employment aren’t major ‘pull factors’ for refugees – here’s what really draws people to move<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544612/original/file-20230824-2975-633193.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C131%2C5472%2C3506&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The hotels housing asylum seekers have become sites of protest.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/newquay-cornwall-0225-beresford-hotel-protest-2267945293">JMundy/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>People make decisions about where to live, when to leave and where to move based on several complex factors. Among policymakers and people who study immigration, the term “push” factor is used to describe what drives people to leave a country (for example, violence, persecution or poverty).</p>
<p>For many years, the UK and other governments have claimed they can stop or reduce irregular migration by removing “pull” factors – those that attract people to a particular country. These might include a generous public welfare system or job opportunities.</p>
<p>In recent months, UK government ministers have claimed that <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/immigration-minister-vows-hotel-britain-will-end-for-migrants-to-deter-asylum-shopping-12746211">housing asylum seekers in hotels</a> while they await a decision on their application is one such pull factor. This is why they have introduced measures like the <a href="https://theconversation.com/performative-cruelty-the-hostile-architecture-of-the-uk-governments-migrant-barge-210300">Bibby Stockholm accommodation barge</a> and the threat of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-uk-court-ruled-rwanda-isnt-a-safe-place-to-send-refugees-and-what-this-means-for-the-governments-immigration-plans-208768">deporting</a> irregular migrants to another country while their claims are processed. </p>
<p>Like many other countries, the UK also prevents asylum seekers from entering employment until their application is decided. The government has said that work restrictions are necessary to keep employment from being a <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn01908/">pull factor</a>.</p>
<p>But, as <a href="https://docs.iza.org/dp16085.pdf">our research shows</a>, there is little evidence that these policies are effective in deterring people from seeking asylum in the UK. In fact, the most important pull factors are not something the government has much control over.</p>
<h2>Why do people migrate?</h2>
<p>By looking at data on asylum seekers coming to EU countries between 2008 and 2020, we were able to determine what really drives people to seek asylum in particular countries. </p>
<p>Our results suggest that the strongest pull factor for asylum seekers to a destination is social networks, as measured in terms of previous asylum applicants, as well as numbers of previous migrants from the same origin residing in the destination. In other words, people are likely to go where others from their family or community have gone. Personal contacts can provide information to other asylum seekers about the destination country, as well as offer help on arrival.</p>
<p>Restricting access to the labour market or to the welfare system has only a modest impact on people’s decisions to come to a particular country and will not be effective in reducing the number of asylum applicants. </p>
<p>In reality, these policies lead to more vulnerability and exploitation of refugees – for example, forcing people into precarious or illegal work arrangements.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/im-always-delivering-food-while-hungry-how-undocumented-migrants-find-work-as-substitute-couriers-in-the-uk-201695">'I’m always delivering food while hungry': how undocumented migrants find work as substitute couriers in the UK</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Economic factors</h2>
<p>We also found that the number of asylum applications is not highly driven by access to employment. The generosity of the welfare system, economic factors like income level and unemployment rate, and cultural factors such as language also have modest roles. </p>
<p>The processing time of asylum applications and the success rate of first-time asylum applications are significant factors but not the main drivers of destination choice. The UK’s now record-high <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-march-2023/how-many-people-do-we-grant-protection-to">backlog of applications</a> means people could be waiting years for a decision. However, this is not a strong deterrent, particularly if the success rate of asylum applications is <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-december-2022/how-many-people-do-we-grant-protection-to">high</a>.</p>
<p>All of this, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-governments-plan-to-remove-asylum-seekers-will-be-a-logistical-mess-and-may-not-deter-people-from-coming-to-the-uk-201248">plenty of other research</a>, tells us that harsh policies preventing asylum seekers from working or accessing support, threatening deportation to Rwanda, or mishandling a backlog of applications, are not going to stop irregular migration.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="View from behind of a young child walking between an adult man and an RNLI rescue crew member, each holding one of the girl's hands" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544609/original/file-20230824-27-jdyq6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=189%2C80%2C4674%2C2894&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544609/original/file-20230824-27-jdyq6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544609/original/file-20230824-27-jdyq6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544609/original/file-20230824-27-jdyq6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544609/original/file-20230824-27-jdyq6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544609/original/file-20230824-27-jdyq6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/544609/original/file-20230824-27-jdyq6j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Social networks are the main factor in how many refugees choose a destination.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/dungeness-kent-uk-may-5th-2022-2152529247">Sean Aidan Calderbank/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The right to work</h2>
<p>This, then, raises an important question about whether asylum seekers should be allowed to work when they reach the UK.</p>
<p>Only <a href="https://www.oecd.org/els/mig/migration-policy-debates-10.pdf">a few EU countries</a>, including Croatia, Greece and Sweden, allow asylum seekers immediate access to the labour market. The majority of EU countries enforce a ban period that varies between two months and a year. <a href="https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/briefing-paper/4.24">Some countries</a>, like Austria and Ireland, only grant access to the labour market once the asylum claim has been accepted. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn01908/">the UK</a>, asylum seekers are not allowed to work while their application is considered, unless they have been waiting for a decision for more than 12 months. </p>
<p>There has been an ongoing campaign, led by the charity <a href="https://www.refugee-action.org.uk/lift-the-ban/">Refugees Action</a>, to lift the ban on asylum seekers being allowed to work. Studies <a href="https://www.cgdev.org/blog/lifttheban-impacts-work-ban-uk-asylum-seekers">show</a> that the employment ban has a detrimental effect on refugees’ employment opportunities in the long term. </p>
<p>Our findings suggest there is little evidence that employment access would act as a pull factor – not when the influence of social networks is so strong. On the contrary, the <a href="https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/scarring-effects-employment-bans-asylum-seekers">evidence shows</a> that not allowing asylum seekers to work is a loss for the economy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211796/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jackline Wahba received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 870299 QuantMig: Quantifying Migration Scenarios for Better Policy. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Valentina Di Iasio does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Research explains how asylum seekers choose their destination country.Jackline Wahba, Professor of Economics, University of SouthamptonValentina Di Iasio, Research Fellow, Economics of Migration, University of SouthamptonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2073432023-07-13T16:00:47Z2023-07-13T16:00:47ZThe government passed a major immigration law last year – so why is it trying to pass another one?<p>The illegal immigration bill has generated endless controversy on its way to becoming law. The bill, which effectively bans asylum seeking in the UK, has faced heavy criticism for its treatment of children, its approach to modern slavery victims and other provisions that are likely to <a href="https://theconversation.com/illegal-immigration-bill-does-more-than-push-the-boundaries-of-international-law-201332">breach international law</a>.</p>
<p>You might remember a lot of debate only last year over a new immigration act. Priti Patel, then home secretary, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/home-secretary-opening-speech-for-nationality-borders-bill">claimed the Nationality and Borders Act</a> would finally fix the problems that have resulted from a “broken system … of illegal migration”. At the time, she stated it is “heartless and immoral” to let small boat crossings continue. But a year after the act came into force, crossings are still happening, with a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jul/03/defeats-for-small-boats-bill-in-house-of-lords-as-channel-crossings-set-new-record">record-high</a> number in June 2023. </p>
<p>What’s the difference between these two pieces of legislation?</p>
<h2>Law one: a two-tier asylum system</h2>
<p>The Nationality and Borders Act introduced a <a href="https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2023-06-08/hcws837">two-tier system</a> that offered refugees different levels of protection depending on how they entered the UK. Those who arrived via “safe and legal routes” were granted permission to stay. Meanwhile, those who entered irregularly, such as by small boat, <a href="https://www.nrpfnetwork.org.uk/news/temporary-refugee-permission-introduced">received limited rights</a> including a temporary stay of 30 months, no defined route to settlement and restricted family reunification rights. </p>
<p>The act also included new procedures for <a href="https://post.parliament.uk/research-briefings/post-pn-0666/">determining the age</a> of young asylum seekers. And it set the stage for the controversial Rwanda plan by providing for offshore processing of asylum claims.</p>
<p>It deemed anyone who arrived irregularly inadmissible for asylum. But if the Home Office was unable to provide proof or actually remove the person, the rules required that they still be admitted into the asylum process.</p>
<h2>Law two: an outright ban</h2>
<p>The illegal migration bill is the most extreme piece of immigration legislation to date, and amounts <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/uk/news/statement-uk-asylum-bill">to a ban on asylum</a>. It also makes much of the Nationality and Borders Act – passed just a year ago – redundant, though the smaller provisions such as age assessment and offshore processing will remain. </p>
<p>Under the proposed law, anyone who enters the UK irregularly (the majority of asylum seekers) will never have their asylum claims assessed. They and their children will never be granted any permission to stay in the UK. And, the government will immediately move to detain and deport them to their country of origin or another “safe” country. </p>
<p>The bill also stops people who arrived irregularly from accessing modern slavery support, or from using claims of trafficking as a reason that they should not be <a href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/illegal-migration-bill">removed</a>. This part of the bill faced <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2023/may-2023/lords-scrutinises-illegal-migration-bill/">fierce opposition</a> in the House of Lords and from Conservative backbenchers, leading to a prolonged “ping-pong” between houses. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nationality-and-borders-act-becomes-law-five-key-changes-explained-182099">Nationality and Borders Act becomes law: five key changes explained</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Why do we need both?</h2>
<p>The government says the illegal migration bill <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/illegal-migration-bill-factsheets/illegal-migration-bill-overarching-factsheet#:%7E:text=The%20Illegal%20Migration%20Bill%20will,asylum%20claim%20will%20be%20considered.">is needed</a> because the asylum system is (still) broken, citing the increase in small boat crossings since 2018.</p>
<p><a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5803/cmselect/cmhaff/199/summary.html">Tighter security</a> in recent years, as well as the pandemic, has made other clandestine routes (such as concealed in a lorry) more difficult. There is some evidence of a <a href="https://www.ippr.org/news-and-media/press-releases/revealed-two-thirds-of-small-boat-channel-crossings-would-have-asylum-claims-accepted">snowball effect</a>, in that the success of many small boat migrants being granted asylum has encouraged others to make the risky journey.</p>
<p>The introduction of the illegal migration bill is, in effect, an admission that the Nationality and Borders Act hasn’t worked the way the government hoped it would. The government claims that the new bill will work because: “If people know there is no way for them to stay in the UK, they won’t risk their lives and pay criminals thousands of pounds to get here.” </p>
<p>However, <a href="https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/commentaries/uk-policies-to-deter-people-from-claiming-asylum/">decades of research</a> has shown that asylum seekers are rarely aware of the policies of the receiving state. </p>
<h2>Targeting Albanians</h2>
<p>Another reason for introducing the bill is as a direct response to the large number of Albanians crossing in small boats – making up <a href="https://miclu.org/blog/fact-check-albanian-boat-arrivals">just under one third</a> of the crossings in 2022.</p>
<p>The government has claimed that Albanians and others from <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/83/home-affairs-committee/news/195596/no-case-for-routinely-offering-asylum-to-claimants-from-safe-albania-home-affairs-committee/">“well-established safe countries”</a> are falsely claiming to be victims of trafficking in order to access support they are entitled to under the Modern Slavery Act. Steeped in a history of xenophobia, this has been a common trope through both the Sunak and Johnson administrations with Sunak <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-statement-on-illegal-migration-13-december-2022#:%7E:text=Prime%20Minister%20Rishi%20Sunak%20made,of%20Commons%20on%20illegal%20migration.&text=Mr%20Speaker%2C%20before%20I%20start,children%20so%20tragically%20in%20Solihull.">singling out Albanians in a speech in December 2022</a> on illegal immigration. </p>
<p>The government’s evidence for this is that Albanians are the top nationality referred to the modern slavery system, despite the country having signed on to <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/illegal-migration-bill-factsheets/nationality-and-borders-act-compared-to-illegal-migration-bill-factsheet">an anti-trafficking treaty</a>. </p>
<p>But there is evidence that many Albanians flee due to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/12/albania-is-a-safe-country-cross-party-mps-group-finds#:%7E:text=Albania%20is%20a%20%E2%80%9Csafe%E2%80%9D%20country,cross%2Dparty%20group%20of%20MPs.">blood feuds</a> between families, for which the Albanian state offers little protection. In a bid to deter Albanians from seeking asylum in the UK, the government signed an agreement with Albania to speed up the return of its citizens. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/modern-slavery-uks-focus-on-genuine-victims-has-failed-survivors-since-the-1800s-192528">Modern slavery: UK's focus on 'genuine' victims has failed survivors since the 1800s</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Albania also has <a href="https://miclu.org/blog/fact-check-albanian-boat-arrivals">longstanding issues</a> related to trafficking, as well as discrimination and violence against LGBTQ+ people and ethnic Roma and Egyptian communities. </p>
<h2>Performance politics</h2>
<p>The government has spent the last few years on two major pieces of legislation to deal with the same issue. Both are legally questionable. And what’s more, the Home Office doesn’t have the resources or, arguably, institutional competence to implement them.</p>
<p>Most importantly, both policies are built on a <a href="https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/commentaries/uk-policies-to-deter-people-from-claiming-asylum/">strategy of deterrence</a>, which even the Home Office <a href="https://freemovement.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Annex-A-Sovereign-Borders-International-Asylum-Comparisons-Report-Section-1-Drivers-and-impact-on-asylum-migration-journeys.pdf">acknowledges doesn’t work</a>. </p>
<p>Ultimately, both pieces of legislation are <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-uks-unworkable-immigration-plans-allow-the-government-to-blame-others-for-its-failure-202207">performance politics</a> that have more to do with winning an election than solving policy problems. Stoking the issue of immigration <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-923X.13111">plays well politically for the Conservatives</a>, while deflecting from failures on the economy and the NHS.</p>
<p>It is also a mark of the Conservatives’ intra-party factionalism. Suella Braveman wants to make her mark as the toughest home secretary to date. Sunak is desperately distinguishing his administration from his toxic predecessor’s, and wants to be seen to fulfil his promise to “stop the boats”. This will be done at all costs, even through unworkable, unethical and unevidenced policies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207343/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erica Consterdine does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The illegal migration bill makes much of the Nationality and Borders Act redundant.Erica Consterdine, Senior Lecturer in Public Policy, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2044152023-05-15T15:43:18Z2023-05-15T15:43:18ZEsol English classes are crucial for migrant integration, yet challenges remain unaddressed<p><em>You can also read this article <a href="https://theconversation.com/esol-pwysigrwydd-dosbarthiadau-saesneg-i-ymfudwyr-ar-heriau-iw-datrys-205783">in Welsh</a>.</em> </p>
<p>In the year ending September 2022, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-december-2022/summary-of-latest-statistics">more than 70,000 people</a> had claimed asylum in the UK. The vast majority were from countries that do not use English as a first language. </p>
<p>Being able to communicate in English is essential for newly arrived migrants. People who have gone through traumatic experiences are, understandably, often desperate to build new lives. They want to use the skills and knowledge they have to access work and education. To do that, they have to navigate the health, social security, housing and education systems. </p>
<p>Language is the single most important area that can promote integration for migrants. My research has shown that <a href="https://www.academia.edu/44971642/Exploring_ESOL_Teacher_Working_Conditions_and_Professional_Development_In_England_And_Wales">language teachers</a> are uniquely placed to positively affect the lives of people in these situations. </p>
<p>In fact, the 2016 <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-casey-review-a-review-into-opportunity-and-integration">Casey review</a>, a government-commissioned report on the state of social cohesion in Britain, highlighted that developing fluency in English is critical to integration.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/its-like-youre-a-criminal-but-i-am-not-a-criminal-first-hand-accounts-of-the-trauma-of-being-stuck-in-the-uk-asylum-system-202276">'It’s like you’re a criminal, but I am not a criminal.' First-hand accounts of the trauma of being stuck in the UK asylum system</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Given its importance, refugees and people seeking asylum are often keen to enrol in English for Speakers of Other Languages (Esol) classes. And these classes can provide more than language tuition alone. They are a social space, providing a sense of structure to daily lives, offering both linguistic and psychological support. </p>
<p>But <a href="https://ifs.org.uk/news/plans-will-leave-spending-adult-education-and-apprenticeships-25-below-2010-levels-2025#:%7E:text=Press%20Release-,Plans%20will%20leave%20spending%20on%20adult%20education%20and%20apprenticeships,below%202010%20levels%20by%202025&text=Total%20spending%20on%20adult%20education,as%20compared%20with%202010%E2%80%9311.">cuts to adult education budgets</a> following the change of government in 2010, and the introduction of austerity, mean access to Esol language support is often difficult. There can be long waiting lists and <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2226-471X/4/3/74">too few classes</a> available. </p>
<p>Also, the way adult education is funded in the UK means teachers are obliged to follow an assessment system to measure language competence. That constraint frequently results in classroom time being focused more on passing exams than on developing fluency or bestowing a warm welcome and sense of belonging. </p>
<p>While coping with the demands of building a life in a different country through a new language, many Esol learners are also dealing with the trauma associated with forced displacement. That’s on top of the <a href="https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/lln-2018-0064/">stress involved</a> in navigating an often hostile and complex asylum system. </p>
<p>Such challenges mean Esol teachers can be a vital bridge to the new society. And the Esol classroom can be the prime location for getting information and for creating the bonds needed for successful integration. With that in mind, how Esol classes are organised and managed is fundamental to a person’s success in learning English and all the associated opportunities. </p>
<p>However, providing Esol classes, primarily through colleges of further education, is a hugely bureaucratic undertaking. This often results in the potential of Esol classes to promote integration being missed. </p>
<p>One of the reasons is that these classes are funded in the same way as other adult education subjects. Accordingly, teachers must follow a curriculum that provides evidence that learners are progressing. This results in teachers putting their efforts into preparing students for constant tests and assessments. And that leaves little time to address the real-life concerns, needs and interests of their migrant learners. </p>
<p>It also means the opportunities to bring about a sense of belonging are instead replaced with learning about matters such as verb conjugations and the English tense system. </p>
<p>Changes are needed to both the way Esol is funded and organised, and to the way Esol professionals are educated to view the language classroom. </p>
<h2>Solutions</h2>
<p>Removing some of the requirements to produce evidence of learning would shorten teacher administration time. It would also relieve the pressure on students and teachers to be constantly preparing for the next assessment. This would allow more time to focus on discussing issues of relevance to the learners.</p>
<p>There is much support from language experts for viewing Esol from this more human perspective. It is an understanding of the classroom that resonates with educators who have been advocating for a <a href="https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/sites/teacheng/files/pub_BC_NEXUS_booklet_web.pdf">participatory pedagogy</a> – which involves more collaboration and decision making among students – for Esol since the turn of the century.</p>
<p>This style of teaching focuses classroom content on the <a href="https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/%22When-I-wake-up-I-dream-of-electricity%22%3A-The-lives%2C-Cooke/a9ad375c87803c59b586b05e3ce5825d4f758d9d">lives of learners</a>. Examples of typical issues that dominate such discussions include the challenge of finding meaningful employment, the effects of trauma, culture shock, separation from family, money worries and finding accommodation.</p>
<p>This means more time is taken up with learners using language to express thoughts, anxieties, hopes and concerns that affect their new lives. And far less time is used by the teacher striving to cover an externally imposed syllabus. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GiTvFmcuLkM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Creative workshops to enhance language acquisition and integration for people seeking sanctuary.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Thinking afresh about language education for forced migrants means considering how a participatory approach may be an effective way to welcome newcomers and help with their integration. With little effort, language education for migrants could allow space for the development of projects that bring people together. It could foster friendship and understanding while also promoting language development.</p>
<p>Esol is not just another academic subject, it is the most important area that promotes integration. But, at present, opportunities to provide holistic, person-centred language education to people seeking refuge in the UK are being missed because of the overly bureaucratic and exam-focused system that prevails.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204415/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mike Chick is affiliated with the Welsh Refugee Council as a Trustee</span></em></p>Although English to speakers of other languages (Esol) is treated like any other subject, it can offer far more to those learners.Mike Chick, Senior Lecturer in TESOL/English, University of South WalesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2022762023-04-11T01:41:21Z2023-04-11T01:41:21Z‘It’s like you’re a criminal, but I am not a criminal.’ First-hand accounts of the trauma of being stuck in the UK asylum system<p><em>Warning: this story contains graphic descriptions of violence. Pseudonyms are used to protect the interviewees’ identities.</em></p>
<p>Angela had already been in the UK as an asylum seeker for nine years and four months when we interviewed her. She was still in a state of limbo, unsure whether asylum would be granted, and her story was disturbing to hear.</p>
<p>Angela told us she had left Nigeria after an appalling terrorist attack. Her father was a high-ranking regional politician, a Christian in a mainly Muslim area. Following a political dispute, the family compound was attacked by members of the militant Islamist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boko_Haram">Boko Haram</a> organisation. Angela told us that her father, her husband and others were killed – and that she was shot at, raped, beaten and left for dead:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I was raped not one, not two, not three … I can’t remember how many times. The shocking thing is the person – I remember his face – who chopped my husband’s legs is still very much alive. He comes on social media almost every day.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Angela is one of 12 asylum seekers and refugees from Africa and the Middle East we interviewed for <a href="https://eprints.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/id/eprint/6557/">a study</a> published in 2020. We wanted to examine not only the experiences that drove them to the UK, but also the psychological effects of their subsequent experiences in the UK’s asylum system. </p>
<p>These accounts bear revisiting amid current widespread concerns about the <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/uks-asylum-backlog-tops-160-000-for-first-time-since-current-records-began-12817733">record numbers</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/apr/01/death-of-detainee-near-heathrow-prompts-immigration-detention-crisis-fears">welfare</a> and <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/inside-the-asylum-hotel-16-months-and-no-end-in-sight-92sw66xq7">experiences</a> of asylum seekers detained in the UK immigration system.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong><em>This article is part of Conversation Insights</em></strong>
<br><em>The Insights team generates <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218">long-form journalism</a> derived from interdisciplinary research. The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Like all the women and men we spoke to, Angela now lives in West Yorkshire. A decade after the attack on her home in Nigeria, she told us she was still having regular flashbacks and experiencing severe trauma. She probably wouldn’t have survived the attack without the help of an elderly couple from a nearby village, who initially cared for her. But incredibly, this wasn’t the end of her ordeal. </p>
<p>The couple contacted their daughter in Lagos and arranged for Angela to travel there, where they thought it would be safer. But when she had medical treatment in the city, members of a Boko Haram cell became aware of her presence and attacked the hospital. She escaped unharmed – but when the elderly couple’s daughter collected her, the car was shot at and their daughter was killed. Angela told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I had to pretend I was dead as well because there was blood all over the car. I think that’s when they stopped shooting, because they thought I was dead.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As she talked, Angela pointed to a scar on her calf caused by one of the bullets. It was one of many scars all over her body that offered graphic evidence of her traumatic experiences in Nigeria. Despite this, when a friend of her father’s arranged a UK visa for her, she was only thinking in terms of a temporary stay:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I didn’t seek asylum at first because it didn’t even cross my head. I never thought I’d end up living in the UK.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Taken into detention</h2>
<p>Once she reached the UK, Angela hoped her suffering would be over. For the next ten years, she lived in a variety of detention centres, hostels and shared houses in different towns and cities around the UK. For most of this time, she survived on food vouchers and the help of charities and refugee support organisations.</p>
<p>Asylum seekers currently receive a maximum <a href="https://www.refugee-action.org.uk/asylum-support-inflation/#:%7E:text=On%2021%20December%202022%2C%20the,the%20legal%20obligation%20to%20be%20'%E2%80%A6">allowance</a> of £45 per week, compared with £77 for those on unemployment benefit. If asylum seekers live in accommodation that provides food (such as a hotel), this <a href="https://fullfact.org/immigration/hotel-asylum-seekers/">drops to</a> to £8.24 per week to cover clothes, non-prescription medication and travel.</p>
<p>Angela was sometimes unable to find a solicitor, so had to represent herself at court hearings and appeals. But since her cousin in Nigeria was a barrister and her mother had a law degree, she adapted to this role quickly – describing how her encounters in court “brought out the boldness, the lioness in me”. She recalled telling one judge:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I had a beautiful life in Nigeria and it’s not something I would ever [give up] in my wildest dreams … For the Home Office representative to grate me down to rock bottom – I will not take it … I won’t come here and start fabricating lies because I want to stay in the United Kingdom.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A few months before we spoke, after almost a decade in the asylum system, Angela was served with a deportation notice and redetained. She told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>That was worse than the first time because there was a very hopeless situation. I had no case anymore. All my appeals, everything, court hearing, everything, had been dismissed, refused.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Angela was desperate, aware of the danger she would face on her return to Nigeria. A friend advised her to contact <a href="https://medicaljustice.org.uk/what-we-do/">Medical Justice</a>, a charity that supports victims of torture in immigration detention. It found her a lawyer who made a last-minute legal intervention – and she was reprieved:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>My ticket was supposed to be for the 25th of May, and it was cancelled on the 24th – ten o’clock in the night … I just ran to the room and rolled on the floor like I was going crazy. It was such a shock.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Victims of torture</h2>
<p>We didn’t seek out traumatised individuals for our research, nor people who had been subject to torture. Yet all 12 who we interviewed described highly traumatic experiences before coming to the UK, including several accounts of torture. Given the sensitivity of their cases, our interviews were all conducted under the condition of strict anonymity.</p>
<p>Gloria had been living in the UK for three years – the shortest time of all our study’s participants – having arrived from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a country in the grip of civil war and conflict for decades. Gloria described how her home was attacked by an armed group who abducted both her and her brother. He was killed; she was raped and tortured.</p>
<p>Gloria was vague about how she had arrived in the UK, telling us: “I was brought here by someone … I had tortures and then someone helped me to flee and come to here.”</p>
<p>She hoped she had reached a safe haven but was put straight into detention, despite her traumatised state. Like Angela, the multiple scars on her body bore witness to the torture she had experienced. Yet she told us in her halting English:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Detention is not just detention – it is prison … It’s like you’re a criminal, but I am not a criminal. I am in trouble. I am sick but I go in the prison … In the detention, I never ate. I was just crying [and I thought:] “It’s better maybe they kill me even here.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Gloria’s account came soon after a <a href="https://www.freedomfromtorture.org/what-we-do/asylum-and-rights/decision-making/proving-torture/report-proving-torture">report by Freedom From Torture</a> found that the Home Office would sometimes reject the evidence of scars from torture on the grounds that these might be self-inflicted wounds. This changed in 2019 when the <a href="https://ukhumanrightsblog.com/2019/03/15/self-inflicted-torture-by-proxy-inherently-unlikely/">UK Supreme Court declared</a> that self-inflicted torture was “inherently unlikely”.</p>
<p>A supportive solicitor fought for Gloria’s release from detention, and she was moved to a hostel in Leeds, then one in Wakefield. Her solicitor organised an appeal for asylum, but it was rejected after a few months.</p>
<p>Gloria told us she was then coerced into signing a form agreeing to her deportation after being denied an interpreter – despite <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules/immigration-rules-part-11-asylum">immigration rules</a> stating that interpreters are available to all asylum seekers, free of charge, whenever necessary. Her claim of coercion is in line with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/feb/02/border-staff-asylum-seekers-whistleblower">historical allegations</a> made of some Home Office officials. Refugee organisations also highlighted to us other cases of asylum seekers reporting that they had been tricked or forced into signing <a href="https://www.gov.uk/return-home-voluntarily">“voluntary return” forms</a>.</p>
<p>Gloria told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I was not able to understand or to speak English well. I told them there [should] be an interpreter because I’m not going to understand. They said: “No, it’s not the big interview” … Then they give me the papers to sign. They just said: “We need to put your status, that you are Congolese, in your documents.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>When Gloria was finally allowed to read the text translated into French, she realised it related to “travelling documents to take me back and deport me. But they didn’t tell me that. They told me it was for my nationality.”</p>
<p>After this Gloria was taken into detention again, until her solicitor managed to free her and put her in contact with <a href="https://www.freedomfromtorture.org/what-we-do">Freedom From Torture</a>, a charity supporting torture survivors in the UK. It arranged a medical examination including photographs of her scars, which enabled her to make another appeal for asylum which, at the time we spoke, was still ongoing.</p>
<p>Gloria told us she had made a mistake coming to the UK, due to the hostility she encountered from the Home Office and the constant uncertainty, anxiety and stress she experienced in the asylum system. She said she had frequently contemplated suicide, even while out of detention and living in a hostel. Despite the horrors she had suffered in DRC, she told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I thought I come here to find refuge but … I’ve come to find worse problems for me.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>After their suffering, further trauma</h2>
<p>Having come to the UK to escape appalling suffering, all of our interviewees described experiencing further trauma while in the asylum system.</p>
<p>Between them, they highlighted a number of factors, including the protracted nature of the process, the perceived hostility of the Home Office, the traumatic effects of detention, a lack of control over their own lives, and the humiliation and frustration of being unable to work or contribute to UK society while seeking asylum here. (Asylum seekers cannot do paid work while their claims are being considered. They can do voluntary work as long as it does not interfere with their appointments and hearings.)</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519265/original/file-20230404-1198-k992e9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Woman waving in the window of a detention centre" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519265/original/file-20230404-1198-k992e9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519265/original/file-20230404-1198-k992e9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519265/original/file-20230404-1198-k992e9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519265/original/file-20230404-1198-k992e9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519265/original/file-20230404-1198-k992e9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519265/original/file-20230404-1198-k992e9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519265/original/file-20230404-1198-k992e9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A woman inside Yarl’s Wood detention centre in Bedfordshire.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/bedfordshire-uk-08-aug-2015-detainee-351707972">Pete Maclaine/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of the most protracted cases was Joy’s, an asylum seeker from Zimbabwe who had been trapped in the UK system for 14 years when we met her. She was a political activist who came to the UK to escape persecution after fellow activists in Zimbabwe had been arrested, abducted and tortured. She explained: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’m one of the people at the forefront of campaigning against the human rights abuse that are happening in Zimbabwe … We have activists on the ground [there] who have suffered. They’ve been tortured, they’ve been beaten, they’ve been arrested. They are being abducted for voicing [against] what the government is doing.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Joy had left two young children in the care of her parents in Zimbabwe, hoping to return when it was safe. After her initial asylum claim was rejected, the Home Office ended Joy’s financial support and ordered her to move out of her accommodation. Her solicitor appealed the decision while she survived on weekly food parcels from the Red Cross.</p>
<p>In all, she had made four applications for asylum when we met her, all of which were beset by very long delays. In the most recent case, she told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The judge at the judicial review ruled the Home Office had made an error, and that they should go back and have a look at the case again … [But] the Home Office … just sort of copied-and-pasted the same refusal letter again – although this time they said I could appeal to the tribunal.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>When we spoke, Joy was still hoping to return to Zimbabwe and see her children again, but knew the situation was too dangerous. After 14 years, she accepted the uncertainty of her life:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’ve come to a point where I … don’t want to keep on thinking of what if, what if, what if, what if? I will just take it as it comes. And then I will make a decision from there.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Home Office says it aims to process initial claims within six months, but in practice it takes much longer. For example, in November 2022, the <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/latest/news/home-affairs-select-committee-oral-evidence-on-channel-crossings-refugee-council-response/">Home Affairs Select Committee</a> revealed that, of all people who arrived in the UK by boat to claim asylum in 2021, <a href="https://righttoremain.org.uk/what-is-causing-the-huge-home-office-delay-in-processing-asylum-claims/">only 4%</a> had had their claims processed.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519281/original/file-20230404-20-h4sfhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Protesters outside a hotel" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519281/original/file-20230404-20-h4sfhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519281/original/file-20230404-20-h4sfhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519281/original/file-20230404-20-h4sfhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519281/original/file-20230404-20-h4sfhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519281/original/file-20230404-20-h4sfhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519281/original/file-20230404-20-h4sfhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519281/original/file-20230404-20-h4sfhm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protesters outside the Beresford Hotel in Newquay, Cornwall, where around 200 refugees have been staying.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/newquay-cornwall-0225-beresford-hotel-protest-2267945293">J. Mundy/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Sleeping with fear’</h2>
<p>For all our interviewees, the protracted UK asylum process brought a constant sense of uncertainty, and the continual fear of sudden deportation. </p>
<p>Farah, from Iran, described awaiting a decision from the Home Office as “living fear for four years”. Fleeing persecution from the Islamic regime, she had paid for a smuggler to bring her into the UK by plane, along with her 11-year-old daughter.</p>
<p>In the UK, they lived in shared houses and hostels with other asylum seekers and refugees from a variety of countries. Farah said that every so often, Home Office officials would arrive to deport residents. She was constantly afraid that they would be next:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I couldn’t get out of the depression it made for me … I used to open my window to hear if [the immigration authorities] were coming … Imagine every single night, you are sleeping with fear. I was scared to open the door to people. I didn’t have confidence to go out.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But Farah was one of the lucky ones. After four years, her asylum appeal was accepted. In the seven years since then, her daughter has completed a university degree, while she has worked as a teaching assistant and in a variety of voluntary roles – most recently, as an interpreter at her local GP surgery.</p>
<p>Most of our participants expressed a strong desire to contribute to UK society while stuck within the asylum system. They found it intensely frustrating that they were unable to do so, since they weren’t allowed to work. Some are highly educated and professionally successful in their original countries, and were desperate to use their knowledge and expertise. As Farah put it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You need to contribute something … I’m not a parasite person. You know, I wanted to do something.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>According to Anne Burghgraef of <a href="https://www.solace-uk.org.uk/">Solace</a>, a Leeds-based organisation that offers mental health support for refugees and asylum seekers:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>People who come with great knowledge and expertise are forced into years of passivity. There are so many highly skilled people who just need to learn the language properly and adapt to the UK system.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Nevertheless, most of our participants strived to be of service to others within the limited environment of the refugee and asylum seeker community – for example, by volunteering as interpreters or organising social activities. In fact, our research highlighted this as an important coping strategy for our interviewees, to mitigate their ongoing anxiety and trauma.</p>
<h2>A hostile environment</h2>
<p>It is hard to imagine how any of the asylum seekers and refugees we spoke to would have coped – and in some cases, even survived – without the support of national and local organisations such as Solace. </p>
<p>In every case, our interviewees’ initial applications for asylum had been rejected. They quickly learned – either from fellow asylum seekers or legal advisers – that this was common practice, a ploy of deterring even the most valid claims. As another asylum seeker from Nigeria, Ebele, said of her initial rejection:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s part of the process – it’s like they want to stress people … They want [you] to think … that you can go back [home].</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Leon had paid for a trafficker to take him to the UK from Guinea. From an affluent family, he was making a comfortable living as a businessman and owned several shops. However his father, a high-ranking soldier, had a dispute with government officials. Leon described government-sponsored thugs ransacking his shops, stealing his goods, then burning the shops to the ground.</p>
<p>On arrival in the UK, he was taken to a detention centre where he stayed for “three months and 11 days. And it was really bad for me, because I’d never been to jail in my life.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519284/original/file-20230404-14-y8wa7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Aerial view of Manston migrant processing centre in Kent" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519284/original/file-20230404-14-y8wa7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519284/original/file-20230404-14-y8wa7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519284/original/file-20230404-14-y8wa7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519284/original/file-20230404-14-y8wa7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519284/original/file-20230404-14-y8wa7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519284/original/file-20230404-14-y8wa7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519284/original/file-20230404-14-y8wa7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Manston migrant processing centre in Kent was closed after reports of severe overcrowding and the death of a migrant in November 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/migrants-wrapped-blankets-waiting-be-medically-2241997471">Edward Crawford/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After a lawyer helped Leon apply for asylum, he moved to temporary accommodation in Huddersfield and then Leeds. His initial application was processed within six months, and refused. He was instructed to leave his accommodation immediately, but had no money and no other options:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In the winter, the Home Office told me to leave the house. I didn’t have anywhere to go. It was snowing everywhere. I had to go to stay in the park.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Shortly afterwards, Leon was beaten up and had his bag stolen:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[I lost] all my clothes. I didn’t have anything. The same clothes I was wearing. I didn’t have anywhere … I was crying.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Leon sought help from <a href="https://pafras.org.uk/">Pafras</a>, a Leeds-based asylum seekers charity which assigned him a case worker, gave him clothes, and found him temporary accommodation. He told us the Home Office officials that he dealt with had no concept of what life was like in Guinea or any other troubled African country, and couldn’t comprehend the terror he had experienced or would encounter if he returned:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>They think we are fine – that everything’s fine in my country. Anything you tell them, they always say it’s a lie … And you can’t force them to believe you.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Having been a successful businessman in Guinea, Leon – like many of our interviewees – told us he found it humiliating to live on food vouchers, food parcels, clothes donations, and other forms of charity.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The only thing I hate all my life is begging – to beg for something. I work. I always worked … So [if] I stay with you and you’re helping me for some time, I’m having difficulty – because it’s like I’m begging you, or I’m telling you my problem [so you will] help me.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>‘Digging my grave’</h2>
<p>Imani is one of our three interviewees who were eventually granted refugee status – in her case, after six years as an asylum seeker. She had come to the UK from Guinea aged only 13.</p>
<p>After the death of her mother, she said she was treated as a slave by her stepmother and suffered genital mutilation. Her family arranged for her to marry an elderly man, but an old friend of her mother’s helped her to escape and paid for her to be trafficked to the UK.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519290/original/file-20230404-24-t23qv9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Placard lit by candle during night-time protest." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519290/original/file-20230404-24-t23qv9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519290/original/file-20230404-24-t23qv9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519290/original/file-20230404-24-t23qv9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519290/original/file-20230404-24-t23qv9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519290/original/file-20230404-24-t23qv9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519290/original/file-20230404-24-t23qv9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519290/original/file-20230404-24-t23qv9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A vigil in Falmouth, Cornwall, highlights the estimated 200 migrant children that have gone missing from government-approved hotels.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/vigil-around-200-candles-were-placed-2259660651">J. Mundy/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During the six years of her asylum process and despite her young age, Imani said she was faced with constant disbelief and hostility by officials who regularly threatened her with deportation. The Home Office questioned her stated age, and didn’t believe “that my parents can give me to marriage at the age of 13 years to someone who has another wife”.</p>
<p>In her words, the Home Office were “digging my grave without even killing me. It was so difficult.”</p>
<p>The Home Office notes that cases involving <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1140168/Assessing_age_March_2023.pdf">age disputes</a> can be extremely challenging, and that the safety and welfare of children in its care is paramount. In Imani’s case, there was a positive resolution. </p>
<p>Having finally attained refugee status, she was able to secure a paid job as a mental health support worker. She also campaigns against female genital mutilation, organising conferences and speaking in the media. She told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I share my story, to let them know I’m a survivor.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>On suicide watch</h2>
<p>Previous studies have shown that asylum seekers and refugees generally are around ten times more likely to <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15823380/">experience psychiatric disorders</a> than the general population. They have been found to experience high levels of <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19654388/">post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and suicidal ideation</a>.</p>
<p>This was true of all of our participants. Several reported seriously contemplating suicide. Some, including George, an African asylum seeker who had spent 11 years in the UK system when we met him, had attempted to take their life. He told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’ve thought of committing suicide. I was on suicide watch for some time. Twice now, I’ve tried to take my own life.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>George, who is bisexual, described in graphic detail how, as a teenager, he had been designated a “witch” and subjected to severe physical and sexual abuse during rituals. He showed us multiple scars and injuries all over his body, including marks where his fingertips had been cut to draw blood.</p>
<p>After 11 years in the UK, George told us that his case was “still ongoing, and ongoing and ongoing”:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s hard to be living this life of uncertainty. You don’t know what is going to happen. You could just be in the house tonight and they’ll come with their squad, break down your door and get you out. Just like that. You just take the life hour by hour.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Like Gloria, George told us he was experiencing constant flashbacks to his earlier violent trauma:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When I try to sleep, I see faces. Sometimes I hear the voice of my mother – she’s crying sometimes … And I hear the man that abused me – you know, what he was saying to me. And there was this sperm that he rubbed, you know, he put on my face when he was abusing me. That smell never leaves my nostrils.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>More detention and trauma</h2>
<p>Under the government’s controversial <a href="https://theconversation.com/illegal-immigration-bill-does-more-than-push-the-boundaries-of-international-law-201332">illegal migration bill</a>, introduced on March 7 2023, none of the individuals we’ve heard from would have been admitted to the UK. The bill effectively denies asylum to anybody who is not part of an <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1011824/Resettlement_Policy_Guidance_2021.pdf">agreed scheme</a>, no matter how compelling or urgent their case.</p>
<p>If the bill is passed by parliament, anyone who seeks asylum in the UK without being a part of an agreed scheme will either be returned to their home country or shipped to a third-party country, such as <a href="https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/uk-rwanda-asylum-agreement-why-is-it-a-memorandum-of-understanding-and-not-a-treaty/#:%7E:text=On%2014%20April%202022%2C%20the,their%20asylum%20claims%20processed%20there.">Rwanda</a>, without recourse to any form of legal appeal.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-toxic-policy-with-little-returns-lessons-for-the-uk-rwanda-deal-from-australia-and-the-us-201790">'A toxic policy with little returns' – lessons for the UK-Rwanda deal from Australia and the US</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In reality, however, it is doubtful that more than a tiny number of asylum seekers will be shipped anywhere. If enacted, the government’s bill is predicted to lead to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/22/draconian-migration-bill-could-leave-tens-of-thousands-destitute-or-locked-up">more long-term detention</a>. As Peter William Walsh from the <a href="https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/about/">Migration Observatory</a> has <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-governments-plan-to-remove-asylum-seekers-will-be-a-logistical-mess-and-may-not-deter-people-from-coming-to-the-uk-201248">pointed out</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>One strange quirk of the new bill is that it appears to make it harder, not easier, for the government to remove people who are not considered refugees.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Asylum seekers can only be sent back to their home countries if they are deemed safe – but since the new bill doesn’t allow claims to be assessed, there is no way of determining this. This suggests that they would have to be sent to a third-party country.</p>
<p>So far, though, only Rwanda has agreed to serve this role, and is presently only capable of taking 200 people. No one has actually been sent there yet, and it is possible that, due to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/asylum-seekers-appeal-against-deportation-britain-ahead-first-rwanda-flight-2022-06-13/">legal challenges,</a> no one will be. The implication is that most new asylum seekers will be detained indefinitely in the UK, no matter how valid their claims.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn01403/">most recent statistics</a>, the Home Office has a backlog of 166,100 asylum cases, including 101,400 cases awaiting an initial decision, 4,900 awaiting the outcome of an appeal, and around 38,900 cases subject to removal action.</p>
<p>The Home Office acknowledges the asylum system has been under mounting pressure for several years. It states that it is recruiting more decision-makers to help clear the backlog of cases, with a target of employing <a href="https://www.ein.org.uk/news/immigration-minister-says-home-office-aims-have-2500-asylum-caseworkers-place-august-2023">2,500 by September 2023</a>.</p>
<p>However, research by the Refugee Council suggests the government’s new illegal migration bill could mean that, over the next three years, 190,000 more people are “<a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/latest/news/nearly-200000-people-could-be-locked-up-or-forced-into-destitution-new-report-on-asylum-bill-reveals/">locked up or forced into destitution”</a>. This figure – which the Home Office has disputed – includes 45,000 children and even factors in the possibility that 30,000 asylum seekers could be sent to Rwanda. The cost to the British taxpayer is estimated at around £9 billion by the Refugee Council study.</p>
<p>In practice, the government’s new bill may achieve little beyond, in the words of Solace’s Burghgraef: “Exerting unbearable pressure on thousands of already traumatised and extremely stressed sanctuary seekers, putting them at risk of long term entrenched mental health difficulties.”</p>
<p>When some of the issues raised by this article were put to the Home Office, a spokesperson commmented:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have not been able to investigate the individual [anonymised] accusations as we have not received their details. But we recognise many asylum seekers have experienced challenging circumstances when making their way here, which is why we ensure our staff are robustly trained to identify vulnerabilities throughout the process.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The spokesperson added:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The UK has a proud record of providing protection to individuals fleeing persecution, underpinned by a robust framework of safeguards and quality checks to ensure protection is granted to those who genuinely need it.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>‘Tired of everything’</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_of_the_Dead_(novel)">The House of the Dead</a>, the Russian novelist Dostoevsky wrote that “the degree of civilisation in a society can be judged by entering its prisons”. In a similar way, we can judge how civilised a society is by the way it treats asylum seekers and refugees. By this criterion, we are clearly failing.</p>
<p>Our interviews offer a reminder that every asylum seeker or refugee is not a political statistic but an individual with a complex personal history. At a time when some MPs and commentators are attempting to delegitimise the whole concept of seeking asylum – <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/02/priti-patel-urged-to-justify-claim-most-boat-migrants-not-real-refugees">claiming</a> that “most” asylum seekers are either criminals or economic migrants – the stories illustrate that a great many are, in fact, deeply traumatised individuals with extremely poor mental health.</p>
<p>Mariama, from Sierra Leone, was one of the lucky ones whose claim for asylum had been approved when we interviewed her. She had previously struggled to survive in the UK for nine years, spending most of the time “squatting” on the floors and sofas of acquaintances or strangers – who, she told us, often exploited her by requiring her to work for them:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You have to work in houses, cook for them, do everything for them – and during those times you don’t even have your freedom. You’re not free because you are in somebody [else]’s house.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Now that she had refugee status, however, Mariama said she felt relieved and grateful to still be alive – like a survivor at the end of a long war. But she was also quick to point out that many others in the UK’s asylum system are not so fortunate:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’ve heard of asylum seekers who committed suicide – left a note [saying] they shouldn’t blame anybody. [They’re] just tired of everything … So I feel grateful I’m still alive. And I feel grateful that there are still good people out there, who can come to your aid when you need them.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>If you’re struggling with suicidal thoughts, the following services can provide you with support. In the UK and Ireland – call Samaritans UK at 116 123. In the US – call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or IMAlive at 1-800-784-2433. In Australia – call Lifeline Australia at 13 11 14. In other countries – visit IASP or Suicide.org to find a helpline in your country.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>For you: more from our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Insights series</a>:</em></p>
<ul>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/a-toxic-policy-with-little-returns-lessons-for-the-uk-rwanda-deal-from-australia-and-the-us-201790?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">‘A toxic policy with little returns’ – lessons for the UK-Rwanda deal from Australia and the US</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/covid-heroes-left-behind-the-invisible-women-struggling-to-make-ends-meet-198210?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">COVID heroes left behind: the ‘invisible’ women struggling to make ends meet
</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/its-like-being-in-a-warzone-aande-nurses-open-up-about-the-emotional-cost-of-working-on-the-nhs-frontline-194197?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">‘It’s like being in a warzone’ – A&E nurses open up about the emotional cost of working on the NHS frontline</a></em></p></li>
</ul>
<p><em>To hear about new Insights articles, join the hundreds of thousands of people who value The Conversation’s evidence-based news. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/the-daily-newsletter-2?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK"><strong>Subscribe to our newsletter</strong></a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202276/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steve Taylor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. He is the author of DisConnected: The Roots of Human Cruelty and How Connection Can Heal the World (Iff Books).</span></em></p>We wanted to examine not only the experiences that drove asylum seekers to the UK, but also the psychological effects of their experiences in the asylum system.Steve Taylor, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Leeds Beckett UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1982102023-02-02T13:34:45Z2023-02-02T13:34:45ZCOVID heroes left behind: the ‘invisible’ women struggling to make ends meet<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506196/original/file-20230124-26-s0p9pj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=239%2C163%2C6011%2C2397&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/abstract-portrait-red-hair-woman-fashion-2176106403">Iryna Shek/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Kesrewan* holds herself upright and speaks confidently, even though English is her second language. But she admits that her “heart is beating faster”. Talking to us is reminding her of her most recent failed job interview – one of many since she arrived from the Middle East seeking asylum more than 20 years ago.</p>
<p>Kesrewan, now in her 50s, is a pragmatic woman but she grows emotional telling her story. She wishes she knew why her latest interview for a staff job at the information service where she already volunteers has again been unsuccessful. She would like some feedback on what she did wrong, or how to improve.</p>
<p>Aged 30, Kesrewan arrived from the Middle East as a highly qualified woman with experience as a newspaper editor and librarian. Yet despite her best efforts – taking multiple classes, working voluntarily to maintain her skills, helping out in community organisations – she has always struggled to translate this into meaningful work in the UK.</p>
<p>Given her limited language skills and with children to support, once she gained legal status she initially took on any work she could find, such as cleaning and kitchen jobs. She thinks her employers often preferred that she had no English because she could not complain about the conditions. She says she was “too ashamed” to tell family and friends in the UK and back home about her cleaning work.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong><em>This article is part of Conversation Insights</em></strong>
<br><em>The Insights team generates <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218">long-form journalism</a> derived from interdisciplinary research. The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Kesrewan’s story is indicative of most of the 100 women aged 50 and over that we have interviewed for the <a href="https://uncertainfuturesproject.co.uk/">Uncertain Futures project</a>. All live in Greater Manchester, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S027795361930067X">often precariously</a>. Not all are permitted to work in the UK, but those who do typically struggle to find secure, full-time employment. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64441775">New research</a> by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) has found that UK firms and public services are much less open to hiring older workers than their younger peers. Its survey of more than 1,000 managers found that just 42% were “to a large extent” open to hiring people aged between 50 and 64, compared with 74% for those aged 18-34 and 64% for 35 to 49-year-olds.</p>
<p>Our interviewees typically work in kitchens, warehouses, or as cleaners maintaining the environments of offices, schools and high-street stores. Others work in badly paid or voluntary care roles, supporting older people and those with disabilities. Most who do get paid are on zero-hour contracts. Many describe having experienced abuse and discrimination.</p>
<p>Kesrewan now seems resigned to her “life in the shadows” – struggling even to secure the kinds of job that the <a href="https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/press/brexit-exacerbated-labour-shortages-in-the-uk-but-is-not-the-only-cause/">UK desperately needs to fill</a> but which offer little reward and poor conditions. Women like her are largely unseen and their voices usually go unheard – whether because of their lack of English, their employers’ failure to recognise their experiences and skills, or the blind eye that the authorities and general public often seem to turn to them.</p>
<p>“I haven’t done enough jobs – I didn’t have the chance,” she reflects sadly. “Really that’s confusing for me. It wasn’t like me to sit at home and not want to get a job.”</p>
<h2>A ‘watershed moment’</h2>
<p>The COVID pandemic was briefly imagined to be a watershed moment for “invisible workers” in the UK and elsewhere. Jobs that had traditionally been undervalued were now understood to be “essential”. The importance of keeping workspaces clean and germ-free was suddenly appreciated. Carers, nurses, bus drivers and many more put themselves at enormous personal risk to keep people safe and society functioning. Volunteers stepped in to help the vulnerable when statutory support all but collapsed. <a href="https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/article/1745057/low-paid-and-frontline-workers-most-at-risk-of-covid-related-death">Many people died</a> because of the work, paid or unpaid, that they continued to perform.</p>
<p>Löis, who works full-time while also caring for her mother who has dementia, describes the countless attributes required of carers like her:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You have to be kind, patient. You have to be a good planner. You have to be able to pick up the unexpected, mentally, physically. You have to coordinate the services that may or may not help you.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But Löis struggles with the idea that none of this is recognised as a skill, or as experience which is valued by society. When she asks herself what all of this is worth, she replies quietly: “I’m not sure.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505604/original/file-20230120-4431-8l42sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three illlustrations of the same woman, from invisible to visible" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505604/original/file-20230120-4431-8l42sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505604/original/file-20230120-4431-8l42sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=225&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505604/original/file-20230120-4431-8l42sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=225&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505604/original/file-20230120-4431-8l42sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=225&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505604/original/file-20230120-4431-8l42sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505604/original/file-20230120-4431-8l42sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505604/original/file-20230120-4431-8l42sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=283&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/woman-face-side-silhouettes-people-three-2056030445">Hub Design/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For Kesrewan too, it is a source of pain to feel so invisible. While she has helped younger, more inexperienced volunteers to secure paid roles, she feels her age is now an additional factor hindering her own ability to get a job. She has applied five times for a paid role in the information service where she has volunteered for seven years, but has always failed at the interview on the grounds that she does not have “sufficient experience”. She feels sad that discrimination based on age – “coupled with your skin colour, your background, your nationality” – is still so prevalent in recruitment practices.</p>
<p>The cruel irony is that there are now <a href="https://www.cbi.org.uk/media-centre/articles/three-quarters-of-uk-companies-hit-by-labour-shortages-in-last-12-months-cbipertemps/">severe labour shortages</a> across the UK’s care, health and social work sectors, and in some administration and office support activities. Non-British migrant workers are <a href="https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/migrants-in-the-uk-labour-market-an-overview/">over-represented in these sectors</a> but, despite the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64441775">pressing need to fill these roles</a>, they are often non-permanent jobs offering only zero-hour contracts.</p>
<p>The women we meet are keen to work hard in fulfilling roles that support themselves and their families. Some have little understanding or knowledge about retirement and pensions, and many express deep concern about whether they will ever earn enough money to retire. Gemma, 59, says she can see herself “cleaning toilets till I’m 85”, adding:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You’re always scrabbling to pay rent in the private sector – it’s very expensive and precarious. I think I could live on the living allowance [state pension], but I might be living in a treetop in a park to do it.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505602/original/file-20230120-20-egupay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=115%2C23%2C3727%2C1967&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Illustration of an older woman" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505602/original/file-20230120-20-egupay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=115%2C23%2C3727%2C1967&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505602/original/file-20230120-20-egupay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=310&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505602/original/file-20230120-20-egupay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=310&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505602/original/file-20230120-20-egupay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=310&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505602/original/file-20230120-20-egupay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505602/original/file-20230120-20-egupay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505602/original/file-20230120-20-egupay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/black-lives-matter-concept-equality-different-1907211748">Amverlly/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Degrading work</h2>
<p>Many of the women we meet are extremely well qualified, but that hasn’t stopped them experiencing degrading working situations. Azade is 60 and her story is fairly typical.</p>
<p>Qualified with a degree in agriculture from a university in the Middle East and with many years’ experience in gardening and managing farms, Azade arrived in the UK 24 years ago with two little girls – one of whom had been born en route. “Very long travel,” she recalls. “I have my baby on my way as it was a really awkward time.”</p>
<p>Needing to support herself and her children, Azade was only able to work after securing her refugee status, which took two years. She initially sought out work as a tailor but describes the conditions as “slave work – for a very, very small amount of money. But still I had to do it because I am a single mum with two children.”</p>
<p>She went on to study accountancy but has not been able to secure any work as a qualified accountant. Instead she works as an agency interpreter, but describes the unfair power dynamics within this work:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you are late by five minutes, they charge you £25 – [yet] they pay me only £14 for one hour … If you are late by ten minutes, this would be classified as “did not attend” and they charge you £100.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Equally, if a client cancels a video call at the last minute, Azade does not get paid. This is essential work, assisting people to communicate with state and semi-state agencies about their legal situations and health matters. Yet there is little value or respect attributed to the role, as a result of the unstable nature of the agency’s relationship with its employees.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/svnTPLZCGL8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Video made as part of the Uncertain Futures project.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other women describe outright discrimination and racism as a regular part of their work. Much of it goes unreported, let alone addressed.</p>
<p>Murkurata trained as a nurse after arriving from Africa in 2001, where she had worked for more than 20 years as a civil servant. She had expected to continue in a similar line of work here, but says when she arrived here she was “shocked … I got no response. Nothing. Nothing. I don’t think anybody looked at my papers. So I went to nursing and loved it, because I was touched by the people I cared for.”</p>
<p>At the same time, however, Murkurata speaks candidly about being undermined in her role by other nursing staff, including those of a lower rank:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I was the nurse in charge. But the carers, because they are white, they want to tell me what to do with my patients … If I tell them what to do, [another nurse] might tell me that she has been there for years and she knows better. They really, really undermine your intelligence and understanding, you know.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>She also recalls a number of occasions when her patient would ask for a “proper nurse” on seeing that she was black. The managerial support given to her in such circumstances would vary, she says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Some managers were very good, but others would just let this happen. So sometimes you just end up not saying it because it’s pointless. Even if you tell them that’s what they a patient is saying, somebody will always say: “It’s nothing, just brush it off … it’s nothing to talk about.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Murkurata – who is now training to be a church minister – wearily complains that this effectively put the blame on her for such behaviour by patients:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’m giving this person care and I’m the one who is at the receiving end. I don’t deserve that kind of treatment, because I’m trying my best and just a human being, just like anybody else … But whatever goes wrong, they find a black person to blame for it. When we are in the same ward working, if you leave a catheter not emptied because you are white, it’s OK. But if it’s [a black nurse] who leaves it unemptied, everybody in the ward should know it.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505592/original/file-20230120-22-otgus6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Women gathered together in an art gallery" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505592/original/file-20230120-22-otgus6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505592/original/file-20230120-22-otgus6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505592/original/file-20230120-22-otgus6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505592/original/file-20230120-22-otgus6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505592/original/file-20230120-22-otgus6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505592/original/file-20230120-22-otgus6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505592/original/file-20230120-22-otgus6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">All 100 women interviewed for the Uncertain Futures project at Manchester Art Gallery.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andrew Brooks</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Feelings of uselessness</h2>
<p>A November 2022 report by the <a href="https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/anxiety-nation-economic-insecurity-and-mental-distress-2020s-britain">Joseph Rowntree Foundation</a> highlighted the increasing numbers of UK adults who are struggling both financially and with mental health problems. Many of the women we meet fit this demographic: limited financial security for housing and necessities, reduced standard of living, and poor health and wellbeing (which itself can exacerbate poverty).</p>
<p>Just under two-thirds of the women we have interviewed are from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. All are heavily <a href="https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/migrants-in-the-uk-labour-market-an-overview/">over-represented</a> in shift work and non-permanent jobs in the UK. A quarter of UK adults in “deep poverty” are <a href="https://www.runnymedetrust.org/publications/falling-faster-amidst-a-cost-of-living-crisis-poverty-inequality-and-ethnicity-in-the-uk">from minority ethnic populations</a>.</p>
<p>Their lack of financial security may stem from unemployment, poor and precarious working conditions, or a lack of financial provision in retirement. The cost of living crisis – which <a href="https://www.centreforcities.org/blog/northern-cities-hit-harder-by-cost-of-living-crisis/">research shows</a> is being felt harder by people living in the north of England compared with much of the south – is increasing the pressure on them to work for longer (both each day and before retiring), even in very difficult conditions.</p>
<p>Mari, who was in the UK asylum system for five years, describes the feelings of uselessness associated with the inability to secure paid employment – and how this feeling was made worse by the pandemic. Her voice softens and quietens as she echoes: “Long time to stay home, stay home, stay home.”</p>
<p>She fled to the UK from the Middle East without her children because she was facing “great danger” as a newly divorced woman. She had previously worked for more than 20 years in banking, and although she arrived speaking very limited English, was optimistic about the many transferable skills that she could use here.</p>
<p>The reality, she says, has been very different. Throughout her interview she remains stoical as she describes obstacle after obstacle: being refused English lessons after her initial asylum application was declined; spending time in a detention centre and facing potential deportation; “shaking” every time she came into contact with the police; becoming ill and temporarily losing her eyesight to a thyroid disease while waiting so long for her asylum application to be processed.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505612/original/file-20230120-7807-sxmcy9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Display from the Uncertain Futures exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505612/original/file-20230120-7807-sxmcy9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505612/original/file-20230120-7807-sxmcy9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505612/original/file-20230120-7807-sxmcy9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505612/original/file-20230120-7807-sxmcy9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505612/original/file-20230120-7807-sxmcy9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505612/original/file-20230120-7807-sxmcy9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505612/original/file-20230120-7807-sxmcy9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Display from the Uncertain Futures exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andrew Brooks</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mari, who is now in her 60s, has worked hard to overcome all these challenges. She has picked up “street English’” through speaking with friends. Her eyesight recovered and she was granted leave to remain in the UK, but the stress of the limbo she was living in remains with her. Having previously always worked in a respected professional role, she says this period has altered her life completely:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Those five years were very difficult, because they don’t allow any work, just voluntary – no college, no job, no anything. When you can’t go to any job, the first thing is you think you are not useful, you are not able to do anything. This feeling is very bad.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>At one point during her interview, however, Mari becomes quite emotional as she speaks about the voluntary organisation which supported her during this difficult time:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Sorry… My life … All my life, it’s thanks to them.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>She is talking about one of the 90-odd organisations throughout the UK that provide essential support for asylum seekers and refugees. Mari attributes much of her current, more stable situation to this organisation.</p>
<p>With its help, she has managed to take up voluntary roles which make her “feel good” and give her “hope”. She works as a cook for a local charity as well as helping to care for her grandson and older neighbour, who is 97. But she wants to earn her own money and gain the independence that would come from this. She says she will do anything – for example, “packing at home for retail companies, packing clothes.”</p>
<p>But it is not only community organisations that can have a major impact on the lives of undervalued women such as these. Enlightened employers have an important role to play too – one which could also pay dividends for their companies.</p>
<h2>A better future?</h2>
<p>FemmeCapable, 54, embodies the tenacity we see in so many of our interviewees. Struggling with her English and experiencing prejudice in her role as a care assistant – “I faced discrimination a lot” – she retrained herself using every community resource she could find, then established a mobile food business selling barbecued African cuisine. At the same time, she set up a charity supporting women from ethnic backgrounds in her community.</p>
<p>Even when COVID shut down her business, FemmeCapable used her entrepreneurial skills to transform it into a mobile food response team, part-funded by her local council, which provided culturally appropriate food and transport to families in her local area. She was effectively a frontline worker during the pandemic, even though her work was not perceived in this way.</p>
<p>Her enthusiasm, intelligence and drive permeate the interview. She oozes energy to create something and “make it real life”, and to “share it with the public or the world” so it can have lasting value. Yet her nursing contributions have been overshadowed by racist attitudes, and her work in the community has largely gone unrecognised.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505613/original/file-20230120-26-egupay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Uncertain Futures posters outside the Manchester Art Gallery." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505613/original/file-20230120-26-egupay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505613/original/file-20230120-26-egupay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505613/original/file-20230120-26-egupay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505613/original/file-20230120-26-egupay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505613/original/file-20230120-26-egupay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505613/original/file-20230120-26-egupay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505613/original/file-20230120-26-egupay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Uncertain Futures posters outside the Manchester Art Gallery.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andrew Brooks</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>FemmeCapable credits her local <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_for_Voluntary_Service">Council for Voluntary Service</a> for providing all-important support in setting up her business and community organisation, including applying for funding. These services work closely with local councils to help people use their skills and have their contributions recognised – a vital first step in ensuring a better future for older women like FemmeCapable.</p>
<p>However, announcements made in the UK government’s 2022 autumn statement now threaten the <a href="https://www.ncvo.org.uk/news-and-insights/news-index/autumn-statement-budget-2022/#/">existence of these voluntary services</a>. According to the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[They] are on the verge of buckling under the compounding pressures of increased demand, skyrocketing operational costs, eroding income, and challenges recruiting staff and volunteers.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Such pressures are exacerbated by increased energy costs and cuts to public services. In a combined response, the Institute for Government and the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy <a href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/autumn-statement-2022-public-services.pdf">noted</a> that public services “not protected in the autumn statement now face day-to-day spending cuts of 1.2% per year on average over the next two years”.</p>
<h2>A lightbulb moment</h2>
<p>Victoria, 63, migrated to the UK from Africa more than 22 years ago. As her story unfolds during the interview, it shares the trajectory of so many of the other older migrant women we have met: a professional woman spending many years in immigration limbo while volunteering in community organisations to maintain her skills.</p>
<p>She originally came to the UK on a six-month tourist visa, then fell ill with cancer and had to stay for treatment. She applied for an extension to her visa on medical grounds, but the process took over six years to resolve.</p>
<p>Victoria has since attempted to get jobs in banking and finance in the UK, as this is her employment background, but has struggled, she suspects, due to her age and skin colour. She has concerns about retirement due to her fragmented working life, much of which has consisted of zero-hours employment:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I have not worked in this country for long enough. Although I have contributed to a pension, I don’t know if that’s going to be enough to retire on.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>However, her story takes a positive turn when she describes a “lightbulb moment” – when she was at last offered a staff job after years of temporary agency work by an employer who is, in her eyes, “different”. She says this employer treats her “like a person”.</p>
<p>Victoria now works full-time as a homeless support officer for a Manchester housing charity. She says, with evident pride, that her employer “wants a workplace that is equal for everyone”, offering personal development programmes and wellbeing support for staff.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It was such a relief to be acknowledged and have someone appreciating you – I must add that this is a white employer and the majority of the workers are white. You can count people of my colour on one hand out of about 500 … But they have given me an opportunity and, from what I have experienced right from the interview itself, they don’t treat me like I am different. You are just a person in a workplace – that’s how I feel, that’s how they place me.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505600/original/file-20230120-18-mknteq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Art gallery exhibition room" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505600/original/file-20230120-18-mknteq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505600/original/file-20230120-18-mknteq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=267&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505600/original/file-20230120-18-mknteq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=267&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505600/original/file-20230120-18-mknteq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=267&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505600/original/file-20230120-18-mknteq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505600/original/file-20230120-18-mknteq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505600/original/file-20230120-18-mknteq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Uncertain Futures exhibition room, Manchester Art Gallery.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andrew Brooks</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>According to the <a href="https://ageing-better.org.uk/sites/default/files/2018-09/Becoming-age-friendly-employer.pdf">Centre for Ageing Better</a>, there are a multitude of advantages to hiring and retaining older workers – not least, benefiting from their skills, strong work ethic, and experience. They tend to retain business knowledge and networks and, by better matching the profile of customers, can improve services. There are also <a href="https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/b0e8405c-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/b0e8405c-en">established benefits</a> to multigenerational teams, both in terms of productivity and in passing on valuable experience to younger colleagues.</p>
<p>Hearing Victoria’s story is a moment for reflection. She shows us there are ways to break the cycle of invisibility; to help these older women’s voices to be heard and their expertise to be valued. But it requires continued financial support for community organisations, and enlightened employers who recognise the skills and experience of older women.</p>
<p>There is encouraging news from Kesrewan, too. After all those rejection letters from the information service, she has just been offered a part-time job as a welfare adviser and outreach worker at a local charity she volunteered with during the pandemic. She can only work ten hours a week, or she may end up financially worse off due to the strict rules of <a href="https://www.gov.uk/universal-credit/eligibility">Universal Credit</a> – but still expresses joy that at last her skills are being recognised.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This work for me – it’s life, wellbeing, being fit and active. You see that you have something to offer. You see that they value you. It’s not just because you are working and they pay you. It’s what you can do for the community and others.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For Kesrewan, Victoria and, hopefully, more of the women we have met, the veil of invisibility may finally be lifting.</p>
<p><em>All names have been changed to protect the interviewees’ anonymity. They were invited to choose their own pseudonyms.</em></p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>For you: more from our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Insights series</a>:</em></p>
<ul>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/loneliness-loss-and-regret-what-getting-old-really-feels-like-new-study-157731?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Loneliness, loss and regret: what getting old really feels like – new study</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/its-like-being-in-a-warzone-aande-nurses-open-up-about-the-emotional-cost-of-working-on-the-nhs-frontline-194197?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">‘It’s like being in a warzone’ – A&E nurses open up about the emotional cost of working on the NHS frontline</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-a-photograph-uncovered-my-grandmothers-republican-activism-during-the-irish-revolution-189326?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">How a photograph uncovered my grandmother’s republican activism during the Irish revolution</a></em></p></li>
</ul>
<p><em>To hear about new Insights articles, join the hundreds of thousands of people who value The Conversation’s evidence-based news. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/the-daily-newsletter-2?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK"><strong>Subscribe to our newsletter</strong></a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198210/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This project has been partly funded by the Manchester Institute for Collaborative Research on Ageing, Manchester Art Gallery, and the ESRC Festival of Social Science. Both authors are members of the Labour party.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors would like to thank the Uncertain Futures Advisory Group: Akhter Azabany, Erinma Bell, Sally Casey, Atiha Chaudry, Rohina Ghafoor, Marie Greenhalgh, Teodora Ilieva, Tendayi Madzunzu, Jila Mozoun, Elayne Redford, Charity Rutagira, Nadia Siddiqui, Circle Steele, Patricia Williams and Louise Wong.
Thanks also to Suzanne Lacy, who led the participatory art and research project, Ruth Edson at Manchester Art Gallery, and research assistants Tanya Elahi, Lila Nicholson, Amanda Wang, Jess Wild and Robyn Dowlen. And to the 100 women who participated in the research and shared their stories.</span></em></p>Britain is now desperately short of workers in some sectors. Yet our interviews with 100 women aged 50 and over show how hard it is for them to find secure employmentElaine Dewhurst, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of ManchesterSarah Campbell, Senior Lecturer, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1940012022-11-09T16:02:49Z2022-11-09T16:02:49ZManston holding facility: does the UK’s treatment of asylum seekers violate the law?<p>A woman held at the Manston holding facility in Kent is <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/manston-immigration-centre-legal-action-home-secretary-b2216948.html">taking legal action</a> against Home Secretary Suella Braverman. The asylum seeker claims that she was held unlawfully in “egregiously defective conditions” at the centre. Her case is supported by the organisation Detention Action, and another case is being put forward by the charity <a href="https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/charities-threaten-to-sue-government-over-egregiously-defective-migrant-conditio/">Bail for Immigration Detainees</a>.</p>
<p>Braverman has denied <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/oct/31/suella-braverman-says-never-ignored-legal-advice-housing-asylum-seekers">ignoring legal advice</a> about conditions at the centre, which is meant for a maximum of 1,600 people but was holding more than 4,000 and has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/oct/20/diphtheria-outbreak-confirmed-at-asylum-seeker-centre-in-kent">had outbreaks of norovirus, scabies and diphtheria</a>. Braverman has been accused of not making alternative arrangements, such as hotel bookings, to accommodate the additional people.</p>
<p>The Manston facility has become a flashpoint for criticism of the government’s current and past policies, and treatment of asylum seekers. But the situation at Manston is not just dismal, it is a violation of legal requirements in international law, domestic law and the government’s own policies.</p>
<p>Under the Immigration Act 2016, an asylum seeker is normally given <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/offender-management/immigration-bail-accessible-version">immigration bail</a> which permits them to live in the UK until their case is determined. During this period, people are supposed to be accommodated in suitable conditions, <a href="https://england.shelter.org.uk/professional_resources/legal/housing_options/asylum_seekers_accommodation_options/accommodation_for_asylum_seekers">provided by</a> local authorities, registered social landlords (housing associations) and private landlords. They might be briefly kept in a short-term holding facility (such as Manston) before they are transferred to asylum accommodation, but they are not supposed to be in immigration detention. </p>
<p>UK law does not dictate a maximum time limit that people can be detained.
However, detention is only supposed to be used when deportation is imminent, for example if someone’s asylum claim was rejected. The <a href="https://freemovement.org.uk/what-are-the-hardial-singh-principles/">Hardial Singh principles</a>, which stem from a <a href="http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/1983/1.html">1983 detention case</a>, limit the government’s detention powers. Still, people have been found to be detained for weeks, months or even years.</p>
<h2>Short-term holding</h2>
<p>The people at Manston are not meant to be in detention at all. Government <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2018/409">rules</a> state that short-term facilities should only be used for transfers or short holding for a <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2018/409/note">maximum of seven days</a>. Manston is intended to accommodate people for <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-secure-site-for-processing-illegal-migrants">a few days</a>, but some people have been held there for weeks. </p>
<p>The legal action against the Home Office asks Braverman to declare that anyone held at the centre for longer than 24 hours has been unlawfully detained. This is presumably because after 24 hours, people are supposed to be given <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/721583/STHF-rules-operational-guidance-v1.0-EXT.pdf">reasons</a> in writing for their detention. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-uks-asylum-system-is-in-crisis-but-the-government-not-refugees-is-to-blame-193670">The UK's asylum system is in crisis, but the government – not refugees – is to blame</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Additionally, the <a href="https://www.echr.coe.int/documents/convention_eng.pdf">European Convention on Human Rights</a>, part of UK law under the Human Rights Act 1998, says that detention must be proportionate to the objective – such as imminent deportation. In Manston, there are particular concerns about the holding of children, including unaccompanied children, for whom there is a special duty of care under <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2009/11/notes/division/5/4/3">the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009</a>. </p>
<p>Deprivation of liberty must be pre-authorised by a specific provision of law in order to not amount to false imprisonment. In <a href="https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2018-0197.html">a 2019 case</a>, the Supreme Court found the Home Office liable to pay asylum seekers damages for false imprisonment when they were unlawfully detained for periods between five and 16 weeks. In <a href="https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2018-0140.html">another case</a> where an asylum seeker was unlawfully deported, his detention prior to deportation was also held to be unlawful. </p>
<h2>How did we get here?</h2>
<p>The chief inspector of prisons <a href="https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprisons/inspections/short-term-holding-facilities-at-western-jet-foil-lydd-airport-and-manston/">reported on</a> conditions at Manston and two other short-term holding facilities in August. While acknowledging progress had been made since earlier inspections, the report described “significant concerns” about the conditions and length of holding time at the centres.</p>
<p>People are being held for too long, in poor conditions and in large numbers because there is no space to accommodate asylum seekers in regular asylum accommodation. This is because of the massive <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Living-in-Limbo-A-decade-of-delays-in-the-UK-Asylum-system-July-2021.pdf">asylum case backlog</a>, which has been years in the making.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1092487/E02726679_ICIBI_Tug_Haven_and_Western_Jet_Foil_Web_Accessible.pdf">chief inspector of borders and immigration</a> also recently published a report on the government’s inability to handle the increase in small boat crossings, citing the Home Office’s “refusal to transition from an emergency response to what has rapidly become steady state, or business as usual.”</p>
<h2>Small boat arrivals</h2>
<p>Braverman has controversially referred to people arriving on boats <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63475511">as an “invasion”</a>. The <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/uk/3b66c2aa10">1951 Refugee Convention</a> recognises that people fleeing persecution may have to use irregular means in order to escape and claim asylum in another country. At present there is no legal way to travel to the UK for the specific purpose of seeking asylum. The people who risk death during sea crossings are more likely to be fleeing horrific life situations than simply seeking better opportunities. Whether or not they have an asylum claim needs to be assessed through the proper channels.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2022/36/contents">Nationality and Borders Act 2022</a> complicates this by linking the support available for asylum seekers with their mode of entry. A refugee who is <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2022/36/section/12/enacted#:%7E:text=12Differential%20treatment%20of%20refugees&text=(a)a%20refugee%20is%20a,is%20a%20Group%202%20refugee">considered to have entered unlawfully</a> may be restricted in their ability to get long term secure status and may have no recourse to public funds. Their family members may be prevented from joining them or remaining with them in the UK. </p>
<p>The government claims this is to prevent people from being trafficked via unsafe modes of <a href="https://www.parallelparliament.co.uk/bills/2021-22/nationalityandborders/debates">transportation</a>. Indeed, there are reports in the media about many channel crossers being <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/04/albanians-scapegoats-britain-failing-ideological-project-invaders?CMP=share_btn_tw">trafficked from Albania</a> rather than being asylum seekers. If that is true, and presumably not just from Albania, the focus should be on preventing trafficking and on consequences for traffickers – not <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/oct/06/home-secretarys-dangerous-rhetoric-putting-lawyers-at-risk">improperly detaining</a> those who have been trafficked.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/oct/06/home-secretarys-dangerous-rhetoric-putting-lawyers-at-risk">legal liabilities</a> stemming from improper use of detention powers should not be a reason for <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-61782866">offshoring asylum processes</a> to countries like Rwanda. The focus should be on making the process fair and efficient here. Sending people far away only makes their plight less visible than when they are detained in facilities like Manston.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194001/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Professor Devyani Prabhat received funding from ESRC in the past to research British Citizenship. This piece is not connected to that research. </span></em></p>UK law says that detention should only be used when deportation is imminent.Devyani Prabhat, Professor in Law, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1745552022-01-13T16:00:50Z2022-01-13T16:00:50ZAsylum seekers: why UK needs to change how it assesses the age of new arrivals<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440468/original/file-20220112-13-tljvuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=142%2C41%2C5455%2C3953&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/photo-xray-film-human-shoulder-1709523028">Lena Si / Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the first week of January, the Home Office <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/home-office-to-introduce-scientific-methods-for-assessing-the-age-of-asylum-seekers">announced that</a> it would set up a committee to advise on the use of scientific methods – such as x-rays and MRI imaging – to determine the age of asylum seekers. </p>
<p>Age assessment is part of the asylum application process when it is unclear whether the person seeking asylum is over 18. It’s vital to get this right from various perspectives. Children who are mistakenly aged as adults will be placed in adult housing, endangering them and denying them support they are entitled to. Conversely, when adults are wrongly aged as minors, they may be claiming support they are not entitled to. </p>
<p>Methods like medical imaging techniques may provide better age estimates than the UK’s current system, which is based on an assessment by social workers in situations where the person’s age is in question. </p>
<p>And as a diagnostic radiographer, I am familiar with the methods involving medical imaging. As an osteoarchaeologist, I use dating methods like dental development to assess the age of skeletal remains. While assessing the age of living individuals is a slightly different scientific process, these methods provide more accurate results than the UK’s current system.</p>
<h2>Current methods</h2>
<p>There are two main reasons why age assessment may be needed in asylum cases. Either the applicant is obviously a child but lacks documentation to prove it. Or the applicant claims to be a minor (without documentation or with documentation that is suspected to be falsified), which is disputed by those handling the case. </p>
<p>Currently, an initial age validity assessment on arrival <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/assessing-age-instruction">is conducted</a> by Border Agency staff based on a person’s appearance and demeanour. If their age is disputed, social workers conduct an assessment to determine the applicant’s level of maturity. There are several problems with this process, which <a href="https://www.basw.co.uk/system/files/resources/basw_124137-4_0.pdf">has been criticised</a> as too inaccurate, unscientific and biased.</p>
<p>Firstly, these assessments take place without the support of family or anybody known to the potential child. The setting may be unfamiliar and upsetting. Secondly, how someone expresses themselves may not be a good guide to their age, but may be influenced by the experience, past responsibilities (or lack thereof), coping behaviours and past traumas. Children may appear more demure (hence younger) or more resilient (hence older) than their actual age. </p>
<p>Lastly, officials may be assessing the age of children from a variety of foreign countries, with limited understanding of the cultural diversity and responsibilities posed on children, and what it means to grow up in a country of conflict. They may also be using translators for communication. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An x-ray of a hand" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440681/original/file-20220113-25-mg5sew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440681/original/file-20220113-25-mg5sew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440681/original/file-20220113-25-mg5sew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440681/original/file-20220113-25-mg5sew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440681/original/file-20220113-25-mg5sew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440681/original/file-20220113-25-mg5sew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440681/original/file-20220113-25-mg5sew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">X-rays of hands and wrists can be used to show skeletal development and determine age.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/xrayed-human-hand-xray-bones-1257889891">LuYago / Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Scientific alternatives</h2>
<p>Most other European countries already use scientific methods to determine the age of asylum seekers. These include analysis of a combination of dental development, skeletal maturity and pubertal changes.</p>
<p>Dental development is done by using a dental x-ray of the person and then comparing the development of the teeth to images of dental development from children of similar age and same sex. This can then provide what is called a “dental age”. Skeletal maturity is assessed using imaging techniques such as x-rays or computer tomography, a combination of several x-ray images of the body part. </p>
<p>Commonly used is a hand and wrist x-ray, which is compared to a series of developmental charts, again from children of known ages and same sex. This method is already used in the UK for clinical purposes as a reliable method for assessing issues such as growth hormone deficiency, or early or delayed puberty. </p>
<p>Some <a href="https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/pdf/6379.pdf">have criticised</a> these methods for exposing children to unnecessary radiation that does not have a medical therapeutic purpose, although MRI imaging can be used instead of methods involving radiation. However, the radiation dose from a dental x-ray or a hand and wrist x-ray is very small. A small dental x-ray will yield the same radiation as we get in a day from our environment. </p>
<p>The last method used in some European countries for child age assessment is pubertal changes. This involves a visual inspection of the sexual maturity of breast development in females or genital development in males and pubic and armpit hair development in both sexes. This method has been criticised for being inappropriate and intrusive as it requires the nudity of the asylum seeker, which may cause psychological distress for a young person in an already vulnerable situation. </p>
<p>For all the scientific methods, there are some disagreements on exactly how accurate these methods are for assessing age. Results have differed depending on which method is tested and who they are tested on. Hopefully, the committee appointed by the Home Office will be able to determine which methods would be most appropriate for those arriving in the UK. </p>
<p>In 2018, the European Asylum Support Office published <a href="https://www.easo.europa.eu/sites/default/files/easo-practical-guide-on-age-assesment-v3-2018.pdf">updated guidelines</a> for member countries. They recommended using the least intrusive and most accurate methods of age assessment, which can vary between cases – for example, you may have better data on dental records for making comparisons with children from a particular age and country or better data for hand and wrist x-rays for others. The guidance also recommends using a combination of methods, and not just an assessment of psychological or developmental maturity.</p>
<p>Establishing an advisory committee for age assessment of asylum seekers in the UK will begin to bring the UK in line with procedures followed by European countries. Incorporating more methods and having the flexibility to choose between methods most applicable to the person being assessed can only be an improvement to current methods.</p>
<p>The committee set up by the Home Office will be led by Professor Dame Sue Black, who I trained under for my degree in forensic anthropology at the University of Dundee. Her experience as a forensic anthropologist is second to none in the UK – her appointment should ensure a confidence in the scientific advice and recommendations deriving from this committee.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174555/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charlotte Primeau does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The use of scientific processes would be a huge improvement on the UK’s current methods for assessing the age of asylum seekers.Charlotte Primeau, Postdoctoral research associate in osteoarchaeology, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1578152021-03-25T17:21:47Z2021-03-25T17:21:47ZWhy Priti Patel’s plans to overhaul the asylum system make no legal sense<p>In what’s been called the most significant overhaul to the asylum system in decades, Home Secretary Priti Patel <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/home-secretarys-statement-on-the-new-plan-for-immigration">has announced</a> a number of controversial plans to deny refugees who use illegal routes to the UK universal rights to asylum. </p>
<p>Under the <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/972472/CCS207_CCS0820091708-001_Sovereign_Borders_FULL_v13__1_.pdf">new plans</a>, the home office has said it will “stop illegal arrivals gaining immediate entry into the asylum system if they have travelled through a safe country – like France”. Other measures include introducing “life sentences for people smugglers” and increasing “the maximum sentence for illegally entering the UK”. </p>
<p>These proposals to reform the asylum system with a focus on <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56500680">“fairness”</a> are legally incoherent. As far back as 1999, former supreme court justice Simon Brown recognised that it was “<a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199899/ldhansrd/vo991018/text/91018-26.htm">well nigh impossible</a>” for asylum seekers to enter the UK lawfully. Under the current rules, it’s not possible to apply for asylum until you arrive at the borders of the state you’re entering. </p>
<p>At that point the international obligation of non-refoulement operates, which means asylum seekers can’t be returned to their country of origin until their claim has been fully assessed and there’s deemed to be no risk of harm. The <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/4ca34be29.pdf">Refugee Convention</a>, ratified by 145 countries, also prohibits turning away refugees who enter illegally, providing they can show they’ve come directly from a place of persecution and there’s good cause for their actions. </p>
<p>It’s very important to understand how “entering illegally” arises. Asylum seekers often struggle to obtain official identity documents from the state they’re being persecuted by, and can’t travel legitimately without such documents. <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1987/24/enacted">Carriers’ liability legislation</a> also penalises airlines, train operators and lorry drivers who assist unauthorised entrants, including asylum seekers. </p>
<p>So because it’s not possible to obtain an asylum visa to enter the UK or any other country, the only option for someone wishing to claim asylum is to engage in deception. Even those who intend to seek asylum after arriving through other legal migration channels (as students or visitors, for example) are defined as “illegal entrants” who have “exercised deception”. This “deceptive” entry then works to damage credibility, undermining asylum claims.</p>
<p>Under the UK’s <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/42/contents">Human Rights Act 1998</a>, the state is obliged to prevent people from being returned to places of torture and inhuman and degrading treatment or cruel and unusual punishment. This obligation is absolute and applies without exception, which means the return of an asylum seeker whose case hasn’t been fully determined would be a clear violation of the Human Rights Act. This is <a href="https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/fre#%7B%22fulltext%22:%5B%22Soering%22%5D,%22itemid%22:%5B%22001-57619%22%5D%7D">well established</a> by the <a href="https://www.asylumlawdatabase.eu/en/content/ecthr-chahal-v-united-kingdom-application-no-2241493-15-november-1996">case law</a> of the European Convention on Human Rights. </p>
<p>The home secretary’s move to disregard that seems to suggest ignorance of the law. Her position also undermines the principle of hospitality that traditionally made the UK appear tolerant and welcoming for people who fear persecution. It’s this same perception that is one of the <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Chance-or-choice-2010.pdf">most common pull factors</a> cited by asylum seekers who arrive in the UK. </p>
<h2>Asylum applications in the UK</h2>
<p>The rationale for the proposals is also questionable. There <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/uk/asylum-in-the-uk.html">hasn’t been</a> a significant increase in asylum applications over the last decade. And the UK receives less applicants than other European states of comparable size, with France and Germany receiving over four times the number of applications according to 2020 statistics compiled by the UNHCR. The number of arrivals in the UK in 2020 was actually <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-year-ending-december-2020/how-many-people-do-we-grant-asylum-or-protection-to">down 18%</a> on the previous year. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-year-ending-june-2019/how-many-people-do-we-grant-asylum-or-protection-to">Around half</a> of all asylum applications lead to protection in the UK. Before this right is recognised, however, many have to appeal, highlighting <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Asylum-Statistics-Feb-2020.pdf">significant problems</a> with first-instance decisions succeeding. </p>
<p>For nationals of some countries, including Iran, Syria, Vietnam and Eritrea, the refugee recognition rate is <a href="https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/migration-to-the-uk-asylum/">well over 70%</a>. There’s a real risk of serious harm if people from these countries are returned (even in the event that return is considered a practical option), which suggests a genuine need for protection.</p>
<h2>A broken system</h2>
<p>The bigger problem is the asylum system itself. Since the Home Office <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/may/07/home-office-abandons-six-month-target-for-asylum-claim-decisions">abandoned its</a> decision-making target of six months for straightforward applications, delays have increased significantly. Many people now wait over a year for their first substantive interview. </p>
<p>I recently <a href="https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/40406/">spoke to a man</a> who had been waiting for a full interview for 18 months and two claimants with fresh asylum claims who had been waiting for over two years for a decision. In those cases, it may be years before a final decision is reached, leaving people unable to work while those with a current asylum claim are expected to survive on <a href="https://www.gov.uk/asylum-support/what-youll-get">£5 a day</a>. </p>
<p>Due to the pandemic, many asylum seekers are also now confined in windowless hotel rooms without any <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jul/03/after-the-glasgow-hotel-attack-a-week-of-shock-anger-and-compassion">cooking facilities</a>, while others are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/16/former-military-barracks-used-to-house-asylum-seekers-to-shut">detained in army barracks</a>. But despite announcements to close the Penally Barracks in Kent after inspectors declared it “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-politics-56418361">run-down and unsuitable</a>” for accommodation, its sister site, which is also in Kent, has been revealed to have packed asylum seekers into dormitories. This has resulted in <a href="https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2021-03-04/revealed-home-office-knew-housing-refugees-at-run-down-barracks-risked-mass-covid-infection">197 cases of COVID-19</a> as well as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4_lVAL-VO8">protests in response</a> to the inhumane conditions.</p>
<p>Last year’s <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/windrush-lessons-learned-review">independent review</a> into the Windrush affair, in which large numbers of Commonwealth citizens were revealed to have been wrongly deported, denied rights or detained by the UK, explains a lot about existing shortfalls in the system. Authored by Wendy Williams, Inspector for Her Majesty’s Inspectorate Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services, the review shed a great deal of light on the hostile environment and its impact on the asylum and immigration system. </p>
<p>In fact, this environment in which settling and remaining in the UK has been madde as difficult as possible for immigrants was identified as the source of <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/home-office-windrush-scandal-wendy-williams-lessons-learned-review-a9578201.html">many flawed</a>) asylum and immigration policies, ranging from deportation of British citizens to refusal of life-saving medical medical treatment. Williams <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/oct/14/windrush-report-author-attacks-home-office-response">observed</a> that there had been <a href="https://workpermit.com/news/wendy-williams-blasts-home-office-windrush-report-response-20201018">no significant change</a> despite the home secretary’s paper commitment to address the damning findings.</p>
<p>This is the reality of the UK’s asylum system that the home secretary is refusing to acknowledge. Although strong reminders of the need to recognise these issues have come from far and wide, including the UNHCR and refugee charities (most of which have expressed <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56500680">complete dismay</a> at Patel’s announcement), it seems the home secretary is adamant about pushing forward. Where evidence of fairness is in all of this remains to be seen.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157815/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helen O'Nions does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The human rights act dictates that the UK is obliged to protect asylum seekers. So why is the home secretary ignoring it?Helen O'Nions, Associate Professor, Nottingham Law School, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1536582021-01-27T15:38:29Z2021-01-27T15:38:29ZNo recourse to public funds: a government policy that traps people in poverty<p>It is, by now, well known that the UK government has, for much of the past decade, been operating what itself terms a “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/oct/10/immigration-bill-theresa-may-hostile-environment">hostile environment</a>” for some migrants. Following various <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/windrush-52562">scandals</a>, the hostile environment has become the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/compliant-environment-turning-ordinary-people-into-border-guards-should-concern-everyone-in-the-uk-107066">compliant environment</a>” but, behind the name, little has changed. </p>
<p>The condition of “no recourse to public funds” is one of the least known elements of the hostile environment but it is also one of the most damaging. Many of those assigned the status of no recourse to public funds have a leave to remain in the UK, but are prevented access to a range of benefits. These include income support, child tax credit, universal credit and housing benefits. Most asylum seekers who apply for immigration status are trapped in this limbo. As undocumented people, they have no right to work. As applicants with a temporary permit to remain, they have no right to social welfare.</p>
<p>Nearly <a href="https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/about-us/how-citizens-advice-works/media/press-releases/citizens-advice-reveals-nearly-14m-have-no-access-to-welfare-safety-net/">1.4 million people</a> are thought to have had no recourse to public funds in the UK in 2020 – including 175,000 children. The system is carefully crafted to relieve the government of any legal obligation to provide resources. As the government cannot legally force these people back to their home countries, it encourages them to leave by making their lives impossible.</p>
<p>Since 2012, the Home Office started putting no recourse to public funds conditions on people in the process of legally settling in the UK. This includes families with British or settled children or partners who have been living and working in the UK for years. </p>
<p>Local authorities can <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1989/41/section/17">provide accommodation</a> to families with children with no recourse to public funds. However, they often have to move around, living in temporary shared council accommodation. This means that children struggle to settle and are forced to move neighbourhood and school, sometimes even more than once a year. Living conditions in council accommodation are also extremely basic and sometimes far from sustainable. It’s not uncommon for a family to have <a href="https://www.praxis.org.uk/news/british-to-be-or-not-to-be-4">to share one bedroom between them</a>. Relying on charities and food banks quickly becomes the only option for families living with no recourse to public funds.</p>
<h2>Enter COVID</h2>
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the government to face the problems caused by its no recourse to public funds policy. Exceptions have had to be made as more and more people have found themselves in this situation. </p>
<p>In May, Labour MP Stephen Timms <a href="https://youtu.be/nvc326V6vMI">addressed prime minister Boris Johnson</a> with the case of a family living in his constituency. Both parents in the family were from Pakistan, had leave to remain in the UK and had worked for years but the father had lost his job because of the pandemic. Their status as having no recourse to public funds had left them unable to pay their rent. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nvc326V6vMI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Boris Johnson appears not to know about no recourse to public funds.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The prime minister appeared to have no idea that a family could be reduced to living this way or what their legal situation would be. He asked why they couldn’t claim universal credit and when he was told that they had no recourse to public funds he seemed taken back. He could only reply that he would look into it. </p>
<p>The incident drew public attention to the policy and pressure quickly mounted on the government to take action. Charities warned of the abrupt rise in homeless migrant workers with no recourse to public funds. Many had been working until lockdown in the hospitality industry, and have struggled to pay rent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jul/08/london-councils-government-suspend-nrpf-immigration-status-coronavirus">since losing their jobs</a>.</p>
<p>During the first and second lockdowns, children with no recourse to public funds were <a href="https://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2020/08/19/the-free-school-meals-loophole-government-policy-leaves-low-income-children-stranded/">excluded</a> from the free school meal voucher scheme. This scheme has now been <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-free-school-meals-guidance/guidance-for-the-temporary-extension-of-free-school-meals-eligibility-to-nrpf-groups">extended</a> to include some but not all of these children – and only on a temporary basis. </p>
<p>After some debate, people with no recourse to public funds have also been <a href="https://homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk/2020/05/05/no-recourse-to-public-funds-nrpf/">included</a> in the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and the Self-Employed Income Support Scheme and let them access statutory sick pay. </p>
<p>People with no recourse to public funds are now able to access these schemes but the confusion surrounding the exceptions has left many unsure of what their rights are. The government is also clear that they are exceptional measures. But no recourse to public funds is not an exceptional rule. It is the law. People trapped by the policy were struggling before the pandemic started and will keep struggling when it will be over.</p>
<p>By including people with no recourse to public funds among those vulnerable groups who have been most affected by COVID-19, the government has implicitly admitted that the system was not working at its roots. By reaching out now, the government is recognising that forcing people to live under no recourse to public funds during the pandemic is unacceptable and it should now consider whether it’s ever acceptable under normal conditions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153658/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Benedetta Zocchi volunteers at PRAXIS for Migrants and Refugees and is completing her PhD at Queen Mary University of London</span></em></p>The hardship of the pandemic has exposed the extreme nature of a policy the prime minister didn’t even appear to know about.Benedetta Zocchi, Leverhulme Trust Doctoral Scholar, Queen Mary University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1137782019-04-08T09:59:34Z2019-04-08T09:59:34ZHow UK asylum system creates perfect conditions for modern slavery and exploitation to thrive<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267384/original/file-20190403-177196-157t9sw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For asylum seekers, trying to find work in another country is very difficult. Not only is there often a language barrier and reams of paperwork, but there is also the fact that government systems <a href="https://discoversociety.org/2013/11/05/586/">can</a> <a href="http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/75949/1/Precarious_Lives_Main_Report_2-7-13.pdf">encourage</a> <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-trafficking-and-slavery/on-freedom-and-immobility-how-states-create-vulne/">exploitation</a>. </p>
<p>Asylum seekers in the UK receive <a href="https://www.gov.uk/asylum-support/what-youll-get">£37.75</a> a week to live on, and most are prohibited from working. But this small amount of money often fails to allow people to meet their <a href="https://precariouslives.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/precarious_lives_main_report_2-7-13.pdf">basic needs</a>. This leads some to search for work to supplement their income. But herein lies the problem, as the only people willing to employ them are those happy to do so illegally. This leaves asylum seekers with no bargaining power to negotiate reasonable pay or working conditions. </p>
<p>Yet the risk of exploitation does not end with a positive asylum decision. Refugees are often dispersed out of London and the south-east to other areas in the UK. The areas of dispersal are determined by the availability of temporary housing. In many cases, this is concentrated <a href="http://www.qub.ac.uk/Research/GRI/mitchell-institute/FileStore/Filetoupload,820233,en.pdf">around areas of economic deprivation</a>. </p>
<p>This risk is exacerbated by the delays in <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/assets/0003/7935/England_s_Forgotten_Refugees_final.pdf">receiving important documents</a> commonly experienced by refugees. And when government support ends but their national insurance numbers have not yet arrived, refugees are vulnerable. They have no income and no way to access welfare or legitimate work. This leaves them with little choice but to seek work with people willing to employ them illegally. </p>
<h2>Modern slavery</h2>
<p>Prime minister Theresa May has vowed to help rid the world of the “<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36934853">barbaric evil</a> of modern slavery”. And the adoption of the <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/30/contents/enacted">Modern Slavery Act in 2015</a> was applauded by many. It helped to position the UK as a global leader in this field. </p>
<p>Under the <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/30/section/1/enacted">Modern Slavery Act</a>, a person commits an offence if they hold someone in slavery or servitude, or require them to perform forced or compulsory labour. The person must also know, or ought to know, that they are doing so.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267385/original/file-20190403-177193-1x3ryld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267385/original/file-20190403-177193-1x3ryld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267385/original/file-20190403-177193-1x3ryld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267385/original/file-20190403-177193-1x3ryld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267385/original/file-20190403-177193-1x3ryld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267385/original/file-20190403-177193-1x3ryld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267385/original/file-20190403-177193-1x3ryld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Labour exploitation can occur anywhere.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But a key flaw of this phrasing is that it rests all the blame at the feet of the perpetrator. This overlooks the exploitative environments that allow such an offence to take place. These environments are, ironically, commonly generated by the government, such as <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/03/25/banning-asylum-seekers-working-morally-economically-unjustifiable/">banning asylum seekers from working</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jan/15/when-escaping-an-abusive-employer-is-a-the-trap-britain-sets-for-filipino-domestic-workers">tying overseas domestic workers to their employers</a>. </p>
<p>In this way, global capitalist pressures on labour markets and the search for cheaper alternative workers can lead to slavery. Since the late 1980s, transnational companies have shifted production to places where labour and inputs are cheapest – often due to a <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-trafficking-and-slavery/harsh-labour-bedrock-of-global-capitalism">lack of unionisation</a>. But the Modern Slavery Act fails to recognise this. Instead, it insists on defining modern slavery as a crime – a relationship between just the victim and the perpetrator.</p>
<h2>Nationalism and modern slavery</h2>
<p>May describes modern slavery as “<a href="https://lens.monash.edu/2018/12/06/1366783/australias-modern-slavery-act-an-explainer">the greatest human rights challenge of our time</a>”. She has encouraged other Commonwealth states to adopt legislation reflecting the Act. This stance links to notions of empire, with the British government seeking to reassert its position as a global power through morally laden legislation such as the Modern Slavery Act. At the same time, it seems to gloss over its own “<a href="http://theconversation.com/hostile-environment-the-uk-governments-draconian-immigration-policy-explained-95460">hostile environment</a>” anti-migration immigration policy.</p>
<p>This undercurrent of <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-trafficking-and-slavery/britons-never-will-be-slaves-rise-of-nationalism-and-modern-slavery/">nationalism</a> influences how people are identified as victims. Newspaper stories emphasise <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6385180/british-bar-touts-magaluf-wages-passports-seized-foreign-office-warning">the exceptionality of British victims</a> – such as “<a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/modern-slavery-uk-british-children-sexual-labour-exploitation-5000-record-nca-a8271331.html">British children forced into modern slavery</a>” – but often overlook migrant victims of slavery. </p>
<p>But the Act also continues to overlook how government policies contribute to environments that allow exploitation to exist. This is a fundamental weakness and the Act should provide avenues to strengthen <a href="https://www.antislaverycommissioner.co.uk/media/1071/ciob_modern_day_slavery_web.pdf">bargaining power and imbalances of labour instead</a>. </p>
<h2>Woven into society</h2>
<p>So although the government claims that it “<a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/30/we-will-lead-the-way-in-defeating-modern-slavery">will lead the way in defeating modern slavery</a>” it is actually generating environments that encourage exploitation. The government’s stubborn position towards migrant domestic workers, for example, prevents them from accessing their rights. They are restricted in changing employers – and a recent case saw a number of migrants questioned over their immigration status as they <a href="https://twitter.com/ATLEUnit/status/1100397912771751936">attended Union meetings</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.labourexploitation.org/sites/default/files/publications/FLEX_Briefing_DisposableWorkers_Final.pdf">two temporary migration programmes</a> suggested for post-Brexit Britain, in agriculture and horticulture, will exacerbate this – as the concerns of businesses continue to trump those of the migrant workers.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-idea-of-modern-slavery-is-used-as-political-click-bait-84877">How the idea of 'modern slavery' is used as political click bait</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In this way, the Act works as a smokescreen. It is employed almost as an avoidance strategy – a method to escape confronting the processes through which exploitation has been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/02/modern-slavery-daily-life-exploitation-goods-services">woven into the very fabric of society</a>.</p>
<p>This demonstrates the government’s superficial commitment to eradicating the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-idea-of-modern-slavery-is-used-as-political-click-bait-84877">scourge of modern slavery</a>”. And illustrates how the overwhelming focus on criminalisation turns attention away from the role the government plays in exploitation. If the government is to move beyond a cursory moral battle, it must acknowledge and seek to redress this.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113778/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alicia Kidd is affiliated with The Humber Modern Slavery Partnership.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth A Faulkner receives funding from Modern Law Review for a forthcoming academic conference </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lorena Arocha receives funding from Research England</span></em></p>Global capitalist pressures on labour markets and the search for cheaper workers can lead to slavery.Alicia Heys, Postdoctoral Researcher of 'Modern Slavery' and human trafficking, University of HullElizabeth A Faulkner, Lecturer in Contemporary Slavery (Law), University of HullLorena Arocha, Lecturer in contemporary slavery - The Wilberforce Institute, University of HullLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1104822019-03-07T13:07:20Z2019-03-07T13:07:20ZMigrants granted bail left trapped in British immigration detention because of nowhere to go<p>Britain’s already Kafkaesque immigration detention system has reached new heights as it’s become clear that migrants who’ve successfully challenged their immigration detention are remaining incarcerated, simply for want of somewhere else to stay. </p>
<p>In 2018, a series of ostensibly obscure tweaks were made to the mechanisms for accessing public accommodation. Before the changes, people held in immigration detention centres who applied for bail but had no friends or family to live with on release, could apply for publicly-funded accommodation. </p>
<p>But under provisions introduced in 2018, the scope for obtaining accommodation shrank dramatically, in a climate of public housing austerity and hostile immigration policy. This has created an appalling situation where people remain trapped in detention despite being given bail. </p>
<p>In a ruling in early February 2019, a high court judge acknowledged that the bail accommodation system had been <a href="https://www.freemovement.org.uk/high-court-bail-accommodation-system-not-working/">shown “not to work”</a>. </p>
<p>Administrative incarceration is supposed to be only used for people whose removal is imminent and where there are strong legal grounds for depriving them of their liberty – not for accommodating people. The consequences of this erosion of the right to liberty are a real cause for concern for anyone who cares about human rights and social exclusion in contemporary Britain.</p>
<h2>Nowhere to go</h2>
<p>Examples of people who have fallen victim to the changes are abundant. One NGO worker detailed the case of Yusuf*, a failed asylum seeker from central Asia with acute mental health issues. After being detained for three months, Yusuf was granted bail by a judge but had no address that he could be released to. When he phoned to apply for Home Office accommodation he was told that, since he was in detention, he didn’t qualify, as he was not currently destitute. </p>
<p>With the NGO worker’s help, Yusuf filled in a long form for asylum support. In this case, the Home Office did officially grant him accommodation, indicating that he was considered a priority because he was recognised as a vulnerable person. But no actual physical address was found for him to be released to until the Home Office was ordered to find one following a successful judicial review – almost three months after he was granted bail. </p>
<p>Although the Home Office is only supposed to detain somebody in immigration detention when it can remove them within a “reasonable period”, it’s unclear what reasonable actually means. There is currently no time limit on immigration detention in the UK, despite <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/dec/05/immigration-minister-caroline-nokes-listens-to-calls-to-end-indefinite-detention">ongoing campaigning</a> to introduce one. Many people <a href="https://barcouncil.org.uk/media/623583/171130_injustice_in_immigration_detention_dr_anna_lindley.pdf">cannot be removed</a> promptly due to legal or logistical barriers – for example if they have an outstanding legal claim to remain in the UK on asylum or other human rights grounds, or if they don’t have the necessary travel documents. </p>
<p>Since 2015, annual government data consistently shows that <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-statistics-year-ending-september-2018/how-many-people-are-detained-or-returned">more than half</a> of those held in immigration detention were eventually released from detention, rather than removed from the UK. Detainees can be released on <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/application-for-secretary-of-state-immigration-bail">immigration bail</a> by the secretary of state or by a judge of what’s called the first tier tribunal. Tribunal bail, despite <a href="https://bailobs.org/resources/">various deficiencies</a>, remains a key route to release. </p>
<p>Tribunal judges <a href="https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/bail-guidance-2018-final.pdf">expect</a> people to have a “stable address” if released on bail, though the person is no longer automatically required to live at the address, as long as they can be reliably contacted there. </p>
<p>A problem arises when bail applicants don’t have friends or family able to host them. Since January 2018, the new bail regime now makes it much harder for people to secure public accommodation from inside detention. Asylum seekers and refused asylum seekers can still apply, using a cumbersome <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/application-for-asylum-support-form-asf1">35-page application form.</a> Currently, such applications are often being refused, with the <a href="http://www.biduk.org/resources/76-bid-briefing-on-post-detention-accommodation">government arguing</a> that people in detention fail the “destitution test”, which requires them to demonstrate that they are destitute or likely to become destitute within 14 days. </p>
<p>In June 2018, the charity Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID) <a href="https://www.biduk.org/resources/76-bid-briefing-on-post-detention-accommodation">reported about</a> the case of an asylum seeker detained for ten months, who had obtained conditional bail with a residence condition. On applying for accommodation, the person was told that in the detention centre: “Your essential living needs, including accommodation, are being met in full.” The person was later told that administrative detention is: “Not dissimilar to emergency accommodation with lack of liberty being the main difference.” </p>
<p>The situation is even worse for those who have not made an asylum application, but may have other family-related human rights claims to remain in the UK. Officially the Home Office has the power to provide accommodation in such cases in <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/733313/immigration-bail-v3.pdf">“exceptional circumstances”</a>, but there is no official application form people can use, and requests are regularly refused. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262231/original/file-20190305-48435-46bawt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262231/original/file-20190305-48435-46bawt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262231/original/file-20190305-48435-46bawt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262231/original/file-20190305-48435-46bawt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262231/original/file-20190305-48435-46bawt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262231/original/file-20190305-48435-46bawt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262231/original/file-20190305-48435-46bawt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Home Office: keeping people detained when they could be released.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lesteph/4955426964/in/photolist-8xTRMW-pNVNS5-8xQQ3x-8v5DYp-qtnrmA-3K5WFe-7qJAdU-2dgN1MG-ei8daE-eidYrC-nUGrS-2ZWdga-atv8v3-bA5HcJ-9DnrDU-VZbCUF-5QSEgq-fxUT-apLuC9-fDR3YV-d4AkW3-5EqiGc-gjTaiq-oZQgdZ-2SSo3m-75dSQv-67sXxZ-d4Akww-2BK8QB-7xLSfH-d4Ak7d-82TVrz-co2KEj-3sSNA5-fDR13e-JebAB-25J9X-jYDAMM-73RPzG-dc1y4Y-cTMHCj-W2yMe8-7KqvKa-7b1tJL-4zcSBW-Je5v9-k3VawD-5JwiXv-5GAc38-fLY5Uf">Steph Gray/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reluctant judges</h2>
<p>Lack of accommodation is turning into a major blockage at bail hearings, as judges are reluctant to release detainees to the streets. A key part of judges’ considerations in bail hearings is to assess whether someone will be able to comply with reporting requirements and work restrictions if they are going to be destitute when released. People who find themselves homeless on release can be <a href="https://www.amnesty.org.uk/node/53550">re-detained</a> for breaking these kinds of bail conditions. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/work-ban-forces-asylum-seekers-into-destitution-but-we-now-have-a-chance-to-change-this-policy-112254">Work ban forces asylum seekers into destitution – but we now have a chance to change this policy</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>At present, many people are granted bail by judges, subject to the Home Office providing accommodation – <a href="https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/bail-guidance-2018-final.pdf">often within 14 days</a>. Yet, the Home Office is <a href="http://www.biduk.org/resources/76-bid-briefing-on-post-detention-accommodation">ignoring these requests</a> from the tribunal, meaning that often the initial grant of bail lapses and the person remains in detention. NGO workers are reporting that this situation even puts some people off applying for release. Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.biduk.org/resources/76-bid-briefing-on-post-detention-accommodation">BID reported</a> cases where the Home Office itself released people onto the streets – sometimes the same people for whom it has opposed bail only days before.</p>
<h2>Long-term damage</h2>
<p>It is hard to get a grasp of the scale of the problem from government statistics. However, the largest detention legal aid solicitors firm, Duncan Lewis, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/asylum-seekers-held-removal-centres-home-office-emergency-housing-a8354731.html">reported</a> clients confronting refusals of accommodation, or delays of months, on a daily basis.</p>
<p>The depth of the harm caused is considerable. These accommodation blockages result in continued incarceration of people who should not be detained, against well-established evidence regarding the devastating, often lifelong <a href="https://www.bma.org.uk/collective-voice/policy-and-research/ethics/health-and-human-rights-in-immigration-detention">damage</a> that indefinite detention can cause to people’s mental and physical health. Many people enter detention sound of mind and leave with mental health issues. </p>
<p>If detention is being prolonged because of lack of accommodation, even for a matter of days, the Home Office may be breaking the law. If detention is not for the purposes of preventing unauthorised entry or effecting removal, it’s incompatible with <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/470593/2015-10-23_Ch55_v19.pdf">Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights</a>. It’s unacceptable that a person is deprived of their right to liberty because of a lack of resources or cumbersome practices on the part of the Home Office or its agencies. For example, in a recent case, the Home Office refused to house a former detainee in the north east for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/27/uk-asylum-seekers-refused-housing-over-social-cohesion-issues.">social cohesion reasons.</a></p>
<p>This nexus between detention and destitution arose from a series of ostensibly obscure tweaks to the immigration bail regime, dismantling earlier provisions which sensibly facilitated successful tribunal bail applicants’ transition from detention into public accommodation. The new provisions attack the human rights of people already made vulnerable by the immigration system, either prolonging detention or forcing them into destitution.</p>
<p><em>*Names have been changed to protect anonymity.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110482/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna Lindley has in the past received funding from the Bar Council of England and Wales and a British Academy/Leverhulme small grant to carry out research on detention-related issues.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clara Della Croce is affiliated with the Bail Observation Project (BOP) as a volunteer.</span></em></p>Changes to immigration rules have left migrants without family and friends in the UK trapped in immigration detention – despite being granted bail.Anna Lindley, Senior Lecturer in Migration, Mobility and Development, SOAS, University of LondonClara Della Croce, Senior Teaching Fellow, SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/989102018-06-27T14:30:40Z2018-06-27T14:30:40ZChildren are sometimes held in immigration detention in the UK too – this must stop<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224898/original/file-20180626-112620-11g2o7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/home">via shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The US policy of separating children from parents entering the country without permission was rightly met with global outrage. After weeks of heart-wrenching stories, images and audio recordings of children crying for their detained parents, Donald Trump finally bowed to pressure and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/us/politics/trump-immigration-children-executive-order.html">signed an executive order</a> to end family separations. </p>
<p>In the UK, while children of immigrant families are not routinely wrenched from parents nor held in <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44518942">cages</a>, many aspects of their treatment are nevertheless inhumane and in breach of international children’s rights law.</p>
<p>The UK ended indefinite detention of immigrant families with children in 2010. But there remain what Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister who was a proponent of the change, described as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/29/proud-ending-child-detention">“exceptional cases and border cases”</a> where families are still detained. This might happen, for example, where their removal from the UK <a href="https://www.childrenslegalcentre.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Detention-May.2017.final_.pdf">is pending</a> and they have not agreed to leave voluntarily. </p>
<h2>When children are detained</h2>
<p>Child detention has decreased significantly, and is supposed to be short-term and a last resort after parents do not leave voluntarily, but it continues. Since the 2010 policy change, <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/child-detention_uk_5b2b5fb0e4b00295f159327d?utm_hp_ref=uk-homepage">1,649 children</a> have been detained with their families, 600 of whom were under 11-years-old. The Migration Observatory <a href="http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/immigration-detention-in-the-uk/">points out that</a> in 2016 alone, 71 children were placed in immigration detention with their families.</p>
<p>The conditions of children’s detention have also recently become much more prison-like. Children’s charity Barnardo’s previously provided services at Cedars, a dedicated facility managed by the private security company G4S to “hold” families before removal from the UK. The Home Office <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2016-07-21/HCWS114/">announced</a> in 2016 that <a href="https://www.wscountytimes.co.uk/news/6million-hardly-used-asylum-detention-centre-to-be-shut-down-1-7501567">Cedars would be closed</a>, with families housed instead in a unit at a general immigration removal centre, Tinsley House, near Gatwick – also run by G4S, but now without Barnardos. G4S has been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/sep/22/head-of-g4s-detention-centre-quits-after-abuse-allegations">subject to claims</a> of abuse and neglect of those in its custody, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-36210923">including children</a>. The environment at Tinsley House has been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/feb/09/g4s-welfare-support-families-children-deportation-gatwick">described</a> by Clegg as “prison-style”. </p>
<p>The 2014 Immigration Act banned the detention of unaccompanied children who have arrived in the UK without a responsible adult for more than 24 hours at any one time, but there are still circumstances where unaccompanied children are detained. For example, they can be detained pending an age assessment where the Home Office believes them to be over 18. Over 900 such assessments <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-statistics-october-to-december-2016/asylum">were carried out in 2016</a>, despite the fact that age assessment tests are <a href="https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/centre-criminology/centreborder-criminologies/blog/2017/02/challenging">notoriously inexact</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/questions-over-age-of-refugee-children-show-how-ugly-britain-has-become-67335">Questions over age of refugee children show how ugly Britain has become</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>There are also extreme cases where children end up in state care because of the detention of their parents for immigration reasons. In March, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/11/home-office-broke-own-rules-family-separations-children-taken-into-care-father-deportation">reports emerged</a> of three children aged eight and below who were taken into the care of the state because of the immigration detention of their father (their mother was overseas at a funeral). This is contrary to the Home Office’s own <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/666491/family_separations.pdf">guidance</a> which states that a child must not be separated from adults for immigration purposes if this means that a child will be taken into care. </p>
<h2>Psychological harm</h2>
<p>The outcry at Trump’s family separation policy has rightly focused on the <a href="http://www.apsa.org/content/apsaa-calls-policy-separate-immigrant-children-cruel-inhumane-and-harmful">profound psychological ramifications</a> for those children affected. If a child is taken into the care of the state because of immigration detention, this creates a disruption of the relationship with their carer with inevitable adverse effects on the child’s well-being. Research carried out in 2013 by the organisation Bail for Immigration Detainees, <a href="http://www.biduk.org/posts/122-first-uk-study-finds-200-children-split-from-parents-in-immigration-detention">found that</a> children who had ended up in care in the UK because of the detention of their parents for immigration reasons had “lost weight, had nightmares, suffered from insomnia, cried frequently and became extremely isolated during their parents’ detention”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224894/original/file-20180626-112604-15vlfk8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224894/original/file-20180626-112604-15vlfk8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224894/original/file-20180626-112604-15vlfk8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224894/original/file-20180626-112604-15vlfk8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224894/original/file-20180626-112604-15vlfk8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224894/original/file-20180626-112604-15vlfk8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224894/original/file-20180626-112604-15vlfk8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A protest against the Trump administration’s family separation policy in the US.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/philadelphia-pausa-june-19-2018-thousands-1118417930?src=5KWXtAY3xUKGHNq7jmvKAA-1-24">Jane Shea/via www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Detention of children is also highly likely to be psychologically harmful. As <a href="https://www.childrenslegalcentre.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Detention-May.2017.final_.pdf">pointed out by</a> Coram Children’s Legal Centre, “(d)epriving a person of their liberty can have a serious and lasting effect on his or her mental health (particularly) in the case of children and young people, including age disputed children.” The Refugee Council therefore calls “for people whose age is in question to be given the benefit of the doubt” until their age has been appropriately verified. </p>
<p>The US holds the notorious title of being the <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/b-shaw-drake/children-migrants-rights_b_8271874.html">only country</a> not to have ratified the <a href="https://www.unicef.org.uk/what-we-do/un-convention-child-rights/">UN Convention on the Rights of the Child</a>. It’s perhaps unsurprising then that the Trump administration’s separation and detention policy sat in stark contrast to the obligations contained in that treaty. The UK, however, is meant to be one of its leading proponents since ratifying the treaty in 1991. A growing body of domestic law, specifically in an <a href="https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2010-0002-judgment.pdf">immigration context</a>, obliges UK immigration authorities to ensure that the best interest of the child should be “a primary consideration” in all matters affecting them, in accordance with the treaty. But children’s best interests are clearly not always given adequate consideration in the UK’s current immigration system.</p>
<p>The groundswell of opposition to Trump’s separation and detention policy is an opportunity to acknowledge where children’s rights are sidelined in the UK too. Children should never be detained nor separated from their parents for immigration purposes, even for a short period of time.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98910/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aoife Daly does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>While the UK does not indefinitely detain children, there are cases where minors are held – and in extreme cases, separated from their parents.Aoife Daly, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/889072017-12-18T13:47:49Z2017-12-18T13:47:49ZInside Britain’s asylum appeal system – what it’s like to challenge the Home Office<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199241/original/file-20171214-27555-18nqnsf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An asylum appeal court: a judge's view.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rebecca Rotter</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>New evidence suggests that where an asylum seeker ends up in Britain could have a significant impact on the likelihood that they are granted refugee protection, regardless of whether their life is in danger. From an Afghan child fleeing forced recruitment into the Taliban, to a Ugandan lesbian fleeing police violence, geography seems to be affecting the justice process that asylum seekers often depend upon for their safety and their lives.</p>
<p>Freedom of Information <a href="https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fuk-42153862&data=02%7C01%7CJennifer_Allsopp%40hotmail.com%7C82bf423d539a47f8664908d5383eafd3%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636476764241048517&sdata=oHe%2FhnDh%2FOCBUGDGyPoQa9Po9jJCzO6QQ1Jtq5WalDc%3D&reserved=0">data</a> obtained by the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme pointed towards the legal “lottery” asylum seekers face depending on where their appeal is heard. The new data related to 36,000 asylum appeals heard between January 2013 and September 2016. It showed asylum seekers were almost twice as likely to win an appeal at Taylor House in Clerkenwell, London (47%) than Belfast (24%) and significantly more likely than in Glasgow (28%).</p>
<p>As part of a <a href="http://geography.exeter.ac.uk/asylumappeals/">recent research project</a>, we observed over 400 asylum appeals and saw firsthand the inconsistencies in the system.</p>
<p>Asylum appeals are a chance for people whose application for refugee status has been rejected by an official in the Home Office to argue before a judge that their case should be reconsidered, or be granted further leave to remain on human rights grounds. The overall success rate on appeal in 2016 was <a href="http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/migration-to-the-uk-asylum/">over 40%</a>, meaning that more than two fifths of the government’s initial refusal decisions that year were found to be wrong – an astonishingly high figure within the strict terms set out in British law. </p>
<p>There are various reasons why London courts might have higher appeal success rates. London offers some of the best quality immigration law firms in the country and has the densest network of such firms. Often London lawyers are not keen to make the long journeys to courts outside London for hearing that can take all day.</p>
<p>The problem is that asylum seekers are not usually offered a choice on where they are housed and if they refuse to move, they could become homeless. For many poor asylum seekers, this means moving away from London, thereby often foregoing their access to the widest network of legal firms in the country. The UK’s politics of austerity have created new <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/anti.12258/abstract">legal aid deserts</a> in many areas outside of London. These disparities in success rates are therefore particularly worrying for poorer asylum seekers. Especially as the chances of winning an asylum claim as an unrepresented appellant are painfully low.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/revealed-legal-advice-for-asylum-seekers-disappearing-due-to-legal-aid-cuts-86897">Revealed: legal advice for asylum seekers disappearing due to legal aid cuts</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>It’s hard to convey the gravity of the appeal hearing from the perspective of those whose lives may depend on it. An unrepresented male asylum seeker from Gambia, interviewed in Cardiff in February 2014, told us: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>This is stressful. I am alone, I have no family, so it is me alone fighting for my life. The Home Office solicitor was saying I was [lying]. But it is all on the judge – let him decide now. I’ve got no solicitor, no one to speak to, so I go and speak [for myself], that’s what I do.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For many the process of the appeal is re-traumatising. In the course of our research we observed appellants sobbing and retching in the toilets. One woman counted rosary beads, another fainted.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199721/original/file-20171218-27568-12sua9x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199721/original/file-20171218-27568-12sua9x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199721/original/file-20171218-27568-12sua9x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199721/original/file-20171218-27568-12sua9x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199721/original/file-20171218-27568-12sua9x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199721/original/file-20171218-27568-12sua9x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199721/original/file-20171218-27568-12sua9x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A rosary left by an appellant in the ladies’ toilet of an appeals court.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jennifer Allsopp</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Inconsistencies</h2>
<p>Many asylum seekers meet their representative just minutes before the hearing. The shortage of consultation rooms means it is common in busy centres to observe asylum seekers recounting traumatic incidents of persecution to their lawyers while squatted in a public, crowded corridor next to a vending machine, sometimes in tears.</p>
<p>The quality of interpreting is also variable, and often also worse in centres outside major urban centres. In one case we observed, an appellant revealed that the interpreter had misinterpreted “I escaped” with “I was scared”. Because of a well-documented “<a href="https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fcommentisfree%2F2015%2Fnov%2F24%2Fgay-asylum-seekers-sexuality-home-office&data=02%7C01%7CJennifer_Allsopp%40hotmail.com%7C82bf423d539a47f8664908d5383eafd3%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636476764241048517&sdata=tfA0%2BONEKNJpdQwT2sr%2F0UgINhVk0q29L6BYQSP7ljM%3D&reserved=0">culture of disbelief</a>” towards asylum applicants on the part of decision-makers, even small mis-translations can put people at risk of being refused asylum on the grounds of poor credibility.</p>
<p>A lack of consistent process from judges both within and across the different centres is particularly concerning. In a <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0964663917703178">recent study</a> we found that female immigration judges tended to be more helpful towards appellants on the day of the hearing in comparison to male judges. Female judges more frequently explained the nature of the proceedings to appellants and reassured them that they could ask if they did not understand anything. Overall, the judges – both men and women – tended to provide less guidance to female appellants. We did observe some judges going beyond the call of duty to make appellants feel comfortable.</p>
<p>When some judges follow best practice and others do not, disparities are compounded. This level of discretion is inappropriate. This could be tackled with measures as simple as developing video introductions to the procedure in a range of languages. Individual judges are currently largely left to their own devices during the hearings, with no audio or video recording of the hearing to hold them to account, and members of the public are rarely present to scrutinise what happens. One judge told us, asylum tribunals are “not the Old Bailey, we don’t need to cross our ‘i’s’ and dot our ‘t’s’”.</p>
<p>Without a proper explanation of the process at the start, many appellants were confused about what was happening in their hearings. An asylum seeker from Iraq told us that he was desperate for the toilet but unaware that he could ask for a break. In the two-hour appeal, he had recounted watching his brother’s murder and was twice reduced to tears. Another appellant had thought that their whole hearing was a practice.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199250/original/file-20171214-27555-wc6m8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199250/original/file-20171214-27555-wc6m8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199250/original/file-20171214-27555-wc6m8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199250/original/file-20171214-27555-wc6m8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199250/original/file-20171214-27555-wc6m8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199250/original/file-20171214-27555-wc6m8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199250/original/file-20171214-27555-wc6m8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Home Office. Asylum decisions made by officials are often overturned on appeal – but it’s a lottery.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">via shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>An unfair situation</h2>
<p>Fatigue, repetition and scheduling are important elements that shape the judges’ behaviour towards the appellants. We found that the helpfulness of judges declined throughout the week. One judge who came to speak to us after a hearing confessed that the “compassion fatigue” of observing multiple hearings per day can be difficult to manage.</p>
<p>Although most judges were attentive to and respectful of appellants, on several occasions, the fatigue manifested itself. We overheard judges requesting legal representatives rush hearings – in one case because they were going on holiday. One judge repeatedly nodded off. Another looked on when a Home Office representative repeatedly swore at the appellant.</p>
<p>Representatives for the Home Office in the hearings we watched often made it difficult for appellants to put their full case forward by using aggressive styles of questioning or letting simple misunderstandings by the appellant go uncorrected. One Home Office presenting officer told us that they used this as a deliberate tactic to make the appellants appear evasive. She explained that in her long career she had never met an asylum seeker she believed, commenting that, “they all lie”. Other Home Office representatives were much more sensitive in their questioning style which allowed the appellants to recount their stories with greater ease.</p>
<p>These newly documented inconsistencies in success rates across tribunals and in procedure undermine faith in the fairness of British law. Failure to do right by those in fear for their lives is shameful and will only result in ever higher appeal rates and a waste of taxpayers’ money.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88907/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Allsopp receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Burridge receives funding from Economic and Social Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Melanie Griffiths receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nick Gill receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (grant number ES/J023426/1) and the European Research Council (project i.d. 677917).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Rotter receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p>Inconsistencies in how judges handle appeal cases and different levels of legal provision around the country can leave asylum seekers facing a lottery.Jennifer Allsopp, PhD Candidate and Researcher in Migration Studies, University of OxfordAndrew Burridge, Associate Research Fellow at the College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of ExeterMelanie Griffiths, Senior Research Associate , University of BristolNick Gill, Professor in Human Geography, University of ExeterRebecca Rotter, Research Fellow, Social Anthropology, The University of EdinburghLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.