Casework

Along­side the human­i­tar­ian work of our drop-in a core com­po­nent of the work of PAFRAS is to help peo­ple move out of des­ti­tu­tion through sup­port, advice and advo­cacy. We do not pro­vide legal advice but do help ser­vice users find legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion amongst other things.

Until June 2011 PAFRAS employed two full-time case work­ers who pro­vided an aver­age of nearly two hun­dred advice ses­sions per month. We have recently been forced to reduce staffing due to bud­getary con­straints and are now employ­ing two case­work­ers on part-time contracts.

Explain­ing the Asy­lum System

The asy­lum process in the UK is long and com­pli­cated, fre­quently bewil­der­ing those who come into con­tact with it. While all asy­lum appli­cants are given ori­en­ta­tion shortly after claim­ing asy­lum expe­ri­ence shows that it is very dif­fi­cult for the vast major­ity of peo­ple to prop­erly grasp impor­tant aspects of the sys­tem all in one go. A core func­tion of the work of our case­work­ers is to help ser­vice users to under­stand the sys­tem as fully as pos­si­ble so that they are able to make informed choices.

Find­ing Legal Representation

Stud­ies show that, once they have been refused, des­ti­tute asy­lum seek­ers from across York­shire and Hum­ber tend to grav­i­tate towards Leeds so as to access the deeper net­works of sup­port avail­able here. For most refused asy­lum seek­ers refusal does not mark the end of their attempts to find sanc­tu­ary in this coun­try but rather the begin­ning of a long and dif­fi­cult process of gath­er­ing together what addi­tional evi­dence they can to sup­port fur­ther rep­re­sen­ta­tions for a fresh claim of asylum.

Many asy­lum seek­ers lose their legal help prior to their appeal after hav­ing had their cases judged to have insuf­fi­cient ‘merit’ — a legal term relat­ing to the esti­mated chance of suc­cess — to war­rant legal aid.

The bit­ter irony for many is that, if pre­vi­ously the asy­lum sys­tem was extra­or­di­nar­ily slow (and it remains so for many tens of thou­sands with so-called ‘Legacy’ cases) under the New Asy­lum Model (NAM) intro­duced in March 2007, many deci­sions are reached too quickly, with­out proper con­sid­er­a­tion by Home Office case workers.

This goes beyond the 20–25% of all appeals that, accord­ing to the National Audit Office, are upheld by the Asy­lum & Immi­gra­tion Tri­bunal (some 70% of all refusals are appealed). Few amongst those flee­ing for their lives have the oppor­tu­nity (or the pres­ence of mind) to gather together suf­fi­cient evi­dence to prove their per­se­cu­tion to the UKBA.

The faster NAM process means that many gen­uine refugees are found to be ‘bogus’ by a bureau­cracy that has a cul­ture of dis­trust towards the peo­ple whose lives depend on it. Today asy­lum seek­ers can find them­selves dis­persed, refused, evicted and made home­less within a rel­a­tively short period of time (any­thing from a few months to a year), hav­ing had no time to build up a sup­port struc­ture, learn Eng­lish or famil­iarise them­selves with UK life.

Large num­bers of our ser­vice users come to PAFRAS for help find­ing a solic­i­tor to help them present a fresh claim for asy­lum to the Home Office. Despite the present cli­mate of cut­backs, PAFRAS is still able to assist some des­ti­tute clients in find­ing legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion; thereby enabling them to sub­mit fresh claims and secure Sec­tion 4 Sup­port. Through the receipt of small cash dona­tions, we have also been able to assist clients with the travel costs to meet legal rep­re­sen­ta­tives where they are based out­side of Leeds.

Sub­mit­ting Fur­ther Representations

In Octo­ber 2009 the gov­ern­ment changed the rules for sub­mit­ting new evi­dence to sup­port fresh asy­lum claims. The new rules have caused huge prob­lems for des­ti­tute asy­lum seek­ers try­ing to present their evi­dence and strained the resources of sup­port organisations.

Now any­one whose orig­i­nal claim for asy­lum was made after 4 March 2007 is required to sub­mit fresh evi­dence in per­son at his or her report­ing cen­tre. Those who claimed before then are worst affected. They must now tele­phone the Fur­ther Sub­mis­sions Unit (FSU) in Liv­er­pool, arrange an appoint­ment and then attend in per­son to sub­mit their evi­dence. Many of PAFRAS’s clients fall into this cat­e­gory and a big part of the work done by our case work­ers is con­tact­ing the woe­fully under resourced Fur­ther Sub­mis­sions Unit in Liv­er­pool, arrang­ing appoint­ments for our ser­vice users and then pur­chas­ing tick­ets to enable them to attend. You can read more about the changes to the rules regard­ing fur­ther sub­mis­sions in our May-June 2010 edi­tion of our newsletter.

Work­ing with Expec­tant Mothers

A rel­a­tively high pro­por­tion of PAFRAS’s clients are young and expect­ing moth­ers. While a fam­ily that has chil­dren below the age of eigh­teen before los­ing its asy­lum appli­ca­tion will con­tinue to receive sup­port from the UKBA until their removal from the UK, women who give birth after their claim has already been refused face con­tin­ued destitution.

Brief respite from this is avail­able as women who are seven months preg­nant are allowed to apply for Sec­tion 4 Sup­port and sup­port will con­tinue to receive this sup­port for up to eight weeks after giv­ing birth. An impor­tant part of the work­load of our case work­ers is help­ing des­ti­tute women who are expect­ing chil­dren to access all of the (albeit lim­ited) statu­tory sup­port avail­able to them. This involves liais­ing with social ser­vices, and the NHS and attend­ing com­mon assess­ment frame­work meet­ings in a sup­port­ing capac­ity where requested to by the ser­vice user.

Ref­er­ences

National Audit Office (2009) Man­age­ment of Asy­lum Appli­ca­tions by the UK Bor­der Agency: Report by the Comp­trol­ler and Audi­tor Gen­eral, Lon­don: House of Commons