What will life soon look like for asylum seekers and migrants in the UK? Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has announced a string of changes to the immigration system. A report by the National Audit Office says government attempts to tackle the crisis have simply increased costs and shifted pressures, with many people seeking asylum in limbo for “extended periods”.
Significantly reducing the level of Channel crossings is seen by Labour as essential to the party being able to beat Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and winning re-election. Overall, the number of people applying for refugee status in the UK has almost trebled since the start of 2020. Settlement, also known as indefinite leave to remain (ILR), allows someone to live in the UK and work without restrictions, and access public services. Currently, most holders of work and family visas can apply for settlement after five years, but under the proposed changes, the standard wait could be 10 years.
Here, a lawyer who specialises in immigration, and has particular expertise in asylum and trafficking claims, tells The i Paper about the reality for refugees in Britain.
Refugees in the UK are now scared about the future
Since the Government announcements, our old clients are coming back and saying they’re fearful about whether they’ll be able to stay and settle. Some were months away from having their settled status but may now have to wait 15 years because of the Government’s new policy. They were told they’d be able to stay – they were almost at the end of that part of the administrative process – and now that’s thrown up into the air.
There was a big cohort of Syrian refugees – and not all of them came irregularly, some came through a resettlement program that the government had signed up to – and after five years, they submitted applications for ILR, which is a key step towards applying for British citizenship. Their kids are at school here, they’ve set up a life to some degree, they’re contributing to the community, with an eye to becoming citizens. And now all of that is now unclear, and we as lawyers can’t advise people on what to do next, as everything is on hold.
Many who have been here for a while, especially those with children, are likely to try to stay in the UK which means protracted uncertainty. I don’t think the Government’s ideas will have an impact on deterring smuggling gangs, who are likely to find ways to communicate only the messages they want to communicate to the migrants.
There are lots of misconceptions about asylum seekers
One of the main myths is that people come here and aren’t willing to integrate, and they don’t like this country. That’s not what I hear from my clients who want to gain settled status. Even those who have horrendous stories about delays [many wait far longer than six months for a decision about their asylum claim, due to a backlog of cases], and how difficult it’s been to deal with the authorities, and to access services, are genuinely interested in becoming part of the country.
They often love football, they contribute to the local communities and they often volunteer and do what they can while they’re not allowed to work. I see people with senior qualifications waiting for the right to work – people with experience in teaching, social workers, people who had professional jobs in their home countries, those who were involved in politics, former civil servants and their families from Afghanistan, and many others.
The most harrowing cases involve families being separated
These are extremely difficult. For years, close relatives of adults with refugee status were able to apply for the refugee family reunion visa, but the Government has put this on hold. So now, refugees in the UK can’t reunite with family members who have been left behind. I’ve got clients who are Sudanese or Eritrean. They have just about got themselves to a position where they’re studying or working, including for the NHS or as a carer, and now they can’t bring over their child or sibling who is 10 years old and back home in a camp in Sudan, or living with strangers in Uganda.
They will have come here in the first place out of necessity, thinking that if they do everything by the book, then their family can join them. Those [cases] are especially hard – when someone feels they did things exactly as they’re supposed to, and are working for our health service or looking after an elderly person, and they wanted to make a contribution – but they still don’t get to reunite with their children or other family.
For many of those families, for example the ones from Sudan or Eritrea, there is no safe “home” to return to. They often have family members stuck in precarious and uncertain circumstances in countries in the region such as Egypt, Kenya or Uganda, with insecure immigration status, at the mercy of exploitative landlords and with children not getting an education. It’s heartbreaking for the family members in the UK who try to provide funding for family members but cannot ensure their safety and stability.
Asylum hotels aren’t like an all-inclusive week in Tenerife
People often think that migrants come here because they want to live in asylum hotels and have an easy life. But it really isn’t anything resembling a package holiday deal. You’re in a small space, you might be sharing spaces with a stranger who doesn’t speak your language, and there’s no kitchen, so meals are brought to you.
Children might be sharing with much older people, and you’re going to be doing everything in this one room. The hotels will usually be far away from NGOs, or any mental health support. Many clients tell me they find it very difficult to sleep.
Immigration lawyers are becoming targets for the far right
There have been physical and verbal attacks and threats on social media towards NGOs and solicitors. There has, for some time, been a lot of negative stuff written about us in the press, and on social media. This year, though, has been particularly difficult in our field of work, especially for my junior colleagues who have said that they didn’t expect that it would be so hard and lonely to be doing this work.
It’s infuriating, because there is so much misreporting. It’s not usual for lawyers to talk about their cases, and it’s not their job to do so, but we are working with individuals, with their own life stories and hardships. When you hear these individual stories, the headlines seem so far removed from the reality.
There is very little messaging from the Government that those working with asylum seekers shouldn’t be targeted or threatened by far-right groups – it is essentially being allowed to happen. Immigration judges really feel the pressure of their decisions being misreported, and then being seen as traitors. We have been talking more about security and having our names taken off public registers.
In my work we do have to be very robust, but it is hard to be called a traitor. There’s this idea in some of the press that we are leftie fat cats, but we aren’t amazingly well paid given the hours we put into cases, and we do a lot of work pro bono. We have to deal with clients who are often really unwell, and there isn’t any support. I am a lawyer but I often feel just as much that I am a social worker.
The work can be life-changing
One of my favourite moments is when refugee siblings reunite, because one of them is in the UK, and one is yet to come. I have had videos of them hugging at the airport, and it’s amazing. The other thing that keeps me going in this work is when I see people at their British citizenship ceremony. It genuinely means so much to people to go through it. Sometimes years down the line, I’ll get a message about the client and hear that they’ve been granted citizenship, and it isn’t just an end to the process of naturalisation, it has real emotional significance.
That’s not underscored enough, that these are not just people chancing it, they want a sense of belonging. If you, or anyone you know, wants to know what these cases are really like, you can go to tribunals or public hearings, and you can go and watch and see what the actual human stories are behind the numbers. I see first hand every day how difficult it is for someone who doesn’t speak the language, and hasn’t grown up here to go through the asylum system. It’s very difficult to imagine the things my clients go through.
