The Refugee Legal Centre offers critical legal advice to asylum seekers, says Cameron Timmis

Though numbers arriving at the port have fallen sharply in recent years, Dover remains an important staging post for asylum seekers entering the UK. The port town is home to both the Migrant Helpline charity, which provides assistance and an induction programme for newly arrived asylum seekers, and the southern regional office of the Refugee Legal Centre (RLC), which provides early stage legal advice to those making asylum claims.


Last year, Migrant Helpline assisted nearly 5,000 asylum seekers in Dover – nearly 20% of the total entering Britain. But in the past few years the number entering through the port has ‘plummeted’, according to information manager Julie Larner. This, she says, is a result of the closure of France’s Sangatte refugee centre in 2003, and the decision in February 2004 to move UK immigration border controls across the channel to Calais – a measure intended to make asylum seekers bound for Dover claim refugee status in France, rather than Britain.


Today, says Ms Larner, most clients referred to the centre have arrived in the UK not by ferry, but by aeroplane – usually at one of London’s airports. Currently, the greatest number comes from Iran and Eritrea, with an increasing number from other parts of Africa such as the Democratic Republic of Congo. The composition of nationalities, notes Ms Larner, is a ‘complete change’ from the 1990s, when most asylum seekers arrived from Europe, particularly the Balkans. ‘Now, they don’t even feature,’ she says.


One of six UK agencies funded by the Home Office’s National Asylum Support Service (NASS), Migrant Helpline’s role is to accommodate asylum seekers while their claims are being processed – it has three accommodation centres in Kent and one in Croydon – and to provide an induction service, explaining the UK asylum process and what support is available from NASS.


Clients are referred to Migrant Helpline immediately after their arrival, where they will have received a pre-screening interview from immigration officials to confirm their status and been given temporary admission papers. A small number are held in detention centres. As well as new arrivals, some clients may be ‘in-country’ applicants, meaning they have already been in the UK for some time before making a claim.


The latter cases are more problematic, explains Ms Larner. Under new immigration rules, if asylum seekers do not make their claim within 72 hours after arrival, they may well not be entitled to any financial support from NASS, while their claims are being assessed. Most asylum seekers receive an allowance of £40.22 a week.


While crucial, Migrant Helpline’s role in the asylum system is a fleeting one. Following the introduction of asylum dispersal rules in 2000, asylum seekers who enter in Dover are now relocated to accommodation elsewhere in the UK within a few weeks. To ease the burden on local authorities in areas such as Kent, it is NASS’s policy not to disperse any asylum seekers in the London or south-east region. Most are dispersed to the north-west and north-east.


Another important function of Migrant Helpline is to ensure clients seek legal representation. Clients are either referred to the RLC, which has an office in Dover (as well as London and Leeds), or the Immigration Advisory Service, which has offices nationwide. Both charities offer free legal advice to asylum seekers.


According to Chris Lewis, regional manager of the RLC in Dover, his office currently sees around 80 to 100 new clients a month. Most of the organisation’s work involves advising clients leading up to the initial decision being made on their applications. To do this, the office receives Legal Services Commission (LSC) funding of around £2.5 million a year. This supports a team of 18 full-time caseworkers, all of whom are accredited in accordance with the new LSC rules governing publicly funded immigration work.


The RLC does not advise clients unless an asylum claim has been made. At this point, it interviews clients – typically while in their emergency accommodation – and will then submit their statements to the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND), along with a letter of legal representation and any supporting evidence: medical reports and expert reports, arrest warrants, much of which may have to be translated (it has access to a large pool of freelance interpreters).


With its devolved powers from the LSC, the centre can spend up to 14 hours on each asylum claim. In contrast, says Mr Lewis, organisations without devolved powers can only provide five hours of advice before being required to seek LSC approval for further funding. In the Dover area, only one firm of solicitors, Turner Lawson & Gilbert, is currently understood to offer advice on asylum law.


Previously, says Mr Lewis, asylum applications could take as long as six months to be decided by the directorate. Now, many are decided within a month, and because of this improvement the office has recently started advising clients on appeals.


A popular misconception – one of many in this contentious area – is that most asylum claimants are successful and are granted asylum in the UK. In fact, around 80% fail and will face deportation unless their appeals are successful. The RLC has a 49% success rate on appeals.


Mr Lewis says there are still major flaws in the asylum process, particularly at the initial decision stage. ‘I don’t think the people responsible for making the decision get all the information they need or consider all the information they have… this could be the fault of the legal representative – I’d like to hope it wouldn’t be true of us – or it could be due to the pressure of a target-driven environment.’


The result is, he says, ‘a bit of a lottery’ for asylum seekers, with many winning at the appeal stage who should have had a correct decision in the first place.