Looking for refuge

The introduction of dispersal of asylum seekers aimed to spread the burden across the country.

But it has caused more problems than it has solved, writes Sue Willman

Recently in rural Devon, there was an angry debate in the village paper about the imminent dispersal of asylum seekers to the area.

When Jack Straw introduced the provisions of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 to allow dispersal of asylum seekers to the provinces, he stressed that they would be moved to 'ethnically diverse' areas.

How could that include the South Hams?The Asylum Support (Interim Provisions) Regulations 1999 empower local authorities to transfer the duty for supporting asylum seekers, by agreement with a receiving authority.

The idea was that local authorities like Glasgow, with a ready supply of housing, would bail out overstretched councils in London and Kent.

The Local Government Association (LGA) agreed on a voluntary scheme of dispersal in the hope it would soon be replaced by a statutory one.Initially, the regulations applied to any destitute or homeless asylum seeker who applied for asylum on or after 6 December.

If they asked local authorities in London or the south-east for housing, they could be dispersed under the LGA scheme.

They can only refuse to go in limited circumstances.

These include close relatives or essential medical support in London, or a risk of domestic violence in the dispersal area.

From 3 April, the National Asylum Support Service (NASS) took on the provision of support to destitute asylum seekers who claim asylum on arrival in the UK, but all others remain a local authority responsibility.The scheme's first major hiccup was when 60 asylum seekers dispersed to Glasgow were rushed back to Wandsworth.

Glasgow had realised that accommodation in Scotland was incompatible with a duty to report weekly in London.

Glasgow suspended its participation in the scheme in the wave of press hysteria which followed their return.

According to Jim Laird of the Scotland Regional Consortia: 'Contrary to press reports, they were not sent back for begging.' Although accommodation in Glasgow is now back on stream, 650 units of accommodation had been pledged but only about 100 have materialised.During the first four months of the scheme, only 31 asylum seekers were dispersed to the south-west of England, which had offered to support 300 households.

Phil Gregory, solicitor at west country firm Stephens & Scown, says the firms has geared up its offices in Exeter, Plymouth and St Austell for a rush of new clients.

'We have plenty of legal help case-starts, but so far very few asylum seekers.

Apart from the Kosovans, who have been dispersing themselves, we only have six Afghans and one family of asylum seekers through the dispersal programme.' Asked about the local welcome, he points to the established Chinese community in Plymouth, 'but the further south you go, the less cosmopolitan it gets.

There's a lot of hostility towards asylum seekers in Torquay.

Cornwall has refused to accept any asylum seekers at all'.Further up the M5, Gizella Hughes, immigration worker at Avon & Bristol Law Centre, highlights a crisis in finding enough lawyers for the new arrivals.

'Although asylum seekers are being dispersed here in fairly small numbers, Kosovans are coming under their own steam and it's a real problem finding them immigration advice,' she says.

'There is just no representation available anywhere in Bristol at the moment.

Some have been waiting four or five weeks, but we can't take on any more cases.'There is now a national shortage of immigration lawyers triggered by a combination of dispersal and legal aid contracting, with asylum seekers in Hull telephoning Leeds to get a solicitor.

Katherine Henderson, a solicitor at Newcastle's leading immigration firm, David Gray & Co, says the firm has been approached by two or three local solicitors who could not cope with their immigration work.Back in London, the Refugee Council called an urgent meeting in April to discuss the shortage of immigration lawyers in and out of the capital.

It canvassed the use of volunteers for initial advice.

There was concern about the lack of any fund to cover the cost of travel to lawyers and the 14 days for completion of the initial questionnaire.

According to the Refugee Council's parliamentary liaison officer, Imran Hussain, there are only four solicitors' firms in the whole of Yorkshire with franchises to do immigration advice.

Last month, Hammersmith Law Centre received a call from an asylum seeker in Newcastle begging for his case to be taken on.Solicitor Allison McGarrity, policy adviser at the Legal Services Commission, explains how the LSC is responding to the crisis.

'We allocated an additional 23 million to immigration work on3 April and we are in discussions with ILPA [Immigration Law Practitioners Association] about financing training to provide increased cover...

the Lord Chancellor has increased remuneration rates for immigration work by 8% in London and 5% outside.'In October last year, Attorney-General Lord Williams of Mostyn assured the House of Lords that the secretary of state would consider accommodation to be inappropriate where there was inadequate provision of specialised legal services or language and interpreting facilities.

In the north-east, interpreting is a problem, especially for the Court Service in Leeds, the local centre for immigration appeals.

Ms Henderson had to adjourn a recent case 'because the interpreter wasn't competent to interpret objectively for our Muslim client'.

Struggling with a lack of interpreters and a demand for legal services, she complains: 'I can't meet the Immigration Service's time limit of 14 days to fill in an asylum questionnaire...

things have got so bad that I couldn't take on the case of a recently arrived Iraqi asylum seeker with a strong case, even though I have helped the whole of his family get refugee status over the last seven years.'According to Ms Henderson, although the compulsory dispersal programme has hardly taken off, voluntary dispersal is working.

'Asylum seekers have been wandering up to Newcastle of their own accord since 1998.

They are happy to be in Newcastle.

Most of the problems have arisen from the initial lack of co-ordination.

In the early days, private landlords were meeting asylum seekers off the bus and agencies didn't even know they were here.

The problems arise mostly from lack of thought and lack of resources.' She cites the failure to cover travel costs: 'I have said to the Immigration Service at Dover and at [Heathrow] Terminal 1, "these asylum seekers can't afford to travel back to London for an interview".' Income for a single asylum seeker older than 25 is a maximum of 36.40 per week, most of which is paid in food vouchers.Early in the new year I met my first casualty of the dispersal system, an eight-months' pregnant Eritrean.

Her first language is Tigrigna and she spoke no English.

She had arrived in London to claim asylum a year after her brother (who has recently been granted exceptional leave to stay here).

When she applied to Brent Social Services for help, they offered her a ticket first to Portsmouth and then to Folkstone.

There is no Eritrean community in either town.

Her brother refused, explaining that she needed to live near him for support and to interpret at the hospital because an abnormality had been detected on the foetus.

She had been bounced backwards and forwards between Brent and Hammersmith's Social Service Departments until all support was withdrawn.This was despite the Interim Regulations' reference to Home Office guidance (of 1 December 1999), which states that asylum seekers should not be dispersed in 'exceptional circumstances', such as having a close relative or needing medical care from a London body such as the Medical Foundation for the Victims of Torture.

After a threat of judicial review, Brent council offered her a bed and breakfast room in Paddington.

She later gave birth by Caesarian section.Around 7,000 asylum seekers seek refuge in the UK each month, yet between December and April, only 2,000 were dispersed in total.

Anestimated 1,500 refused an offer of dispersal, and their support was withdrawn.

Anecdotalevidence suggests that in some areas as many as 40% of those who were dispersed made their own way back to the south-east.The Refugee Council monitors public responses to dispersal.

These range from Glasgow where the British National Party distributed anti-asylum seeker leaflets on an estate where they are housed, to councillors in Wakefield welcoming their contribution to the local community as well as the accompanying central government grant.

Meanwhile in Whitstable, Kent, a gang beat up a 15-year-old Kosovan boy.

According to the Refugee Council's Mr Hussain, 'most of the dispersals so far have been to Yorkshire and the north-west, which is encouraging because it means most people are going to places where there are proper support facilities'.The backlog of asylum claims stands at about 103,000.

The main causes of the backlog are a new computer system commissioned by the last government, and the increase in applications after the Kosovan war.

About 54% of asylum seekers were granted permission to remain in the UK in 1999, and success at appeal runs at between 10% and 20%.

As they wait an average of 13 months for a decision, they can now be dispersed on a 'no-choice' basis anywhere in the UK.

The lack of interpreters and legal advice may leave the government vulnerable to Human Rights Act challenges later this year.

That is, from those asylum seekers who can find a lawyer.Sue Willman is a solicitor at Hammersmith & Fulham Law Centre