Duty solicitors are failing to give asylum seeker clients the correct advice on new immigration laws, with many clients serving prison sentences when they could have successfully argued a defence to the charges, the Immigration Law Practitioners Association (ILPA) warned this week.

The association has this week sent out more than 2,000 letters to law firms to combat the misguided belief among criminal practitioners that there is no defence to the charge of failing to produce a passport.


Under sections 2 and 35 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants) Act 2004, which came into force last September, clients may be sentenced to three months' imprisonment if they cannot produce the documents they used for travel.


However, where clients were forced to hand documents back to people smugglers on arrival in the country, under threat or intimidation, they will have a defence under the Act. They will also have a defence if they travelled without documents or are able to produce the false document they used for travel.


Matthew Davies, ILPA executive committee member and partner at London firm Wilson & Co, said: 'Many criminal duty solicitors are under the impression that there is no defence to these charges. We are being contacted by a lot of clients who are now applying to change their plea after being advised to plead guilty. A criminal conviction will have an adverse effect on their asylum application.


'We want to alert criminal practitioners that there are lots of defences. At the moment there are more than 200 asylum seekers sitting in prisons because they entered the country without a passport, and many of them would have a defence.'


Meanwhile London and Essex firm Edwards Duthie is closing its seven-solicitor immigration department. Senior partner David Emmerson said: 'This decision was based on the exclusive fact that - despite being committed to providing immigration advice - we are not able to sustain a profit with the failure to increase rates and the stringent cash limits imposed by the government last year. We remain committed to legal aid in other areas provided they are profitable.'