Home » Posts tagged 'Home Office' (Page 3)
Tag Archives: Home Office
“The Secretary of State [still] doesn’t believe you”
Read this Guardian article: it describes the UK asylum process at its most crucial point (the asylum interview, when individuals are given their main chance to explain why they are seeking asylum). It says that “many asylum interviews are rushed, biased and resolved by ‘cut and paste’ decisions.”
The article contains little that wasn’t known before – but these facts don’t often get publicly aired. The research I did between 2004 and 2009 on the treatment of asylum seekers is now out of date in many ways: it couldn’t have taken into account the upsurge in migration of more recent years, when people struggled across continents, many drowning in the Mediterranean. So to that extent it is out of date. But the story that emerges from this article of how asylum decisions are made today hasn’t changed since I wrote. The treatment of asylum seekers by the Home Office is cynical, ignorant, cruel and shameful. I will focus on just a few of the points raised in the article.
Because of the pressure from Home Office targets (“225 interviews or decision reports a year”), one former caseworker says: “You would have your own stock paragraphs that you put into refusal minutes.” Caseworkers say to themselves, “I’ll just sort of cut and paste the decision I did last week.” This is certainly common practice. But I see it not just as a desperate attempt by the caseworker to “get the job done”, but also as part of the structure of the asylum system. The Home Office gives this cut-and-paste approach official encouragement with its own stockpile of paragraphs which caseworkers are encouraged to use routinely when compiling their reports. So it is not enough for us to find fault with individual caseworkers or for caseworkers to blame themselves. Here is one of the Home Office’s ready-made paragraphs intended to help caseworkers in their task of refusing claims:
Further doubts as to your alleged fear of persecution can be drawn from the fact that you did not leave [COUNTRY] until [DATE]. The Secretary of State holds the view that if your fear of persecution by the [COUNTRY] authorities was genuine you would have left [COUNTRY] at the earliest opportunity and the fact that you did not casts doubt on your credibility.
Of course, many reasons may govern the timing of a refugee‘s departure: the need to find an agent, raise funds to pay the agent (e.g. by selling property), obtain false documents. Even if the journey is through normal channels there will be family concerns which cause delay. Moreover, members of opposition groups committed to political change do not tend to give up their cause easily and may maintain their activism until the last moment. But the cut-and-paste approach discourages any attempt to take these considerations seriously and tends to assume the asylum seeker’s guilt. So an Ethiopian asylum seeker was told that because he had been arrested in January but didn’t leave until May, this delay “detracts from the truthfulness of your claim to be a genuine asylum seeker.”
I met an asylum seeker from Iran who was treated in a similar way. Reza (not his real name) was a member of a political party whose members suffered persecution. After a demonstration in July 2000, during which one of his friends was killed and another went missing, his house was raided by the police and his father-in-law taken in for questioning, Reza and his wife Maryam went into hiding and a senior party member “advised me to get out of Iran if I could”. Even then he hesitated: “I had a family in Iran, I had a lot of property in Iran, I did not want to leave. But I was frightened for my safety.” None of this was unreasonable or slow. In the event he made the arrangements quite quickly – financial and travel arrangements, false passports – and left in September. Unfortunately, none of this impressed his caseworker, who insisted that his departure was tardy: “The Secretary of State holds the view that if your fear of persecution by the Iranian authorities were genuine, you would have left Iran at the earliest opportunity, and the fact that you did not do so casts doubt upon your credibility”, which happens to match exactly the wording of the prepared paragraph from the Home Office stockpile quoted above.
The article mentions transcripts of asylum interviews where “it was evident the caseworker knew very little about the case”, in the context of the pressure to meet the targets, and that was no surprise to me. But pressure to meet targets is not the only worry we should have here: I found that the ignorance of the caseworker often stemmed from Home Office Country Information reports which frequently lacked certain kinds of information entirely or were out of date. Ignorance is a feature of the system. What happens if an asylum seeker claims persecution because of membership of a political party but the party is not mentioned in the Country Report? One caseworker told researchers in 2003:
We need to know whether particular groups or political parties exist, but instead we are told to say that the Secretary of State is not aware of this group so therefore it is unlikely to be of interest to the authorities. But really they have no information on whether the group existed.
This ignorance is then turned into a denial of the asylum seeker’s credibility. A Kurd from Syria was told in his refusal letter:
The basis of your claim is that you fear persecution in Syria because of your political beliefs. You are a member of the Hergirtin. The Secretary of State is not aware that this party actually exists.
Asylum application refused. But, on appeal, the adjudicator discovered that Amnesty International knew of the party’s existence and its long history. Appeal allowed. The Syrian Kurd probably had a good solicitor who had done the necessary research. Not everyone is as lucky by any means and the caseworker (quoted in the article) was right to call the asylum process a “lottery”.
The article says there is a “culture of disrespect” among caseworkers and describes a culture in which jokes are made about asylum applicants, even going so far as to joke about them being tortured. I came across an early example of canteen culture in my research, where an Afghan asylum seeker had clearly been the butt of cynical jokes about his claim, ending in a spoof letter which declared his asylum claim “a pile of pants”. This version of the refusal letter was accidentally sent to his solicitor. According to The Guardian,
Naomi Nicholson, a case worker with the Refugee Legal Centre … had to explain the meaning of the letter to her client … “I was trying to paraphrase the letter starting from the top, but when I got to the fourth paragraph I didn’t know what to say, I was so shocked,” Ms Nicholson said. “I was very embarrassed. It was my country that was saying this to him.” Immigration staff tried to replace the letter with a hurriedly amended one that merely states “the Secretary of State is not satisfied that you have established that you are an Afghan national.”
I could go on, but this is enough. But just to end: anyone who gets frustrated with the sight and sound of Theresa May or Jeremy Hunt answering every question about the NHS with the mantra: “This government has provided more money, more doctors, more nurses, more everything than any previous government …” will understand my frustration at seeing another worn-out phrase near the end of the article: “The UK has a proud history”, says the Home Office, “of providing protection to those who need it.” I have seen and heard this phrase more times than I’ve had hot dinners. It does not reflect the reality of many an asylum seeker’s experience. Neither does the other phrase deployed by Her Majesty’s civil servants in the name, and with the permission, of their Secretaries of State: all asylum claims are “dealt with on their merits”. That was the title of my thesis when I finished my research. But I put a question mark at the end.
Read the article.
Flora’s story III
The developments in Flora’s case come thick and fast, but make no sense. On 28 January the Home Office informed Flora’s legal adviser that her biometric data had to be taken and noted that her case was complicated because of human rights issues. On the face of it, this admission of human rights complications might have been a cause for hope. However, on 29 January, the Home Office wrote that her application for leave to remain had failed and that she had until 12 February to arrange her departure. This seemed to ignore, not only the previous letter, but also the fact that she was already detained at Yarl’s Wood.
Next, the 12 February deadline was also ignored, as the first attempt to deport Flora was made at Yarl’s Wood, also on 29 January. The attempt foundered because Flora had not been given the required 72 hours’ notice of deportation.
On 2 February, an officer from the security firm Serco informed Flora that a flight had been booked for her for the following day, 3 Feb. The officer asked her if she was “comfortable” about going to “administration” to talk to them about it. She replied that she again hadn’t been given the 72 hours’ notice, and refused to go. 2 hours later two male Serco officers came to her room and made the same request. She refused.
3 February came and went. Flora still has no idea what will happen next. Flora is depressed and on medication as a result of her experience of domestic violence which triggered this series of events. After speaking to her on the phone, her partner Keith says: “I am now concerned that her mental health may be affected by her detention as she sounds as though she is becoming more depressed.”
Flora should be released from detention immediately. If you have not already signed the petition (https://www.change.org/petitions/theresa-may-secretary-of-state-release-wanyu-flora-yennyuy-from-detention) please do so. It would also be helpful, considering Flora’s urgent need to get out of Yarl’s Wood, if you could also email Home Secretary Theresa May (mayt@parliament.uk) and Immigration Minister Mark Harper: (ministerforimmigration@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk)
Targets, incentives and the right to asylum
Read this paragraph from today’s Guardian:
“Home Office officials are being rewarded with shopping vouchers for helping to ensure failed asylum seekers lose their attempt to stay in the country, new documents reveal. Official guidance obtained by the Guardian shows that immigration staff have been set a target of winning 70% of tribunal cases in which asylum seekers are appealing against government decisions that they should leave the UK. These officers are also incentivised by Home Office reward schemes involving gift vouchers, cash bonuses and extra holidays, according to information received under freedom of information laws.”
Targets, then. So whatever happened to the constant Home Office mantra, “All asylum cases are dealt with on their merits”? Nothing, is the answer – because that was never the way the asylum system worked, and this investigation confirms what many of us have been saying for a long time.
And incentives? To be clear:
“Asked what rewards were given to presenting officers and case owners in the fields of asylum and immigration, the department confirmed high-street vouchers for £25 or £50 were handed out to ‘recognise positive performance over a short period of time’, including when officers ‘exceed their casework targets for a month’.”
Those of you who remember my neighbour Moh will wonder if his caseworker had “exceeded his or her casework targets for a month” when Moh was deported after 12 years in the UK. “Terribly inefficient, of course, to take so long, but let’s not quibble, Mr Jones, you’re the one who got there in the end. Here’s a £50 shopping voucher and some extra holiday time. Keep up the good work.”
Such schemes will increase the number of asylum seekers fitted up by their caseworkers. The following is taken from my PhD research, finished in 2010. FS3 is the codename I gave an Iranian refugee I interviewed. The quotes are from the official transcript of his interview and from the caseworker’s official letter refusing asylum. The letter sought to discredit FS3’s account of the experiences which led him to flee Iran. None of that letter stands up to scrutiny, but I simply mention here the passages referring to FS3’s detention in Iran. First, the caseworker writes:
“You say that whilst in detention, you were beaten, kicked, and ‘a crazy person’ burnt you with a cigarette. It is unclear whether the crazy person was a member of the security forces, or another detainee.”
It is perfectly clear in FS3’s account that the “crazy person” was a member of the security forces. FS3 is telling a story of abuse by the authorities in the detention centre. It is clear that when he claimed that he had been “beaten up, kicked” and that “my face was swollen, with blood pouring out of my nose”[1] he was accusing the staff at the centre. When he claimed that he heard “the cry of others who were being tortured in other rooms”[2] and that he “could hear the cry and begging of other prisoners”[3] he meant they were being tortured by the guards. When he said, “At the end a crazy person came and put his cigarette out on my hand”,[4] the culprit was clearly a guard, not “another detainee”.
Secondly, the caseworker writes[5]:
“When I asked you how often you were beaten Q36 , initially you were unable to say, then you responded ‘4-5 hours’, during which [you] sustained a bloody nose, and eye.”
The impression given is of a man who was uncertain of the story he wanted to tell, finally inventing an implausible four- to five-hour beating, from which he emerged with no more than “a bloody nose, and eye”. However, virtually none of the interviewer’s account is true. FS3 was perfectly able to answer question 36, and he did so immediately and appropriately – but it was not the question the caseworker claimed it to be:
“Q36: Could you tell me how you were beaten?
A: Some of them punched me and some kicked me. My nose was bleeding and my eye. At the end a crazy person came and put his cigarette out on my hand …”[6]
FS3 then replied immediately to question 37, which did ask how often he had been beaten. However, he did not claim to have been beaten for four or five hours but to have been beaten four or five times:
“Q37: Could you tell me how often you were beaten?
A: I did not know from the day to the night. I would say about four or five times but I don’t know if it was day or night.”[7]
FS3 was refused asylum in the first instance on the basis of the caseworker’s inaccurate account of this and other aspects of his asylum claim, but he was eventually given leave to remain on appeal. Yet the inaccuracies in the caseworker’s account were still not noticed by the court. But, luckily for FS3, leave to remain was granted on other grounds.
These fit-ups seem bound to increase if targets and incentives remain part of the picture. The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has guidance for caseworkers. It contains this interesting paragraph:
“… while the burden of proof in principle rests on the applicant, the duty to ascertain and evaluate all the relevant facts is shared between the applicant and the examiner. Indeed, in some cases, it may be for the examiner to use all the means at his disposal to produce the necessary evidence in support of the application.”
Fat chance of that if targets, shopping vouchers and extra holidays rule the day.
The full Guardian article can be read here:
Flora’s story
Those of you who remember Moh (see the Dangerous Detention and Dangerous Job pages here) may be interested to hear about Flora. Flora lives in Hull. Her case is different to Moh’s case because she is not an asylum seeker, and her claim to stay is on other grounds, as I explain below.
What happened
Flora Yennyuy has applied for leave to appeal to the Immigration Appeals Tribunal against the Home Office’s refusal to allow her to remain in the UK. An acquaintance from Cameroon, who is an EU citizen, sent her the names of several universities to apply to in 2006. She came to the UK from Cameroon in 2007 to do a Master’s degree at the University of Hull, and she received her MSc in Environmental Technology in 2010. They later began a relationship in the UK and he supported her application for a work visa based on their relationship. The visa was due to expire in 2016.
However, the relationship broke down after he subjected her to abuse, violence and, finally, sexual assault. He then informed the Home Office that the relationship had broken down and the Home Office revoked her work visa. They did not inform her of this. She went to Germany to visit friends and on her return she was refused entry and placed in Yarl’s Wood immigration detention centre. She was released on bail after 5 months, and she had a tribunal hearing in October 2013. The tribunal judge rejected her appeal, saying that she did not believe her claim of domestic violence and that Article 8 (the right to family life) of the human rights legislation was not engaged. If her claim of domestic violence had been accepted she believes she would have been given indefinite leave to remain. She has now made an application for leave to appeal to the Upper Tier of the Tribunal.
Flora’s history in Hull
Flora came to the UK as a student and then to work. She has made herself part of the community in Hull in a number of different ways: she has worked at the Open Doors Project at Princes Avenue Methodist Church since 2008 as a volunteer, where she campaigned in schools together with other volunteers to break the stigma attached to refugees and asylum seekers. She has also worked in Humber All Nations Alliance (HANA), the Mental Health Action Group (MHAG), the Refugee Council, The Haven Project, Positive Assets and Environmail Hull. She has also been an active member in the Catholic Compliancy. In terms of jobs she has worked as a Health Care Assistant under NHS-Hull and HICA, a sales assistant in the British Heart Foundation and as a factory operative at Greencore cake and dessert factory. The relationship she was in broke down through no fault of her own and she should not be punished for it. She wishes to stay and continue building her life in the UK.
Flora’s application is supported by Unite the Union’s community branch in Hull.
Bob Mouncer's blog 