The Welsh Refugee Council, knowing
of our concerns, began contacting us with requests for emergency
food supplies and things like winter coats. We formed a Destitute
Asylum Seekers Support Committee, and began a weekly food collection,
with members signing up Sunday by Sunday for what was needed,
and others making weekly financial contributions to the “Hardship
Fund.” The church office would ring around Cardiff’s
charity shops to get the best deals on winter coats, and then
send the church warden out to pick up a carload.
We sent two, sometimes three church members to attend monthly
meetings of the Refugee Council’s volunteer network. One
of our members, Themba Moyo from Zimbabwe, has just recently received
the Welsh Volunteer of the Year award, largely for his work with
the Refugee Council. In recent months the church office began
receiving requests for emergency shelter for homeless asylum seekers
sleeping rough, and members responded by sharing responsibility
for hospitality—two or three nights in each member’s
home—and through this effort we developed deeper relationships
with some of the refugee communities, particularly with the Sudanese
community.
In the meantime, more and more programs are being shut down.
A hotel that had served as a temporary residence for asylum seekers
closed in the spring for lack of funding, as did a program for
training and supporting mentors for the refugee community. The
growing crisis for asylum seekers is in large part a result of
the UK government’s ever tightening rules governing asylum
applications. Now, for instance, people can’t be accompanied
by a lawyer at the all-important first Home Office interview;
only five hours of legal aid-funded time are available to lawyers
at each stage of the application; no new evidence can be presented
at an appeal, despite the difficulty in almost all cases of getting
corroborating evidence from the home country; and there are plans
to limit applications to just one appeal. Asylum seekers are the
only people, under UK law, who are not allowed to be supported
in court by a friend, and restrictions on what lawyers are entitled
to represent them have increased, so that there is now a severe
shortage of qualified solicitors, and this, combined with the
tighter time-frame (often less than five days) for appeals and
the complexity of many of the cases, ensures a high instance of
miscarriage of justice.
Asylum applications can fail for a large number of reasons, not
least the media-driven pressure to increase the number of refusals
and returns. And most failed asylum seekers cannot be deported,
because their countries are far too dangerous for them. The UK
would be in breach of international law. However, having failed
in their application, they are not entitled to receive any state
aid—no housing, and no benefits, and of course they are
not permitted to work. They are abandoned to destitution.
So the legal advice project we are running at City Church is
a way around the system by enlisting a community of volunteers
supporting lawyers willing to give their time pro bono. Just last
night we didn’t get through the long queue of those who
had come seeking advice until after eleven o’clock. And
then Marieke and I had to get up at four in the morning so the
lawyer who had been staying with us could catch the train to London
for an early morning meeting. This is hard work. But let me tell
you, I’m sleeping well at night. I like to think we are
making a difference in a divided world.
Peace,
Tom and Marieke Arthur
The 2005 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p.
174 |
