Last night BBC Newsnight featured an item on asylum seeker destitution in Glasgow, bringing the issue to a much wider audience than is usually exposed to it.
Getting mainstream coverage made an impact. Twitter was buzzing with news of the programme, our Facebook followers shared the link and signatures for our Stop Destitution petition saw a significant jump.
The programme came at an interesting time as just that morning the Home Affairs committee had published a report, detailing a catalogue of failings by UKBA, most notably that they had a backlog of cases equivalent to the population of Iceland. They system, said the report, was failing.
Difficult existence
The Newsnight piece featured two of the men who were victims of that chaotic system. They spoke eloquently and heart-breakingly of their difficult daily existence – days spend walking the streets, huddled in libraries and nights on a mat on the floor of a basic shelter.
Glasgow City Council’s Matt Kerr talked of the ‘tragedy’ Glasgow was witnessing due to a deliberate policy of destitution enforced by the Home Office.
Morag Gillespie, of Glasgow Caledonian University’s Scottish Poverty Information Unit expressed her shock and outrage as a researcher discovering ‘the most extreme poverty I have ever come across’.
Not perfect
For me though, there were some issues. The piece came straight after a discussion on immigration and the costs and benefits of it to the taxpayer, based on Prime Minister David Cameron’s speech at the weekend about imposing restrictions on housing for migrants.
“Is this country too nice to immigrants?” Emily Maitlis asked before the economic benefits and social impact of immigration were debated at length by various politicians including UKIP’s Nigel Farange. Catrin Nye’s piece about destitution came straight after that.
To my mind asylum isn’t really an immigration issue – it is humanitarian issue. I wished Maitlis had pointed out that unlike many migrants, people seeking asylum come here seeking protection. The issues are different. This is about human rights, not just economics. Jamming the two debates side by side seemed to conflate two very different issues, damaging the discussion of either.
‘Failed’ or ‘refused’?
I had some issues with some of the language used too. The term ‘failed asylum seeker’ was used throughout and while Scottish Refugee Council’s alternative ‘refused asylum seeker’ might appear similar its meaning, it is crucially different – asylum is not a single test that you pass or fail, it’s an on-going process. Many of those who are eventually granted asylum, experience periods of destitution and are in the process of appealing decisions which have been wrongfully made. In this report they are simply falling into “our deportation gap”.
I’d have liked people to know more about the root causes of destitution. Why are so many asylum seekers given the wrong decisions? Why are so many asylum seekers told by the UKBA there is no risk in them returning to countries which the UK government deem too dangerous to deport people to? What are the absurd situations which Dr Scott Blinder described as “Kafkaesque” ?
Impact
Exposing the issue of destitution to more and more people is essential in bringing about a solution to it. And while, for me, the report wasn’t perfect, hopefully it will serve as a meaningful contribution toward this effort.
Make an impact – sign our stop destitution petition and help us change the law.
