Besides informing decision-makers, the project reaches out to civil societies to give visibility to this group of migrants, who are often living outside the radar of public attention.

One of the key activities of the project is to collect testimonies from unreturnable migrants in Europe that can be used as advocacy tools at the national and the EU level in order to increase momentum amongst policy-makers to limit detention and find solutions for unreturnable migrants. These personal stories thus “put a face to the story”.

The website and report are both available here

Migration and productivity: employer’s practices, public attitudes and statistical evidence found three main reason for why employers recruit from outside the UK; when the supply of skills from inside the UK is deficient, to recruit high skill levels which are in short supply across the globe and top complement the skills of non-migrants.

This stands in contrast to the perceptions of focus group members who tended to focus on low skilled, low paid Eastern European migrants when think in migrant workers in the UK.

Employers believed that the varied experiences and perspectives that migrants can bring to the workplace create teams with different strengths and more dynamic workplaces. This was accepted by the focus group participants. However, both participants and employees could see the challenges of diverse teams, particularly when language skills and cultural understanding were deficient, but these were considered to be minor issues with positives of diverse teams outweighing the bad.

An analysis of data between 1997 and 2007 found that the number of migrants working in more sectors has increased, and migrants tend to be more educated and work longer hours than those born in the UK. There was a positive correlation between the share of migrants in region-sectors and labour productivity as well as a significant positive association between increases in the employment of migrants and labour productivity.

Read the full report online here.

Many of the people we work with are entirely destitute at the time of their first contact with us and, increasingly, struggle to access even the few rights and entitlements to which they are entitled. We have seen the situation become increasingly worse since the introduction of Legal Aid cuts in April, and were not in the least surprised to read that the Government’s strategy in terms of migration policy is actually to develop a “hostile environment”, in which irregular migrants struggle to access the most basic services.

The consequences of this this strategy on the lives of vulnerable migrants can be well illustrated by the example of Carlos and his family. Carlos approached us for help to regularise his family’s status, telling us that he and his wife, Angela, had arrived from Jamaica some 12 years ago, overstaying on a visa. Their son, Anton, had been born just over 9 years on and, having been diagnosed with autism early in his childhood, Carlos and Angela had felt unable to return home, fearing that Anton’s special needs would not be met within the Jamaican education system.

The family had paid a succession of private solicitors thousands of pounds to help regularise their status, to no avail. At the time of their first contact with us, they were renting a room within private accommodation, with mother, father and Anton all sharing a double bed. Their situation was rendered yet more precarious by the fact that the rent was paid by Angela taking employment as a care worker, without permission to work.

We were able to identify legal arguments to help regularise the family’s status: case law says that the families of children resident in the UK for longer than 7 years and well integrated into the UK’s education system should be granted status. Moreover, Anton will become eligible for registration as a British citizen in just 2 months’ time when he turns 10, having spent the entirety of his life to date in the UK.

We advised Carlos that his family was eligible for support from the Local Authority under section 17 of the Children Act while the new application was under preparation and consideration by the Home Office, and went about making a referral for support to the appropriate Authority. Which is where things became complicated.

Rather than working in partnership with us in Anton’s best interests as a child in need, the Local Authority has adopted an essentially adversarial approach; the social worker responsible for conducting the assessment actually told Carlos that he had been instructed by his manager to “disregard” information we had shared about representations we were in the process of submitting to the Home Office, and both the social worker and his manager have refused to communicate with us in any way about the family’s case.

On completion of the assessment, Carlos was presented with a letter advising him that his family was not eligible for support under section 17 of the Children Act, and should take immediate steps to ‘return’ to Jamaica- a country which Anton has never so much as set foot in. We consider the decision to be illegal, and referred Carlos and his family on to Birmingham Law Centre, with whom we had a close partnership working relationship, to initiate a Judicial Review proceedings. Nightmarishly, within a fortnight of our referral, the Law Centre closed down. We have now, thankfully, identified alternative legal representation for the family, and hope that appropriate support will be put in place within a matter of days.

In the meantime, however, the family is living on food parcels we are able to provide, and experiencing harassment from the family of the landlord in whose property they are still sharing a room, not having been able to pay the rent since Angela stopped working on our advice.

Consultations are underway to make the environment in the UK even more “hostile” for families in this situation: it is proposed to give yet more power to the landlord exploiting this family’s vulnerable situation, and to restrict their access to healthcare. The reception afforded to this family by the agencies they approach for support is that they are “illegal immigrants”, who should simply leave the UK. And yet, the law actually says that this family- and particularly Anton, who knows no other life- does have a right to settlement in the UK.

Which raises a question: what use are rights if no one can help you to access them? Carlos and his family are not eligible for legal aid to help regularise their immigration status. The Local Authority responsible for the family’s basic accommodation and support needs refuses to take responsibility. Agencies which can help are so precariously funded that, like Birmingham Law Centre, they go out of business in the process of initiating legal challenges.

ASIRT, for now, is here to fight for the rights of people denied them in a “hostile environment”. But the decimation of advice and advocacy organisations across the country makes it likely that thousands of families in similar situations will be left in precarious “limbo” situations for many years to come.

Securing a place at school

RMC helped Rose to complete the application for admitting her child to the local school. It is very difficult for clients with little English to discriminate between very important and less important letters from their child’s school. Rose always brought any letters from school to RMC so that she was sure she fully understood them. When she moved to another area we assisted her in appealing the decision not to allow the child to move schools. Later Rose was obliged to return to her home country for several months and we contacted Wolverhampton Council to inform them that the child would be travelling abroad for a protracted period of time.

An adviser and client at the RMC (not those featured in these case studies

Housing debt while coping with cancer

Our client was in debt with rent arrears with their housing provider, who had contracted out collection of the debt to a private company. The debt collectors demanded that he pay each month over the phone. Because the client couldn’t speak English he had to travel to RMC each time so that an adviser could assist him.

He found the journey difficult as he was suffering from cancer, and he was being harassed by the debt collectors knocking on his door continuously. An RMC adviser contacted housing provider and explained the situation. The housing provider retrieved the debt collection from the private company and allowed the client to make payments by direct debit, which was a huge relief to the client.

Help with getting citizenship

It is gratifying for Refugee and Migrant Centre staff when their clients finally achieve British citizenship, often at the end of a long, in distance and time, and tortuous journey.

Amira who was from Iraq was applying for citizenship for herself and her children. They all gained citizenship except for one son who was refused because had not passed the ‘Life in the UK’ test.

He was advised by the Government to take the test as soon as possible. However the test costs nearly £900 which the family did not have. RMC were able to support Amira and her son in appealing the decision and after a long wait his citizenship was granted.

Mental health related work

Nora was from Kuwait and seeking asylum in the UK. She had recognised mental health issues and needed support with many aspects of her life.

An advisor at the RMC

RMC made GP, hospital and physiotherapy appointments for her and organised interpreting services at these appointments. We located a dentist and booked her an appointment with ‘Healthy Minds’, a psychological therapies service for people who are experiencing common mental health problems such as depression, anxiety and stress.

We liaised with her housing provider re the condition of her accommodation and assisted her in applying for courses at a local college. When she failed to hear the outcome of her asylum interview we contacted her solicitor and the local MP who pursued her case. RMC advisers translated and explained every response so that Nora could better cope with her stressful situation.

Nora is still visiting RMC regularly and still hasn’t heard the outcome of her asylum claim.

Untangling the web

At stressful times clients need practical and emotional support from the RMC. They may visit weekly or even daily to access that support.

Benita is a refugee from Cameroon. Her children were taken into the care of the local authority following an allegation made by one of her children. RMC made an appointment with a solicitor to represent Benita and accompanied her to her first appointment to help with interpreting.

Benita’s restricted understanding of English meant that she needed RMC to help her to comprehend any communications from social services, the police and her solicitor. Sometimes her access visits to her children were cancelled at short notice and RMC helped her make arrangements to see her children more regularly.

RMC supported her in getting progress reports from her children’s school and in explaining the contents of letters from her solicitor. Benita needed to visit RMC sixteen times in eight weeks. RMC is continuing to support her with the on-going case.

Supporting single mothers

Single mothers are particularly disadvantaged because they have to negotiate their way through many government departments and formal institutions to access their own and their children’s rights whilst caring for those children, and unsupported by a partner.

Dani had had both her Income Support and her Tax Credits application disallowed because of misunderstandings and insufficient evidence on her original application forms. RMC contacted the Job Centre and HMRC to clarify the situation and then supported her in reapplying. Through RMC she accessed Maternity Allowance and food vouchers through the Healthy Start programme.

Dani was registered as self-employed and needed support with completing her tax returns correctly. When problems arose with her child’s attendance at school RMC were able to facilitate meetings so that the issues could be resolved.