Destitute and in Danger: people made homeless by the asylum system  

Guest post Sophie Cartwright. Sophie is the Senior Policy Officer at the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) UK, and a Research Associate at the Centre for Criminology. JRS UK has published a new report, Destitute and in Danger: people made homeless by the asylum system. It gives a window onto the lives of people intentionally marginalised for immigration control. 

The Jesuit Refugee Service in the UK supports people made destitute by the asylum system. They have sought sanctuary here but been refused asylum and declared appeal rights exhausted – that is, they have no further chance to appeal. For context, people awaiting a decision on their asylum claims are nearly always banned from working and cannot access mainstream welfare support or other public funds. They are dependent on Home Office support to survive, and regularly struggle to meet their basic needs. If someone is refused asylum and declared appeal rights exhausted, Home Office support is cut off. They cannot work or access any formal support, and are dependent on charity and informal support from family, friends, and the community to survive. They are subjected to the ‘Hostile Environment’, now rebranded the ‘compliant environment’ - a matrix of law and policy designed to make life unbearable for people without immigration status in the hope they will leave the UK. It operates by creating barriers for them to basic services, including healthcare and criminalising, for them, daily activities such as work and renting. This occurs against the background of a notoriously unfair asylum system and vaunting crisis of non-availability of asylum legal advice, without which it is all but impossible to navigate the asylum system. Many people initially declared ‘appeal rights exhausted’ are eventually recognised as refugees after submitting fresh asylum claims: 2,294 in 2023, according to Freedom of Information data provided by the Home Office to the No Accommodation Network [NACCOM].  

We know from those we work with that the reality of asylum destitution is gruelling. We wanted to hear about people’s current circumstances in more depth, so we conducted surveys with people made destitute by the asylum system, supported by JRS UK. The resulting report offers insight into a horrifying reality: 

• Rough Sleeping was extremely common, and there was widespread vulnerability to street homelessness and fear of it even among those who have not experienced it. Connected to this, there is a widespread pattern of couch-surfing punctuated by sporadic street homelessness, and generally unstable accommodation situations.  Couch-surfing meant sleeping in uncomfortable and over-crowded conditions, that were sometimes unsafe. Parents and children could be crammed into a single room.  

• People were left vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. They were often forced to accept a roof over their heads on whatever terms were available and, being afraid of immigration control should they approach authorities, had nowhere to turn for help if things went wrong. Around 20% of people responding to our survey said they did not feel physically safe around people they lived with, women talked about the risk of being forced into relationships they didn’t want to be in, and there were indications of people living in unsafe or exploitative situations in the informal rental market.  

• Destitution had a negative impact on physical health and made it very difficult to manage long-term health conditions. For example, one woman explained that she had been diagnosed with borderline diabetes. This meant she had a narrow window in which to improve her health and avoid developing diabetes, which is irreversible. However, it was impossible to follow medical advice whilst destitute. “My doctor told me my diabetes is border[line], but [I needed to] be careful with stress [and life in destitution is very stressful].” Others explained they struggled to regulate medication, having little control over when or what they ate or if they slept.  

• Destitution was very detrimental to mental health, almost universally. Respondents reported pervasive anxiety, chronic sleep deprivation, and suicidal ideation, and losing their sense of self and ability to engage with the world. 

• All of this occurred against the backdrop of the cost-of-living crisis that makes it more and more expensive to access basic necessities like food, nappies, and toiletries. 

Asylum destitution pushed people to the margins, denying them privacy, stability, autonomy over their daily lives, and dignity. Furthermore, it placed people in danger – of abuse, exploitation, malnutrition, and life-threatening health problems.  

This situation is not an accident. It is intentionally created by the government as a means of immigration control. And it is widespread. States across Europe and globally deliberately deny people basic necessities to enforce immigration. Enforced destitution of people refused asylum is a longstanding policy, though many of its circumstances and specificities have altered over time. Some respondents had been destitute for over a decade. Correspondingly, many of these findings echo previous research. This report includes voices of people who have long been suffering, long been speaking, and long been ignored. It is time to listen. 

Listening is of fresh urgency as far-right politics is resurgent globally, the European Union Pact on Migration signals a further, profound erosion of rights at the borders of Europe, and many societies face urgent choices about their futures. Recently in the UK, racist violence has been met with communities coming together to resist it. This followed several years of redoubled anti-refugee policies and laws that virtually banned asylum in the UK. As this new report reminds us, the deeper context was a longstanding policy of creating borders within society, denying people basic rights, rendering them vulnerable and plunging them into danger with a brutality that prioritises immigration enforcement over all else. The new government has an opportunity to build a fair asylum system, and end enforced destitution. Its recent announcement of fresh, punitive immigration enforcement measures, touting removal of “failed asylum seekers” suggests a continued trend towards ever tighter borders, within Britain as well as at its boundaries, that could drive people further underground. The realities described in Destitute and in Danger could become more widespread still. They could yet worsen. But an entirely different scenario is possible. 

The report findings and recommendations will be discussed at a webinar at 5pm on Wednesday 18th September. You can register here: Webinar Registration - Zoom

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