Unlocking the heart of the caring city

At least three asylum seekers in Glasgow have been locked out of their accommodation by Ypeople without warning. Each was left in the clothes he was standing in but with all his worldly goods behind the unyielding door.

The Christian charity, Ypeople, has lost the accommodation contract to house asylum seekers in Glasgow. The UK Borders Agency (UKBA) has given the £175 million contract to SERCO Group plc, instead, a British registered private service company which runs detention centres around the world.

Said Jeremiah from Zimbabwe whose case is in the process of being presented for a judicial review : ‘When I couldn’t open the door on Monday morning, I went to my lawyer. He told me to speak to the Home Office. They said I had to move everything out by tonight (Monday 14 May). I’ve lived here for four years and said that was impossible, they told me to have everything moved by 2pm on Tuesday. This makes no sense and is very stressful. They should at least give me some time to remove my things.’

Ako, an asylum seeker from Kurdistan where he is a human rights activist and a journalist, encountered a similar situation but was allowed back into his flat after two nights sleeping at a temporary night shelter in the city’s West End. He said: ‘I can’t sleep and feel bad.’ He was subsequently given a key to the new lock and is now back in his original flat after he and his friends put pressure on Ypeople.

Mohamed from the Sudan has been without support for more than one year. His Cranhill flat’s lock was changed without notice last week. He said: ‘When I went to the Ypeople’s office they told me to come back the next day if I wanted my clothes. I stayed with a friend that night and am still waiting on my clothes being returned to me.’

A charity registered in Scotland, Ypeople’s mission is: ‘to provide support to vulnerable groups and individuals including the homeless, refugees, asylum seekers and young people to enable them to adapt to change and improve their quality of life.’

The chief executive, Joe Connolly, was asked for a statement on the lockout situation but his office referred this website’s enquiry to public relations company the Big Partnership and a response was still awaited some hours after the initial enquiry and subsequent reminders.

The charity’s last annual report states that it looked after 2200 ‘service users’ in 1150 properties and homes across the city. ‘We are committed to providing high quality services,’ is part of Ypeople’s mission along with the commitment to ‘recognise the right of individuals and treat them with respect.’

At Ypeople’s head office in Govan’s industrial estate at Moorpark, their certificates are on display from the Home Office as a ‘recognised Supplier 2011′ and for Investors in People and as a member of the Glasgow Social Care Providers’ Forum as well as Quality Scotland membership.

Jock Morris, Chairman of the Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees said: ‘We know of at least four people over the weekend who have had the locks changed in their homes, without warning. We met Joe Connolly and Glasgow’s Social Work chiefs two weeks ago and were assured no locks would be changed without people being told well in advance and that the Social Work department would ‘bend over backwards’ to help anyone affected – so this behaviour is irresponsible. These people have not been honest with us.’

On Monday, Unity, a group supportive of asylum seekers, held a demonstration with the Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees and others outside Brand Street where the UK BA offices are located in Govan. Later they moved to Ypeople’s offices a few streets away and set up their demonstration there.

Said a Unity spokesman: ‘Joe Connelly agreed to send a letter out to people explaining the processes and giving dates of when things will be taking place. No letter has been received by Mohamed, nor any of the individuals we’ve been in touch with. Once again, Y-People have failed to deal with vulnerable asylum seekers  in a fair and honest manner. By using dirty tricks and giving unclear messages, they have created fear among the asylum seeking community. Some individuals, terrified by the threat of eviction, have gone into hiding,’ claimed the spokesman. He added that around 100 asylum seekers who have had their initial asylum claim refused but are unable or unwilling to return to their home lands, are still in Glasgow. ‘Many of these people are victim of administrative errors and poor decision making on the part of UKBA, yet are now facing imminent homelessness.

‘We’re calling on everyone concerned about this situation, to write to Y-People, expressing their concerns at their dishonest practices and asking them to adhere to due process,’ he said.

See their website for further information and contact details: www.unitycentreglasgow.org or email:info@unitycentreglasgow.org

Before protesting outside the Ypeople’s offices in Govan, the campaigners had stood in solidarity outside the UKBA offices nearby in Brand Street, Govan to support Angeline Mwafulirqa from Malawi as she signed in.  She and her three children had been detained the previous time they signed in. They were taken to a detention centre in England and but, for the loud resistance of Angeline as she was being forced to board a plane back to Africa, the family would have been deported.

Said Angeline: ‘It is not safe for me to go back. I just screamed and made a lot of noise so that the airline – Kenya Airways – knew I would be boarding the plane against my will. I have been in the UK for six years. Two years ago I applied for asylum as I split up from my husband who is also from Malawi.  My case for asylum has been refused but it is unsafe for me to go back to Malawi. Local custom there would require my children to be taken by their Father’s family.’

 

 

Rally highlights destitute asylum seekers’ plight

by Martin Graham

ONE HUNDRED and fifty people braved the cold and hail on Saturday morning to attend a rally at the UKBA building at Brand Street, Govan, to protest at plans to evict up to 200 asylum seekers from their homes.

Charity Ypeople, formerly YMCA, are set to evict up to 140 people seeking sanctuary after losing a government contract to Serco.

Serco is an international service company which also operates tagging schemes for offenders, runs prisons and has business at Guantanamo Bay.

Ypeople had been allowing refugees whose asylum claims had been refused, to remain in their homes. But under the new contract they may be forced to evict these tenants. Ypeople said that the profit on this contract for the UK Borders Authority (UKBA) was used to enable people to say on over the contracted time.

Speakers at the rally  included Kingsway campaigner and former Scotswoman of the year Noreen Real.

Noreen said: “I will fight with the last breath in my body to stop our government treating people like animals. We’re not dealing with animals, we’re dealing with human beings. Stop starving them out, stop putting them out on the street.”

EIS president elect Susan Quinn said: “We are being asked in schools to develop curriculums where we promote citizenship and understanding, where we promote empathy, yet what are our leaders doing? Our leaders are doing the exact opposite of what we teach our young people.”

Phil Jones from Unity support centre said: “There are proposals to house refugees in board-only accommodation. They could be housed in hostels with only food and no money.”

A temporary night shelter in the city is already attracting an average of ten people a night.  There are also known to be a large number of rejected asylum seekers in Glasgow who have a roof over the head only because friends let them sleep on their sofa.

Dawn raids start again

Unbelievably, in the very week when protests are growing at asylum seekers being made destitute, the UK Borders Agency (UKBA) has dawn raided a family from Azerbaijan. The family is currently in the Cedars family detention centre in Sussex and scheduled to be removed on a flight leaving at 8am on Saturday 14 April.

The 29 year old woman Endalina is five months pregnant and suffers from high blood pressure.

Immigration officials broke into the family’s home on Duke Street in the East End of Glasgow at 7.30am on Wednesday morning while the family were still in their beds. Their two year old son woke up to see his mother crying and shouting and immigration officials wearing stab-proof vests On the phone to Unity, the Glasgow support group for asylum seekers, Endalina’s husband Emil said she was so distressed about being forcibly removed to Azerbaijan where their lives will be in danger that she suffered a thirty minute long panic attack when she was restrained by four immigration officials and could not breathe. She now has badly bruised arms.

Said a Unity spokesman: ‘Endalina is now experiencing severe pain in her stomach, showing a discharge and has been advised by the nurse in Cedars to lie down and not to walk about. We are extremely concerned about her and her baby’s well-being.’  He said Unity was calling on the UKBA to immediately suspend the removal flight and to release the family.

He added: ‘Endalina is only one or two weeks away from being too heavily pregnant to travel as most airlines will not take women who are more than 28 weeks into their pregnancy and the UKBA’s own guidelines state that a medical certificate must be issued showing the mother is fit to fly.’  He urged concerned Glasgow citizens  immediately to contact Theresa May, the Home Secretary to urge her to stop the family’s removal from the UK. The Home Office reference number is M1389212 and the email addresses are:

mayt@parliament.uk

pscorrespondence@cabinet-office.x.gsi.gov.uk

Privateoffice.external@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

Fax: 020 7035 4745

 

 

Resistance to destitution grows

Resistance is growing to the fact that as many as 140 asylum seekers will be made destitute in Glasgow in the next few weeks.

This follows a change of provider of accommodation from Ypeople, a British based Christian charity, to Serco an international conglomerate providing essential services in more than 30 countries. In the UK it runs electronic tagging, video surveillance, nuclear weapons maintenance, several prisons and two immigration removal centres.

At a rally of around 200 people on Thursday 12 April 2012, at the foot of the Red Road flats which are home to many asylum seekers, speaker after speaker spoke out against the inhumanity of putting vulnerable people onto the streets.

Chair of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Glasgow, John Matthews, told the crowd: ‘In Europe in living memory Jews were first of all refused the right to work, then removed from their homes. I see Glasgow going that way more and more with the asylum seekers. Asylum is a right under the United Nations Convention so don’t be put off by this struggle.’ The NUJ is the first trades union to count journalists who are seeking asylum, as full members of the union and it is encouraging other trades unions to do the same.

Jim Main of UNISON said that Ypeople’s proposal to throw out asylum seekers from their accommodation was ‘outrageous.’ He went on: ‘We will fight this through every trades unions branch. This is a civil emergency and we must demonstrate to prevent this happening. We must show we are a Glasgow that cares. Everyone must ask questions of people in power.’

Speaking as a Justice and Peace campaigner for the Catholic church, Carol Clarke stated: ‘People must be given human dignity and that means a roof over their head.’

College lecturer, Barrie Levine, praised the Scottish Government for its ‘excellent support.’ Both First Minister Alex Salmond and his Deputy Nicola Sturgeon had sent apologies and messages of support to the rally organisers. Said Barrie: ‘That is excellent, but I want to see Alex Salmond make representation to the UK Government which controls UK Borders Agency (UKBA) and I want to see him fully support our protests and make sure civilised values are brought into play. The Big Society should be called the Sick Society. It is a scandal that people are being made destitute and put onto the street. Make no mistake, Serco has this £175 million contract. But the Ypeople’s Board should hang their heads in shame. There is no need to evict anyone right now.’

In her address to the crowd, SNP MSP, Sandra White, said: ‘we have proposed practical ways forward. The Ypeople have a window of opportunity as they do not need to evict anyone till November. We have asked the Scottish Parliament Secretary for External Affairs, Fiona Hyslop, to make our views known at Westminster. We are asking for the people who cannot be returned to places like Iran, Iraq and Somali because of wars, to be granted refugee status.’

Afro-Caribbean centre organiser Graham Campbell said: ‘The Ypeople Board should not be allowed to do this. It is disgusting. We should all tell them that in writing. The Afro-Caribbean Centre charity is refusing to work with Ypeople till it withdraws the threat of making destitute asylum seekers, homeless. It is a UK government issue and we must demand it be stopped.’

In a passionate speech, Angela McCormick of the Stop the War Coalition, declared: ‘We are here today to show Serco, Ypeople, Glasgow City Council, and everyone else that we will stand with those who have fled oppression – usually war. The link between this Coalition and the asylum seekers is that many of them have fled from war zones, bombs, missiles and weapons of destruction. They have come here seeking sanctuary. But how do we treat them? They are made destitute, kept in poverty and now being forced out of their homes.’ She added: ‘I believe we are the sensible majority. We do not want this to happen. Remember the people who fuelled the wars which caused the asylum seekers to flee in the first instance are the very people who make money from selling the missles and weapons of war.’

Organised by the Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees, master of ceremonies, Jock Morris commented: ‘We want to send a statement to the UK Government and the Scottish Government saying lound and clear – refugees and asylum seekers are WELCOME HERE.’ On a show of hands practically everyone in the crowd agreed with the statement.

‘We are now organising another, bigger rally at the STUC in Woodlands Road, on Tuesday 17 April 2012 to decide on the best way forward, together,’  said Margaret Wood of the Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees. Everyone  concerned about this issue is invited.’

Currently around half a dozen destitute asylum seekers are given overnight accommodation each night in a safe, warm place, with an evening meal, a full breakfast and a takeaway lunch pack. But that number is expected to increase dramatically as soon as Ypeople start evicting asylum seekers.

 

Night shelter needs new organiser

A volunteer is needed to co-ordinate the work of supporters who feed and house around a dozen destitute asylum seekers every night in Glasgow.

Brian Cottrell the present co-ordinator

who has done the job willingly and without pay since the Glasgow Destitution Network’s Night Shelter was opened last December, has to return home to Australia for a lecture tour on his work. He said: ‘Ideally the co-ordinator would have 40 volunteers who’d each be able to do one night at the Shelter each month. We had 25 but right now we have only about 10 people who can give that commitment and that is nowhere near enough.’

Brian expressed serious anxiety that the night shelter in Glasgow wouldn’t be able to cope with the large influx of new destitute asylum seekers expected in the next few weeks when Ypeople’s contract runs out and new accommodation provider Serco takes over.

All the destitute asylum seekers are referred to the Night Shelter by agencies such as the Scottish Refugee Council. Open from 8pm till 8am, the Night Shelter provides a safe, warm and welcoming place in the city centre for people who are left with nothing and nowhere to go. As well as a bed for the night, each person has an evening meal and breakfast and is given a takeaway lunch pack the next day. The food is halal.

The volunteers signpost asylum seekers to alternative, safe places of refuge to enable each individual to re-connect with the legal system and give them hope of being granted leave to stay. According to Unity, a charity which looks after the human rights of asylum seekers, almost 90% of asylum seekers are refused on their first claim. Said a spokesman: ‘There are serious flaws in the UKBA’s asylum process. Many people do not want to reveal personal or intimate details of how they’ve been attacked, raped or tortured, to immigration officials. There are many good reasons people hold back crucial information initially. As a result, many are not believed by immigration officials who operate in a cynical ‘canteen culture’ of disbelief,’ claims Unity.

As Ypeople’s contract to provide accommodation for asylum seekers comes to an end, they must hand over the properties to the new contract holder Serco. Most of the property contracts end in May. The Ypeople charity allowed many asylum seekers to remain in their lodgings for longer than the actual contract time paid for by UKBA. This enabled the individual to continue the legal processes which usually ended with their being granted formal leave to remain in the UK. But as each property is handed over to the new accommodation provider, the present tenants must get out. Already dozens have received letters telling them their door lock will be changed in the next few days. At that point, the only place many asylum seekers can think of to go, is the streets. It is illegal for an asylum seeker to allow another asylum seeker to stay with them. The one providing the sofa or the bed for the night, can have their own legal case thrown out for taking a friend in.

Anyone interested in being a volunteer at the night shelter or who would like details of what the co-ordinating post involves, should contact: Brian Cottrell 07411766540 or email: brian.cottrell@iteams.org

UKBA makes even more people destitute and homeless.

Around 200 people will be made destitute and left to live on the streets of Glasgow soon when the UK Borders Agency (UKBA) makes them homeless. The UKBA has moved its housing contract for asylum seekers worth £175m, from Ypeople to Serco.

Joe Connolly Chief Executive of Y People, told an emergency meeting today (Thursday 29 March) in Garnethill Community Centre: ‘We have to give back the properties. They are not ours. Many of the leases expire in May. We might be criticised, but we have pulled out all the stops and will be making a strong statement at the right time.’

Meanwhile groups such as Unity in the Community, Positive Action in Housing, Glasgow Welcomes Asylum Seekers, Glasgow Destitution Network and Glasgow Night Shelter are organising support.

Said Michael Collins of the Anti Deportation Coalition: ‘We expect to be inundated. Many of the people who will become homeless are not only destitute but also very vulnerable. In Govan area in recent weeks we’ve seen numbers double. That’s only one part of the city.’

Said Jamie O’Neill, of Positive Action in Housing: ‘We’ve had people in our office saying they’ll commit suicide as they see no answer to their situation.’

The Scottish Refugee Council in conjunction with the British Red Cross has opened an additional surgery to deal with the new wave of destitute asylum seekers. Commented Tesfay Waldemichael, Asylum Services Manager: ‘The surgery will be held on Wednesdays between 2pm and 4pm in the Ypeople premises at 33 Petershill Drive, the Red Road flats. If someone has been told to leave their accommodation and their claim for asylum has been refused, they can get information and practical support such as sleeping bags and toiletries at this weekly advice session. But they can also come to our offices in Cadogan Square during our regular office hours and we advise them to do so.’

Some destitute asylum seekers who have received letters saying the lock on their door will be changed in the next two weeks, are in dire straits. Said one: ‘If I sleep on a friend’s sofa, they will be in big trouble. I have no money and no where to go. What am I supposed to do? I can never go home to my country. I thought I would find safety in the UK but I might have to sleep in the streets.’

 

 

 

 

 

Just another Monday

It was a different start to the week on Monday 21 November.
Despite three people chaining themselves to the entrance gate and one man sitting 20ft up on a tripod at the UK Border Agency premises in Brand Street, Govan, The Home Office said: ‘business is still carrying on.’
All the protesters were highlighting the fact that the UK BA has re-started dawn raids to forcibly remove failed asylum seekers. The demonstration was to ensure that the gates of UK BA remained closed until the end of the working day preventing the vans used to transport people, from coming in or out.
On Monday when this all happened, asylum seekers due to report at the Brand Street office, were escorted into the grounds by a police officer – once they’d negotiated a way through the cordon of 30+ police who sealed off surrounding streets with ‘accident’ signs, incident tape and police vehicles. An ever evolving crowd of around 60 protesters at any one time watched and waited to see how long it would take the police to get the man down from his perch.
Police Inspector Cowley was in charge at the location and said: ‘We’re handling the incident as normal and will monitor till removal.’

It took several attempts for the police support team to build a tubular platform from which they would have the tricky task of extracting the man. His dawn to dust vigil ended voluntarily when he descended by himself after 5pm when the UKBA offices were due to close. He was arrested, taken to Govan Police Office at Helen Street and detained for three hours and given a medical examination. Strathclyde Police also stated that a man aged 23 and one aged 18 and a woman aged 32 were arrested after they had voluntarily freed themselves from where they’d chained themselves to the fence.
During the day, the supportive crowd spasmodically broke into songs and chants to keep the spirits of the man on the tripod as high as his elevated position.
Asylum seeker Amadou Diallo from Guinea, took time off from a college course to stand in protest at dawn raids. With his poster reading in English and Gaelic: Justice, Freedom, Unity, he said: ‘People have to understand, where there is no democracy in a country, a person’s life is in danger if they are returned.’
Shelly Davidson is a failed asylum seeker who has been in Scotland so many years she says she is Scottish. She sang some powerful songs praying for God to come and help. ‘Don’t turn away,’ said the words in her first language. ‘We don’t want kids and mothers to be put in detention and deported because we fear it could be us next,’ she said.
Claire Mulholland was one of a group of banner carrying women from the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission. She said: ‘It is an outrage they are carrying out dawn roads. These women and children are not criminals. They will be traumatised for the rest of their lives after being hauled out their beds by strangers who have burst into their homes. And this is supposed to be a civilised country!’
A Home Office spokesperson later said: ‘We consider all cases thoroughly. When both we and the courts agree that families are not in need of our protection, they are given every chance to leave the UK voluntarily. This includes engagement with the family over a period of time, family conferences to offer tailored voluntary return packages to assist them upon their return and self-check-in opportunities to fly home. Unfortunately, when they refuse to take up these opportunities, our last resort is an enforced return. This is overseen by the Family Returns Panel to ensure that the welfare of children is taken properly into account.’
A statement from the Unity Centre, which is near Brand Street and is a volunteer run solidarity centre for asylum seekers and destitute asylum seekers, said: ‘The blockade at Brand Street is a response to the return of the bad old days of dawn raids in Glasgow and the continued practice of detaining children.’ Unity went on to say that the practice of visiting people’s homes in the early morning to surprise them – dawn raids – was a particularly ‘barbaric and inhumane way to enforce Home Office policy.’ They added: ‘This has been the source of anger from communities in Glasgow in the past. We have given the Home Office every chance to end this abhorrent treatment of families, voluntarily. Unfortunately, they have refused these opportunities and our last resort is direct action.’
Last year, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg described the detaining of children as ‘shameful’ and pledged to end the practice by May 2011. However, the Government’s new family returns programme permits children to be lock up at the UKBA’s Cedars pre-departure accommodation near Gatwick Airport. That is where Funke Olubiyi and her five year old son Joseph were taken after a dawn raid on their home in Govan on Thursday 10 November before being removed to Nigeria which Joseph has no memory of. UKBA officials entered the family’s home at 7am. Funke was handcuffed and both were taken to Brand Street where Joseph was allowed to have breakfast before being taken by van to Cedars in England. There they remained for several days before being put on a plane to Nigeria.
The protest at the UKBA’s Brand street building was organised by Unity and No Borders Network which champions freedom of movement for all and an end to all migration controls.

Dawning of new dawn raid terror

Within days of telling a conference in Glasgow that the UK Borders Agency was ‘more compassionate with a new family returns process that was fair,’ the Director of Asylum at UKBA, Emma Churchill, was proven wrong.

A 7am raid by seven officers of the Agency broke down single mother Funke Olubiyi’s door as her five-year-old son, Joseph, slept and she was undressing to step into a bath.

The mother and child were removed from their flat in Govan, taken to nearby Brand Street where, eventually, the child was allowed to have something to eat. Then the family was taken by road to the Agency’s new family detention centre ‘Cedars’ in the village of Pease Pottage close to Crawley in Sussex. They are believed to be the first family from Scotland to be taken there. That was ‘home’ for three days and nights as last minute attempts were made to get an injunction on medical grounds.

Speaking from Nigeria, Funke described how nine immigration officials, guards and a doctor accompanied the little family aboard a plane which took them back to Nigeria. According to UNITY, a volunteer network of asylum seekers and friends, Funke said she was OK and staying with friends. She thanked everyone who had tried to fight for her.

A day earlier the UKBA had detained another single mother and her baby during a dawn raid but she managed to convince the immigration officials to release her after being held at Brand Street for more than seven hours.
Said a spokesman at UNITY: ‘These two raids mark the return of dawn raids to Glasgow following a period of several years when the UKBA had almost totally stopped raiding asylum seeker families. Despite holding Funke and Joseph for three days and three nights in their ‘pre-departure accommodation’ at Cedars which with its 2.5 metre tall perimeter fence is run by security firm G4S, the UKBA still insist: ‘We do not detain children.’
To protest at this return to inhumane actions, everyone who is concerned by the UK BA’s recent dawn raids is asked by UNITY to support a rally outside the UK BA’s headquarters in Festival Court, Brand Street, Govan on Monday 21 November from 10am. ‘We want to make it clear once and for all that the UKBA using dawn raids and the detention of families is just not acceptable.’

The United Nations’ Universal Children’s Day is on Sunday 20 November and is supposed to be set aside to promote the welfare of the children of the world.

Gary Christie, Head of Policy and Communications at the Scottish Refugee Council, said: ‘We are very concerned. After the UK Coalition Government promised to end child detention in 2010 the Home Office undertook to improve the way in which children and families were treated in the asylum process. The new Family Returns Process (FRP) was intended to treat families with children more humanely if their case had been refused. We have grave concerns about how this process is being rolled out in practice.

‘We are not convinced that all the steps of the process are being followed here in Scotland.

‘We are also highly concerned that individuals, communities and organisations working with asylum-seeking families are not being fully informed about the new process by the UK Border Agency. This has meant people in Glasgow are yet again filled with fear and panic over what could happen to them and their children.

‘It is absolutely vital that the UK Government sticks to its commitment to improve child welfare within the asylum system; and that the UK Border Agency staff working on the ground treat families and children with respect and care in all stages, particularly the end of the process, when families may be at their most vulnerable.’

UK Border Agency set to be quizzed by committee

The Scottish Affairs Committee at Westminster has called the UK Border Agency (UKBA) and Glasgow City Council to account over the threatened removal of  1300 asylum seekers from their Glasgow homes with only a couple of days’ notice.
On Wednesday 19 January the Committee will hear evidence from both the UK Borders Agency and Glasgow City Council.
Damian Green, Minister of State for Immigration at the Home Office will be the first witness. Followed by Phil Taylor, Regional Director for the Scotland and Northern Ireland Region (Immigration Group) of the Home Office.  Matthew Coats,  Head of Immigration at UKBA will also face the Committee.

When Committee Chair Ian Davidson of Glasgow South West, met with the UK Borders Agency in Glasgow in November when the situation arose, he  said: ‘We are very concerned about the impact of the UK Border Agency’s decision to terminate its contract with Glasgow City Council. In particular, we find the manner in which UKBA communicated its decision to the individuals and families involved – via a letter threatening only a very short notice period for people to leave their homes – extremely troubling. The aim of our inquiry is not only to establish the facts around this case but also to ensure everything possible is done so that families do not have to endure such a distressing situation again.’

Following months of negotiations, the UKBA abruptly terminated its 10-year-contract with Glasgow City Council to provide accommodation for asylum seekers.

Soon after that, Glasgow Central MP Anas Sarwar brokered a meeting in Glasgow of all the agencies concerned, including the housing providers, the Scottish Refugee Council and social work back-up staff.

Scotland Office Minister, David Mundell, attended the round table discussion in the City Chambers to hear, first-hand, the distress caused by the UK Borders Agency when it cancelled the housing contract.

Said MP Anas Sarwar: ‘We need UKBA to come up with a realistic timetable for a transfer of people and staff, that will not involve any more upheaval for 1,311 people who have suffered enough. It’s vital this timetable is communicated effectively to all concerned.
‘I’m pleased that David Mundell has agreed to take these objectives back to immigration Minister Damian Green.’
Mr Mundell told the LOCAL NEWS: ‘These difficulties are no reflection on the quality of service Glasgow City Council has provided nor of the welcome that has been extended. That has been outstanding.’
Glasgow City Councillor Matt Kerr, Executive Member for Social Care, said: ‘It was a constructive meeting. I’m pleased that UKBA acknowledged that the 2 February transfer deadline will not now be met. As a city council we’re obviously hugely disappointed that this contract has been terminated by UKBA despite the fact that we came back with a reduced offer when the initial offer was rejected as too costly. However, we have a duty of care to asylum seekers and to staff and we will continue to support them through this transition process, however long it takes.’

Evictions started

Two vulnerable asylum seekers have been given less than 24 hours’ notice to move out of their accommodation.

This has happened despite assurances by the UK Borders Agency that families would receive a minimum of three days’ notice before being removed and despite Immigration Minister Damian Green’s promise that people would be given 14 days’ notice.

In one case, a single mum from Iran with two school age children, has lived in her Glasgow City Council accommodation for two years. She has been told to go to YMCA accommodation. In the other case, a single man was told to leave his council flat and move into Angel property.

Said a spokesperson from Unity, an asylum support agency: ‘It is shocking that anyone would be treated in such a way but reprehensible that it should be done with no regard to their medical background.’

Robina Qureshi, Director of Positive Action in Housing, said: ‘Despite assurances, the UKBA are carrying on regardless with their inhumane tactics. We call for the actions of the UKBA to be investigated by the Scottish Affairs Select committee. The UKBA’s behaviour is nothing less than contemptuous.’

The situation has arisen because the housing contract between Glasgow City Council and the UKBA agency has been withdraw by UKBA.

PAIH’s supporters are being asked to contact elected representatives and other key people, to demand an investigation and assurances that no more 24 hour eviction letters will be sent out to the remaining 600 refugee families.

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Website: www.paih.org

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