Latest News from Positive Action in Housing

Free Gig @ the Arches

Monday 30^th April 2007, 7:30pm till midnight  

(18+ only)

On the eve of the Scottish elections let’s remind ourselves
Scotland’s a welcoming country not a racist country!

Artists in Scotland from all round the world unite in a feat of music, poetry and dance. Come join us

SCOTLAND UNITED!

Featured Artists:

Tigerstyle and Dhol Infusion, MC SooM T, Bigg Taj, Fugees United, Mosa Funk Club,  Moishe’s Bagel, Cora Bisset, Frances Healy, Joyce Faulkner, Dance Ihayami, Electricat & Group Abolicao Capoeira, Richard Colburn [Belle & Sebastian], Ghazi Hussain, La Sonera Calaveras.

Donations on the door in aid of the PAiH Destitution Fund for destitute asylum seekers in
Glasgow

The world’s on your doorstep. Enjoy it! Don’t knock it!

The arrival of asylum seekers in Glasgow’s poorest areas has fostered a new community spirit

On the doorstep of Yoker, a deprived area to the west of Glasgow, is the biggest private regeneration programme in Europe. Along the banks of the Clyde, luxury apartments and penthouses are being sold for upwards of a quarter of a million pounds. Shipbuilding was big here until the 1980s. Then long-term unemployment hit, and never left. From the windows of Yoker’s Plean Street high-rises you can see the north bank of the Clyde glitter in the mid-morning sun. But across the street in Kingsway, another deprived area, the residences are not so plush. A lot of the flats there lay empty and were considered “hard to let” - until the asylum seekers were moved in.

Last week, an Algerian woman and her baby were subjected to a sickening assault on a cycle path in Yoker. Eight days later she went to the police, who announced that they believed the attack to be racially motivated. Two things are out of character here. Usually you have to drag the authorities kicking and screaming into admitting any racist motivation for an assault. Secondly, the attack is not characteristic of the attitudes of the local community, despite its many social problems.

Since 2000, the government has forcibly dispersed hundreds of asylum seekers to the area. It made sense. Put asylum seekers into the flats no one else wants to live in, and the council benefits from the council tax revenues. There were inevitable racist tensions, and the usual myths about the incomers getting free fridges. But then something remarkable happened. Locals and asylum seekers began to interact. They stood together at bus stops, and their kids sat side by side at school. They played - and fought - together. Before people knew it, locals and asylum seekers were in and out of each other’s homes.

And then the realisation dawned that these new neighbours didn’t have it so easy after all. Firstly, they are forbidden to work, forced to live below the official poverty line, and are subject to the xenophobic rantings of the tabloid media and Westminster. Secondly, locals witnessed first hand the terror tactics of dawn raids, taking place on their doorsteps, as battering rams were employed and children screamed while being dragged from their beds, their parents handcuffed, in the very early hours.

Immigration snatch squads, escorted by police, have conducted a series of dawn raids on Scottish asylum families over the past few years. Finally, last October, local people gathered alongside asylum seekers early one morning in Kingsway in peaceful protest at the raids. At around 6.30am an immigration snatch squad turned up to take another family. Over 150 members of the community linked arms and demanded the squad cease immediately. After a 40-minute standoff, the chief of police announced there would be no raid. To this day, the community has been on constant vigil in the hours before dawn.

The arrival of asylum seekers in Glasgow’s most deprived areas has given back a sense of community in a way no government initiative has ever done. Scotland has the fastest declining population in western Europe. Despite a Fresh Talent initiative that seeks to attract 8,000 new workers every year, the Scottish Council Foundation issued a report last month saying we need 13,000 new migrants. Right now, we have 1,100 established asylum-seeking families living in Glasgow who are part and parcel of our communities. We do not take kindly to the barbaric policy designed to send away Scotland’s future lifeblood.

The attack on a young mother was a shameful thing. But let us not lose sight of how the communities in Kingsway have found their sense of community and condemned this attack on ‘one of their own’.

· Robina Qureshi is a human rights campaigner and director of Positive Action in Housing www.paih.org

Robina Qureshi
Friday April 13, 2007
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2056067,00.html

An Algerian asylum seeker was stoned and sexually assaulted as she walked along a cycle path in Glasgow with her one-year-old baby. Police are hunting for a group of four males and have asked that three of them come forward and identify the attacker.
The man, described as white and aged between 20 and 25, kicked the woman and pulled off her headscarf before exposing himself and sexually assaulting the victim, who has not been identified. He then tried to sexually assault the child.

The woman, who is 33 years old, managed to break free from her attacker and fled with her baby, leaving her headscarf, pram and baby bottle behind on the path. Police are examining CCTV footage for evidence.
The attack took place on April 3 but the woman was so traumatised she did not contact police until Wednesday. She described her attacker as very tall and thin with very short hair and wearing white and blue tracksuit trousers.

The officer in charge, Detective Inspector Andy McWilliam, said: “This was a particularly harrowing ordeal for the woman and her son. It may be the other members of the group are as disgusted with the sexual element of this attack on a defenceless woman and her one-year-old baby. They may be in a position to assist the police in identifying the individual responsible. I am also keen to locate the whereabouts of the pram, headscarf and bottle.”

The assault took place in Yoker, a socially deprived part of Glasgow which is now home to a large community of asylum seekers. It has been praised for the way it has tried to integrate those seeking refuge there and has been at the heart of the campaign to stop asylum seekers being deported. Groups of local residents have met at dawn to prevent the arrival of vans with teams intent on removing asylum seekers. The victim lives in the area.

Robina Qureshi, director of Positive Action for Housing, a charity which works with ethnic minorities, said: “This was a very sick thing done by some very twisted individuals. The fact that he ripped off her headscarf made this not just an attack on her but an attack on her faith. The police have described it as a racially motivated attack and they rarely do that. The area that it happened in is quite a cohesive area.”

Audrey Gillan
Friday April 13, 2007
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,2056415,00.html

Positive Action in Housing has launched an information campaign in response to the Home Office’s review of 1100 asylum seeking families living in Scotland whose claims have been rejected.

The aim of the campaign is to ensure ‘legacy’ families get their lawyers to make fresh representations to the Home Office taking into consideration factors like length of time in the UK and ‘integration’ into Scottish society.

Robina Qureshi, director, Positive Action in Housing, said:

‘In Scotland we now have families who have been living here for over six years and are part and parcel of Scottish society and whose children are born and/or brought up here, and settled at schools and in the local community.

‘The newly formed Borders & Immigration Authority says they will look at each rejected ‘legacy’ case based on length of time in the UK, and evidence of integration.

‘This is the closest we are going to get to fighting for an amnesty for the 1100 families who have been here. So we have been working with asylum lawyers to identify how asylum seekers can best help themselves, for example, gathering petitions, or letters of support from churches, charities etc.

‘Our information campaign aims to make families aware of the possibility of pushing for their cases to be considered by the Border & Immigration Authority and taking these factors into account.

‘The leaflet will be circulated by volunteers over the next two weeks to all communities where asylum seeker families are mainly resident, in particular, Springburn, Pollokshaws, Kingsway, Govan, Shettleston, Anniesland/Drumchapel, Gorbals, Maryhill, and Kennishead’

Notes:

1 The two page leaflet can be downloaded from this link:
http://paih.org/IMPORTANT%20INFORMATION%20FOR%20FAMILIES%20SEEKING%20ASYLUM%20IN%20SCOTLAND.pdf

2 On March 20, 2007, Education Minister Hugh Henry made a public plea to the Home Office on behalf of “legacy” cases involving children who were integrated into communities. (http://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/news/display.var.1280691.0.0.php)

3 On March 29, 2007, First Minister Jack McConnell stated that the Scottish Executive were in talks with the Home Office to look again at long-running cases involving children who have grown up in Scotland. Mr McConnell said he wanted a “sensitive” approach to be taken in such cases. He said he expected many families would be allowed to remain. Speaking at First Minister’s Question Time, Mr McConnell said many youngsters in this situation now regarded themselves as Scots. “That is why I believe that those legacy cases, as they are known, are so important.” He went on: “We have received a commitment from Home Office ministers that they will be properly looked at and I welcome that commitment. I want to ensure that in implementing that commitment due care is taken in relation to the futures of those young people because of their contribution to our schools.” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/6507091.stm )

4 On 3 April, Lin Homer, BIA’s chief executive, said the review of legacy[1] cases would consider “a range of factors in deciding whether people could remain in the country on a case-by-case basis. This would include how long people had been in Scotland, whether they had obeyed the law, whether they had been honest in their asylum applications and whether the merits of their original case had changed” (http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.1303151.0.0.php)

Positive Action in Housing is a Scotland-wide anti racist charity based in Glasgow. We work with communities and others to enable everyone to have an equal chance to live in good quality, affordable and safe homes, free from discrimination and the fear of racial harassment and violence. Our day-to-day work includes an advice & information service for those facing homelessness, destitution, harassment and poverty; a volunteering programme, antiracist campaigns, policy development, training and best practice guidance for tenants, advice workers, housing providers and others. www.paih.org

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[1] Those decided before the introduction of a new fast-track asylum system.

Executive set target of ten asylum seeker removals per week
Review of cases affecting 4,000 people may take five years to conclude
Last month a Nepalese man died after setting himself on fire in protest

THE number of failed asylum seekers forcibly removed from Scotland is set double, the man in charge of immigration north of the Border has revealed.

Phil Taylor, Scottish regional director of the new Border and Immigration Agency (BIA), said an average of five asylum seekers refused permission to stay are currently being forcibly removed every week. But he said steps were being taken to reach a target of ten per week over the coming months.

The announcement triggered threats of a public backlash, with warnings of a major scaling-up of protests against forced removals.

The issue was highlighted in The Scotsman last month when a Nepalese man died after setting himself on fire.

The move is being taken to deal with a backlog of cases, with the BIA beginning a review of 1,100 asylum-seeking families - affecting 4,000 people - with no legal right to remain in Scotland, which it admits will take as much as five years to conclude.

The government has previously denied the existence of targets for removing failed asylum seekers, amid public fury over the practice of dawn raids and growing concern for the welfare of children of asylum seekers, many of whom were born in Scotland and have settled into schools and communities.

The revelation of an imminent doubling in forced removals has been met with a furious reaction from campaigners, who claim it flies in the face of remarks by Jack McConnell, the First Minister, who last week said so-called “legacy” cases would be treated “sensitively”.

Mr Taylor said a target of ten removals a week had been set, and said last year’s number was “particularly low” because of organisational restructuring.

He said: “We are currently operating at about 50 per cent. We are building staff resources back to be able to meet the target.”

Mr Taylor said that while a large number of failed asylum seekers were living in Glasgow, a “considerable number” were elsewhere, including Aberdeen where many work illegally in the fish processing industry.

He said the agency was in discussions with the Advocate General for Scotland to examine ways to hasten the legal process, which can allow for an appeal and subsequent judicial reviews.

One of the main reasons given for delays is poor-quality decisions on applications which have led to appeals. Mr Taylor said better training for case workers and a new “case ownership” approach - which will mean each case being dealt with by a single officer - were in the process of being introduced.

Mr Taylor said asylum decisions in Scotland were “subjected to more judicial scrutiny” than south of the Border and revealed that his department was working with law officers on steps to improve the process.

Meanwhile, the chief executive of the BIA, Lin Homer, said the length of time an asylum seeker has spent in Scotland would be one of the factors considered in the legacy cases reviews.

She also said the BIA would consider whether asylum seekers had committed crimes or been dishonest during the application process.

Robina Qureshi, the director of Positive Action in Housing, warned of a public backlash over forced removals.

“If what Mr Taylor says is borne out, we will see a doubling in the protests,” he said. “This is a tragedy. There are kids [who] fear the worst when a van pulls up at their door. It’s a disgrace.”

Sally Daghlian, chief executive of the Scottish Refugee Council, said: “The government is setting itself high and arbitrary removal targets. Compassion is being sacrificed to meet these targets.”

Q & A: HOW THE SYSTEM WORKS
How many ‘failed’ asylum seekers are living in Scotland at present?
According to current figures, there are 4,020 asylum seekers in Scotland whose application to remain in the country has been rejected.

Why are these people being allowed to stay in Scotland?
Most are legally challenging the refusal. An unspecified number have exhausted the legal process and face imminent repatriation.

Are there other reasons why rejected applicants can stay?
Yes. More than 400 failed asylum seekers are classed as unable to return home.

Why can’t they be returned home?
Some are from countries which the government decides would be too dangerous to return them to. Zimbabwe is the only country on that list. Others are from countries that will not allow asylum seekers to return, such as China.

How quickly does it take to process an application?
The Border and Immigration Agency (BIA) says decisions are being reached within a month, a vast improvement on previous years, when it could take 22 months. Legal challenges can spin cases out for years. About a third are delayed by judicial reviews.

Are there any plans to speed the system up?
Yes. The BIA wants to eventually conclude all cases within six months.

How will it achieve this?
Case workers are being given additional training in a bid to improve original decisions, driving down appeals.

How are failed asylum seekers removed?
Usually either by being arrested when they check in at immigration centres or, if they are judged to be a high risk of absconding, in dawn raids.

How many leave voluntarily?
Not many. The government offers financial assistance of up to £3,500 to depart the country, but last year only 40 people in Scotland took up the offer.

Do failed asylum seekers get support?
They receive certain benefits until their case has been concluded. Applicants with children, however, will continue to receive some support.

Related topic

Immigration and refugees
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=16
This article: http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=510622007

Last updated: 03-Apr-07 01:02 BST