Story:Tim Neal
On 8th July the Immigration Advisory Service (IAS) unexpectedly went into administration.
Nationally the organisation employed 300 people offering free advice on immigration issues. It served a large community of asylum seekers and refugees, as well as settled residents. The services it offered were literally a matter of life and death for some people.
The Sheffield office was in Albion House on Savile Street and its services will be hugely missed. Albert, an asylum seeker who was awarded leave to remain after many years here, found the IAS invaluable:
“It was good, it was helpful. It wasn’t very fast but it was helpful. They launched my fresh evidence to the Home Office. I wanted to do that through the solicitor; I’d been told to pay £40 but I did that for free through the IAS.”
Albert doesn’t know where people can go now. For Rodney, who remains destitute as a result of a failed asylum claim, the IAS had been the first port of call:
“They offered legal services to the asylum seeker. Most people are in a very bad situation now. It is not easy because you have to have money to pay most lawyers and we cannot afford that.”
Richard Chessum, vice-chair of ASSIST, commented that ASSIST took a lot of asylum seekers down there. When other solicitors had their books full, the IAS was the only place that would see them.
“We took people there not just with asylum cases but people who wanted to bring their children here after they got leave to remain. They will be really missed.”
IAS is not the first national charity to go bust after changes to the funding of legal aid. IAS trustees stated it happened after it did not “prove possible to reach agreement on a way forward” on legal aid funding.
IAS’ closure leaves a big gap in service provision. It makes the situation for asylum seekers and refugees feel, at times, hopeless. As Rodney expressed it:
“The immigration laws are designed to kick people out; they are not designed to help people. The main laws of the land and immigration law are two different legal systems.”
If you would like to know more about the work done by ASSIST, please contact
jennyrichardson@assistsheffield.org.uk
Telephone: 0114 275 4960