Thank you to everyone who supported Roger Pask and me during our Vigil for Refugees in Chichester Cathedral. The day was a success, gaining as much, if not a little more, support than two years ago when we last had it there.

The “reflections” (short talks) were rather a success too and we shall be publishing some of them in due course. Many thanks to our volunteer Davey Butler who stood in at short notice when someone dropped out – thank you Davey. 

As reported last time we’ve been able to raise our standard destitution payment from fifteen to twenty pounds a week.

We also pay transport to Fareham for all those who have to “sign on” at the Police Station there (the bus ticket is over £5). They used to sign on at Portsmouth Police Station in Winston Churchill Avenue but the venue was recently changed to Fareham for undisclosed reasons. There are no dispersed asylum seekers in Fareham and the Immigration Officers who supervise the signing are based in Portsmouth so the change in venue seems ill considered from both points of view.

We also pay for people to travel to Liverpool to make fresh claims. I always thought that asylum seekers were made to appear in person so they could be interviewed. I’ve now learnt that very few are interviewed – the requirement to present the papers in person is pure bureaucratic harassment. It costs us about £100 each time in fares as we are the ones who have to pay!

The result of all this spending is that our reserves are gently going down – no bad thing, people give us money to spend on the needy not to keep in the bank. However it’s a situation which has to be watched obviously, your Chairman isn’t worried but he is keeping an eye on things.

​The Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire dropped in to our Drop-in recently.

Lords Lieutenant are the Queen’s local representatives in the different counties and this one was very charming and interested.

​Our supporter Bob Thomas successfully completed his walk from St Columba’s in Fareham to St Columba’s in Pont Street, just behind Harrods. We’re not sure exactly what he raised but it was over £750, perhaps £1,000.

​Well done Bob – thank you!

​The Mosque presented us with a splendid food collection post-Ramadan. Thank you to everyone who contributed and to Sheikh Fazle Abbas for organising it all.

The food was collected and transported by Bob Thomas of St Columba back in harness after his walk. There’s enough to make up food bags for all our clients if the regular suppliers fail us for some reason.

A gentleman who appeared one day with all his kit and spent a morning cutting our clients’ hair. Very unfussy and practical help: thank you!

​“Refugees At Home” is a small charity that arranges altruistic hosting, over a limited period, for destitute asylum-seekers. They write:

"We have hosted for over 80,000 individual person nights and currently host some 150 guests across the UK.
We have recently received a referral for a refused asylum seeker from Sudan who has found himself street homeless while he prepares to submit a fresh claim.
​
Unfortunately, all of the prospective hosts we have in the area have now been asked and we have run out of options to pursue. Do you have any links in the area or ideas for who we might approach?”

I have come across Refugee at Home a number of times and been impressed by their efficiency and understanding of the needs of hosts. If anyone is interested could they contact Rachel Davenport: info@refugeesathome.org.

REFUGEE WEEK VIGIL
Chichester Cathedral Lady Chapel
​
MONDAY 18TH JUNE
from Matins 07:30 to Evensong 17:30
and including both services.
Largely silent prayer but with hourly “Reflections”
 
DO JOIN US FOR AS SHORT OR AS LONG A TIME AS YOU WISH
​

​Our fund raising has been going well recently and we have received a small legacy so we’ve been able to raise our standard destitution payment from £15 to £20 a week. All our clients are offered a food bank voucher when we have them as well.

​This is very good news for our clients, none of whom are allowed to work and many of whom are excluded from the Welfare State as the Windrush people have been. 

​“Iftar” is the fast-breaking meal which Muslims eat after evening prayers during the month of Ramadan.

A supporter offered to provide these once a week during the month for our clients. We have been very happy to agree to this and on Thursday nights a team of mainly Christian volunteers open All Saints where we hold the drop-in, Muslim prayers are said, and the meal is enjoyed by Muslims and Christians alike.

​A nice bit of inter-faith community building.

Our supporter Bob Thomas is as I write walking the first leg of his walk from St Columba’s in Fareham to St Columba’s in London. He is collecting for Friends Without Borders and you may sponsor him on his JustGiving page.                         
I just rang him to see how the first day was going but just got a very tired sounding answerphone message. If he was tired at the start I hate to think how he’s going to be at the end!

This briefing draws on a detailed document by the CORAM Children’s Legal Centre We are grateful to CORAM for all their work on this.

The situation: Leave to Remain Asylum seekers may be given refugee status which lasts for five years. At the end of five years they must apply for “Indefinite leave” meaning permanent residence, but this application is free of charge.

Many others are given Discretionary Leave to Remain which is initially for 30 months and has to be renewed four times at a considerable cost until the applicant has been in the country for ten years, after which they can apply for settlement. This applies to every individual, including children. There seems to be little consistency over decisions on why some applicants are in one category and some in the other.

​How much are the fees?
At the moment (June 2018), each individual must pay £1,533 per person, including a  compulsory health surcharge. This may rise to £2033 if the government carries out its plan to double the health surcharge by the end of 2018.

​The health surcharge must be paid on-line, which is extremely difficult for those without bank accounts. Until 2015 renewal was free, but charges were introduced in April 2015 and have continued to rise steeply every year. The charges are out of all proportion to the Home Office “processing” cost.
 
After applying for renewal every 30 months, at the end of ten years an application for Indefinite Leave to Remain costs (at today’s rate) £2,389 per person.
 
People should save up…
They do, but:

1. it is difficult to get a well paid job if you only have a visa for 30 months;
2. as the fees are per family member a family may have to find £8,000 or more every 30 months;
3. the fees are increasing by between 10% and 30% a year so it’s difficult to keep up.

 
What about Fee Waivers?
There is no fee waiver for Indefinite Leave to Remain or citizenship.
Some people with Discretionary Leave can apply for a fee waiver, but the eligibility threshold is extremely high and if a request for a fee waiver is rejected, you have ten days to pay the fee before your application for extension is rejected; you then lose your status entirely and become undocumented. This means you become unable to work; you have no recourse to public funds (benefits) and the time you have already spent in the UK is not counted towards the ten years’ leave you need in order to apply for settlement.
 
Friends Without Borders is helping applicants with these fees, we paid £1,012 in May and have just received a request for£1,033 in June, this being the balance of a fee after the client has made a large contribution himself. Trustees are still deciding but it currently looks as if they will agree the June application.
 
Is there anything I can do?
Write to your MP – the current charges are arbitrary, excessive and grossly unfair, particularly on young families trying to set themselves up after the upset of leaving their own countries.

The Friends Without Borders Annual Report is now available online.

Last year in Portsmouth

• 236 people were advised by FWB (sometimes many times) – many more helped indirectly;
• £22,036 given in destitution funding by FWB (up from £16,000 the year before);
• £26,784 spent in total (including destitution) on running the drop-in by FWB;
• Journeys Arts Festival was financed with a grant of £9,800 from the Big Lottery obtained by Friends Without Borders;
• Children’s Corner was run by us;
• Access to Justice free legal advice service was run by us (one of only two free immigration legal advice services in the city).​

Click here to read the full report

One of our own volunteers, Bob Thomas, will be taking part in a sponsored 75 mile walk in June for Friends without Borders and the Iona Abbey Capital Appeal.

Bob will be walking from St Columba Church in Fareham to St Columba Church in central London between the 3rd and 10th June. 

You can sponsor Bob's excellent effort via JustGiving, here (Friends Without Borders) and here (the Iona Abbey Capital Appeal).

Our own Chairman, Michael Woolley, has already sponsored Bob and says: "I'm delighted to support Bob and help a very worthy cause, asylum seekers in Britain today are the poorest people in this country, many now completely excluded from the Welfare State. Thank you Bob. 

Friends Without Borders does not normally have to help unaccompanied refugee children as they are cared for by Social Services but we are always available if needed and always interested to hear what is happening.

An American supporter contacted us recently as she’d received an invoice for $2,467 attached to one of these newsletters. It was NOT from us - it was an attempted fraud. Please note we never send invoices to our supporters and only very occasionally make special appeals. Our supporter did the right thing – if you’re in any doubt please get in touch personally before you act.

Frances writes: "Our most successful case so far was a victim of domestic violence. She was traumatised and had no real hope that her situation would improve. She was abandoned by her parents as a child and had no home country to return to safely. She was so overwhelmed when she got the news that she could stay in the UK with her children that she ran around the building, laughing one minute, crying the next. We brought hope to that family and they are now able to live a life free from fear."

Charles writes:  "We have had some very good news in relation to several clients in recent weeks, though as the office opening hours are limited to one day a week this can lead to frustrating bottlenecks for clients. There is nothing to be done about this at the moment though due to the absence of supervisory capacity. "

He adds:  'One of our Access to Justice clients recently received some good news about his leave to remain status from the Home Office after a very long wait. We would like to thank Stephen Morgan MP and his team for their assistance in chasing this up and speeding up the process. Penny Mordaunt's office have also provided valuable assistance to another of our clients recently. It is hugely helpful for the work we do to have responsive and efficient local MPs, so a sincere thank you to them from us for their support.'

Michael writes: It would be wonderful to get a volunteer with a background in immigration law to expand the service. 

It is sad to have to tell you that our wonderful computer man, John Cozens, died peacefully at home on 18th December at 59.

​John was extremely knowledgeable and very generous with his time. He updated and serviced all our computers in 2016 as part of the GRAIL programme. We shall miss him for his expertise but also for himself – one of those supporters who was never very high profile, didn’t come to meetings or sign petitions, but quietly gave invaluable help.

We were recently invited to run a university seminar for a small group of students who have signed up to a unit “People on the move: migration and borders”. We were asked to speak about the work of our charity, which I did for a few minutes before handing over to three asylum seekers who each spoke very movingly about their own experience of the British system.

​Afterwards all those who were able went along to a coffee shop where there was a lot of informal information exchange. A good morning - and very enlightening for the students ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­.

Our Treasurer keeps a record of all the “regular” donations each month, and all the “one off” ones. We of course rely on donations to keep a number of our clients so these are very important figures.

I’m delighted to report that our Regular Donations (with gift aid) reached a record in December at nearly £1,800. It’s classed as Regular because it comes in each month and is the backbone of our finance. However there are also various “One-offs” particularly at Christmas time and this Christmas we broke the £2,500 barrier and set a record there too.

The one-offs are always high in December - which allows us to do some nice things for the clients (a Christmas Party and Christmas presents) and also builds up our reserves a bit for the following year.

​A warm “Thank you” to all who contributed. The volunteers of course contribute all year round – giving their services free. Friends Without Borders has no paid staff and last year gave a record amount to destitute asylum seekers.

Again in 2018 there will be a day long vigil for Refugee Week in Chichester Cathedral.

Strictly speaking this is not a Friends Without Borders event as Friends Without Borders is a secular charity: it is being organised privately by me as Chairman and also by the Chairman of Sanctuary in Chichester, Roger Pask. The date this year is Monday 18th June, during Refugee Week. All are welcome to join us in the Lady Chapel for silent prayer for as long or as little as they wish.

Also in June, on Saturday 2nd, there will be an evening of Poetry and Music at St Paul’s Church in Chichester, in aid of Friends Without Borders and Sanctuary in Chichester.

We’ve noticed a bit of a fall in numbers of people attending the drop-in in recent weeks though not been able to identify quite why.

The Red Cross is no longer collecting food from Costco, which is a long drive and quite difficult to organise and that may be the reason. (Unfortunately we are told that Costco will only deal with the Red Cross so our volunteers can’t help).

A dilemma for charities like ours is that we don’t know whether to be glad or sorry about a fall in numbers! There has been no overt change in the dispersal system which sends asylum seekers to Portsmouth, my personal guess is that numbers will pick up again soon.

Thursday 8 March 7pm at Aspire Ryde PO33 2BN for a special screening of Sue Clayton's film CALAIS CHILDREN. Sue’s an independent film maker - in 2016 she made a film inspired by the events of the camp at Calais being disbanded - following the fate of the children for over a year after it was closed down and out of the news.

​Recently she won the London Best independent documentary award. Sue will be present for the screening and happy to take any questions later. 
 
We are currently talking to Sue about us organising a similar event in Portsmouth and will keep you posted.

One of our Access to Justice clients recently received some good news about his leave to remain status from the Home Office after a very long wait.

We would like to thank Stephen Morgan MP and his team for their assistance in chasing this up and speeding up the process. Penny Mordaunt MP's office have also provided valuable assistance to another of our clients recently.

It is hugely helpful for the work we do to have responsive and efficient local MPs, so a sincere thank you to them from us for their support.

This week our Access to Justice project received some great news.

A family's application for further leave to remain in the UK has been accepted, to their great relief.

​John Bingham, who passed away recently, advised this family on the supporting documents to provide and helped them complete what is a fiendishly complicated application form. John is sorely missed at Access to Justice, but we regularly receive reminders of his tremendous legacy.