:how the youth are duped by solicitors and human traffickers
by Pearl Thevanayagam
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But vulnerable detainees seek the help of immigration solicitors often paying huge sums of money to stop their deportation.
In the early ‘80’s, immigration solicitors sprang up all over Britain lured by this stash of cash provided to firms in advance so they could deal with the influx of refugees from mostly war-torn countries including Sri Lanka.
But by early 2000, the Home Office got wiser and Law Society clamped down on those firms fleecing hapless immigrants. As a result Law Society took away the rights of many firms (including Sri Lankan ones) to take on Legal Aid cases.
Now there are only a handful of trusted firms, mostly British ones, who are allowed to take up Legal Aid cases. There is also another category of solicitors although they were allowed Legal Aid are unable to do so due to financial constraints. Whereas the firms earlier were given a budget in advance to deal with asylum cases the government now would only refund Legal Aid if the cases are successful.
In essence these cases should merit 51 percent success before the firm represents them or else they lose their money paying for barristers to plead these cases.
During my time as an immigration caseworker for a Tamil firm I was appalled to find that my employers were demanding large sums of money, often around £3,000, from asylum seeking Sri Lankans (mostly Tamils) who could not speak English. It was such a rip-off that clients often spent years paying money owed to immigration solicitors who are in effect Shylocks demanding a pound of flesh from the sweat of asylum seekers. This writer resigned not willing to be party to this crime. These asylum seekers while forbidden to work take a risk working for minimal pay and maximum hours enduring hardships and no recourse to redress for exploitation.
Case in point are the Chinese cockle pickers who lost their lives a few years ago in a coastal town in the UK.
The Supreme Court ruled in July 2010 that Article 11 of the EU Reception Conditions Directive should apply in some circumstances to failed asylum seekers who have exhausted their appeal rights. Specifically, this means that failed asylum seekers who have made further submissions asserting they have a fresh claim for asylum which have been outstanding for 12 months or more will now be entitled to apply for permission to work.
Most asylum seekers are unaware of this opportunity.
Now that the war is over for all intents and purposes Sri Lanka is no longer a creator of refugees. Ergo the Home Office has declared that the island is now safe for unsuccessful asylum seekers to go home. But what about those who arrived here much earlier before the war ended and those who established themselves in the Uk by marrying and having children who have assimilated into UK culture.
The coalition government of Tories and Liberals are bent on capping immigration in the wake of mass unemployment and dissent among the British that immigrants are the cause of their predicament. There is no limitation on EU migrants and I suppose colour bar is ever present in the West.
While this is a moot pint it would do well to ponder the wisdom of those who are not persecuted in Sri Lanka to pay for human traffickers cum Tamil politicians, formerly paramilitary group leaders, who are raking it in. The going rate to be smuggled out of the country is a whopping £15,000 per head.
The latest arrivals to the UK are those on student visas. Now that asylum is no longer an option students are enrolling through agents offering courses in bogus educational institutions. Once more after paying out large sums of money often borrowed they find to their chagrin that the colleges are demanding further sums of money the failure of which could end in their being sent back to their countries.
Increasingly, Sinhala youth are arriving in large numbers on student visas and they are virtually starving. I have met a few in my parish church and on the streets and although they are mostly from middle-class families, here in the UK they are ready to take up any job that would give them at least one meal a day.
It is up to the government to crack down on human traffickers even though they are ministers and politicos.
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