Charities ‘picking up the pieces’ for destitute refugees
CHARITIES and faith groups are picking up the pieces for refugees and asylum seekers left destitute in Scotland.
Holyrood’s Equalities and Human Rights Committee heard claims the Home Office was “profiteering” from desperate people.
The committee took evidence on the back of its 2017 report into destitution amongst those with insecure immigration status in Scotland.
MSPS heard “harrowing” details of cases including a mother and baby who only received £25 over the course of eight months, a six-year-old girl who had spent her entire life in B&B accommodation and a pregnant homeless woman who failed to attend maternity appointments because she was charged for care.
Robina Qureshi, director of Positive Action in Housing, said they were dealing with “very desperate” people including one client who had been on the verge of throwing herself and her children into a river before receiving help.
The Glasgow-based charity assisted 1,400 refugee families and individuals in 2017/18. Ms Qureshi said: “We are talking about people whose cases may have been unjustly fast tracked into failure, cases where the Home Office is profiteering, there is no doubt about it, the hostile environment (policy) is profiteering from people who have got insecure immigration status by giving them limited leave to remain and at the end of that limited leave to remain they have got maybe a six week window in which to apply for an extension.
“The Home Office is making money by saying go and apply for limited leave to remain again and again and people are being left in that crisis. Effectively what we are providing is a safety net, on our own, and charities and faith groups are picking up the pieces.”
Ms Qureshi also raised concerns about racism in Scotland saying it was “very much alive and kicking”.
She said: “It’s visceral, we’re witnessing it with verbal, physical assaults not just within certain communities, it’s happening across the board.”
Fiona Macleod, senior policy and public affairs officer for the British Red Cross Scotland, said the charity had helped 516 adults and children who had presented as destitute in the first quarter of the year and 1,553 across the whole of 2017.