(CHA0029)

Written evidence submitted by Care4Calais (CHA0029)

1. About Care4Calais 

Care4Calais is a volunteer-run charity that supports refugees, providing for their basic needs and advocating on their behalf. We provide warm clothing, bedding, food and social assistance to people sleeping rough across Northern France. We also provide food, clothing and support to refugees in the UK. We represent the interests of refugees and seek to give them a voice. 

2. Executive summary 

• The increase in Channel Crossings is being exacerbated by UK and French Government policy, which is worsening conditions for refugees and pushing more of them to make the dangerous journey across the sea.
• Refugees in France endure hostility and misery, they are denied dignity and safety. Treatment of those who make it to the UK is deteriorating. 
• People who arrive in Britain by crossing the English Channel in small boats should properly be referred to as ‘asylum seekers’.
• The UK government’s policy on refugees is failing to prevent chaos in the Channel, maintain control of our borders or protect the lives of refugees. 
• The only real solution to this crisis is to create a safe and legal process by which refugees can have their UK asylum claims fairly heard without having to risk their lives crossing the Channel in small boats. 

3. Ali’s story 

We asked one refugee, who made it to the UK, to explain in his own words why he made the journey and what the experience was like. We have changed his name for reasons of confidentiality. 

My name is Ali. I am from Yemen but I was born in Saudi Arabia. I am [over 25]. 

My father had a [business] in Saudi Arabia and I was working with him as graphic designer, but he was forced to go back to Yemen with my mother and sisters. Now they are living in tragic and dangerous conditions, where their life is threatened every day. 

I left [city] in 2015 fearing for my life as I was attacked and threatened with death by colleagues at the university as well as by armed groups belong to the Alhouthi regime. I was arrested and blackmailed for my political views. I was about to finish my bachelor’s degree but I couldn’t do so. 

My journey was full of dangers and difficulties. We were robbed and assaulted by smugglers many times. I felt I was going to die from what I saw and faced. At times I wished a bomb had killed me in my country, instead I died many times because of the assaults and hurt we faced during the journey at the hands of smugglers. 

When I crossed the Channel I was terrified. I tried more than once to cross and during some attempts our boat sank and I thought I was going to die. I thought many times about suicide, but what stopped me is my family who needs me. 

Now I am in the UK  I hope to live a new life, see my family again, belong to the British community, make new friends, educate myself, and pay back the British community for the protection they provided to us. Thank God I found the UK, it is the right place for me as a vulnerable asylum seeker. 

4. Reasons behind the increase in Channel Crossings 

The people living in Calais (and other refugee camps across Northern France) are refugees from the most dangerous places in the world, including Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan and Eritrea. Their motivation is to claim asylum in the UK. Evidence presented to the Home Affairs committee of MPs on 3 September makes it clear that the majority of those making the perilous crossing are either being granted refugee status straight away or come from countries for which the success rate in asylum applications is extremely high.[1]

The Committee is correct to highlight the dramatic increase in Channel crossings by boat – as many as 5,000 have made the journey this year. This journey – across the world’s busiest shipping lane – is incredibly dangerous, and the craft refugees use are woefully inadequate. There has already been a death at sea this summer, it’s possible more have been unreported. Many children make this crossing. A major tragedy is highly likely if things continue as they are. 

There are two main reasons Channel Crossings have increased this year: 

• Coronavirus reduced the amount of lorry traffic travelling between the UK and France. It also caused a near-complete collapse in support for refugees sleeping rough in Calais as charities pulled out due to health and safety fears, and the French government cut back on food aid. Care4Calais was one of the only charities that remained operating throughout lockdown, but the conditions worsened considerably for refugees. 
• The British and French Governments’ policies have exacerbated the hardship faced by refugees. Following calls by the British government for the French to take action, the French police, funded by the UK taxpayer, have stepped up the already intensive campaign of evictions. These are often violent – the police use teargas, confiscate refugees’ possessions, and transport them to other parts of France. These evictions are happening at least once every two days. 

The living conditions for refugees in Calais are now worse than at any point since the Jungle camp was cleared in 2016. These horrendous conditions have been the last straw for many. Life in Calais is so hostile and miserable that for many the enormous risk of a sea crossing seems worthwhile.

5. The legal position of migrants crossing the English Channel

The vast majority of cross Channel arrivals submit asylum claims shortly after arriving in the UK[2]. This makes them ‘Asylum Seekers’. Yes, they have entered the country by irregular means, but Article 31 of the UN Refugee Convention states that refugees cannot be penalised for entering the country illegally to claim asylum if they are “coming directly from a territory where their life or freedom was threatened” provided they “present themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence”.[3]

It could be argued that the people crossing the channel are coming from France, and so not coming directly from the country they initially fled. However, in 1999 a UK judge ruled that “some element of choice is indeed open to refugees as to where they may properly claim asylum.” The judge specified that “any merely short term stopover en route” to another country should not forfeit the individual’s right to claim refugee status elsewhere[4]. This means people who enter the UK by illegal means can legitimately make a claim for asylum, even after passing through other “safe” countries, provided they do so directly after arriving. As is acknowledged in the House of Commons Library “Migrants who enter the UK clandestinely can claim asylum.”[5]

People who arrive in Britain by crossing the English Channel in small boats should therefore be properly referred to as ‘asylum seekers’ and not as ‘illegal immigrants’.

6. The conditions in refugee camps in France 

The vulnerable adults and children in the refugee camps of Northern France are being subjected to degrading and inhumane conditions: 

• The French authorities restrict and sometimes remove access to food supplies, shower facilities and drinking water. 
• The refugees are subjected to a hostile programme of evictions from the French police (described above). These happen at least once every two days. 92% of refugees in Calais say they’ve been subject to police violence. 6
• Refugees have little or no shelter. They sleep in open patches of scrubland or on tarmac or pavement. There are very few tents to go around. 
• Sleeping rough, people have no access to sanitation and rarely get to change their clothes, so skin disease is a problem. They hardly ever get a good night’s sleep and general health is poor. 
• The impact on their mental health is profound. Depression and anxiety are rife. 
• Since the clearance of the jungle in 2016 there has been no ‘main’ camp in Calais, but a series of informal settlements. Although Calais is the place in the headlines, it should be borne in mind that there are refugees in Dunkirk, Caen and Paris, amongst other places. 
• There are currently around 3,000 refugees living in these conditions in Northern France. 

7. Conditions for refugees who make it to the UK 

The treatment of refugees on arrival in the UK is falling short of standards that should be expected: 

• Refugees housed in Government-funded accommodation are expected to survive on little over £5 a day, and those in hotels do not get even this. They are not allowed to work to earn money. 
• Care4Calais is now working in over 25 hotels across the UK simply because of the volume of phone calls we were getting from people who were not receiving adequate food or clothing. They own only the clothes they are wearing, so they cannot wash their clothes; in some cases people do not own any shoes at all.  Refugees are not being adequately cared for by the Government.
• Across the country people have been seized from hotels and other accommodation and taken to deportation centres. They’re put on deportation flights with no idea where they are going, or what will happen when they get there. The people being taken haven’t had their asylum claims heard, and in some cases have not had access to appropriate legal advice.
• Refugees in the hotels are panicking because of the enormous uncertainty and threat of deportation they are forced to live under. Many can’t eat, drink or sleep. They have lost what little control they had over their lives. The fear across the communities is palpable and is having serious effects on many people’s physical and mental health. 

8. Effectiveness of UK and French policy 

The French and British Governments’ policy on refugees is failing to prevent chaos in the Channel, maintain control of borders or protect the lives of refugees. 

Creating a hostile environment in France and the UK does not work. The small proportion of refugees that want to come to Britain, because of family, cultural or language ties, are coming here because they fear for their lives and see no other choice. The evictions and harassment simply make their harsh lives worse and, if anything, act as a further incentive to risk the Channel crossing. 

Policing the Channel will never work. It’s a near impossible task to intercept all the small craft trying to make the crossing. Many refugees, if they fail the first time, will simply try again, because they feel they have no other choice and nothing to lose  Greater securitisation only drives them to take greater risks and will therefore lead to greater loss of life.

9. The solution is a safe and legal process for asylum claims 

The way to put a stop to the chaos in the Channel is to create a safe, legal process by which people can have their UK asylum claims heard in France, before they reach the UK. 

We have already outsourced our border to Calais. Since Le Touquet (a 2003 treaty between France and the UK) our border agents have had a permanent presence in Northern France. If the UK border is in Calais, so UK asylum applications should be heard there. 

A controlled, managed process by which UK asylum claims were heard on French soil would solve many problems at once: 

• People’s motivation to get to the UK is to claim asylum. If they could make this claim in Calais the numbers risking their lives at sea would be vastly reduced. 
• The people traffickers and smugglers would have their market destroyed. With no camps and the option of a safe, legal process, there would be vastly fewer desperate people to prey upon. 
• The UK would gain more control of our borders. We would know exactly who was claiming asylum before they reached UK shores. 
• The cost to the UK taxpayer would decrease substantially. Payments to France for border infrastructure or migrant relocation would be slashed. The UK Border Agency would be able to focus its resources on terrorists and drug smugglers rather than families looking for safety.  
• Consideration could be given to respectable reception centres ending the shame of current living conditions at our border in France.

September 2020