Midlands asylum seeker legal support charity threatened with closure
A charity that offers free legal advice to asylum seekers and people subject to immigration control in Birmingham and the West Midlands is set to close.
The Asylum Support and Immigration Resource Team (ASIRT), in Birmingham, is in a healthy financial position according to publicly available data from the Charity Commission, but the trustees have decided to close it down.
Workers at the charity are calling for it to be saved and trustees to be replaced.
The trustees have rejected attempts by the workers’ union United Voices of the World to negotiate with them, after the workers’ asked for union recognition.
Eve Phillips, an immigration caseworker for ASIRT and a UVW member, said: “There is already a significant lack of free specialist advice and support in the West Midlands compared to the vast need for it, and to lose ASIRT would have a hugely detrimental effect on the sector and the hundreds of people that ASIRT works with.
"There simply isn’t capacity in the sector to refer these individuals and families on to if the service were to close and they could very realistically be left unrepresented and unsupported; they could lose their leave to remain, they could lose their homes, they could be at risk of removal from the UK, they could be left at risk of exploitation having to raise thousands of pounds to pay private solicitors.
"We are concerned that closing the organisation is a bid to avoid accountability.”
Matt Collins, a union official for United Voices of the World, said: "UVW calls upon the ASIRT board to do the right thing and negotiate with its staff, recognise their union and do anything and everything possible to preserve the organisation.”
