[Aas] Draft letter to Home Secretary

Dave Havard deacondave at onetel.com
Fri Sep 30 16:56:10 BST 2005


Hi, here is the draft of the letter to the Home Secretary, written by
John V. and amended by me.  Feel free to make comments, suggestions and
amendments.  It is also attached as a Word doc if that is useful.

Love and peace,
Dave

Dear Mr Clarke,


We are a small Christian Community, with members mainly in cities, and
properties in Sheffield and Stockton. Some of our members are working
very closely with asylum seekers,


At our last weekend members instructed us to write to you to express our
grave concerns regarding several matters which concern asylum seekers.


Firstly we believe that asylum seekers should all be allowed work
permits. At present the lives of many of the human beings who came to
our country seeking refuge are made simply intolerable by their being
forced into begging or illegal work or crime, simply to stay alive.
Christian and other organisations are under enormous pressure to try to
help in these situations and are often overwhelmed by the scale of the
problem. In any case it is work these people are wanting, and are
prepared to do, not charity.


Secondly we are deeply concerned at the way many immigration officials
seem to act. We have met many people who's frustrations include;
apparently arbitrary actions, unpredictable procedures, poor translation
facilities, and the word from one official being denied by another. The
procedures to secure evictions often leave observers aghast at what is
being done in our country's name. Children are often scared witless by
heavy handed unnecessary early morning calls and are left in fear that
they can be intruded upon at any time.


We are also very concerned at agencies like Group 4 and some housing
agencies who appear to be very poorly regulated. Some staff are abusive
and items get stolen.


We welcome the Home Affairs Committee's announced intention to set up an
inquiry into the Immigration and Nationality Directorate. We shall be
submitting suggestions to them, as invited. In our opinion the whole
system needs a major overhaul as at present it is highly inefficient and
abusive to those we should be helping. Asylum seekers arrive in our
country deeply traumatised by the often frightful experiences they have
fled. They are further traumatised by being forced to take part in a
protracted process which assumes that they are guilty and lying. We
believe we need to set up a quicker, more transparent and fairer process.


Thank you for your attention in this urgent and vital matter.


Yours sincerely,





for the Ashram Community



-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: letter to Home Sec.doc
Type: application/msword
Size: 13312 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : https://lists.aktivix.org/pipermail/aas/attachments/20050930/3f1ae33b/attachment.doc 


More information about the Aas mailing list