An asylum seeker in Galway

Politico is running a series of interviews with people in Ireland living on the verge of poverty who will be plunged deeper into poverty if their allowances are cut significantly. This third interview in the series focuses on the experiences of a South African asylum seeker living in Galway. [Interview conducted by the European Anti-Poverty Network, edited by Alison Spillane of Politico]

The asylum seeking process in Ireland is lengthy and convoluted. Those in the system are prohibited from undertaking paid work of any kind, making them entirely dependent on a deeply flawed system. As Justin Frewen points out, "This prevents asylum seekers from making a contribution to their upkeep while awaiting adjudication on their refugee status claim. It also prevents them from trying to escape the 'poverty trap' within which they find themselves and invariably leads to higher levels of social exclusion."

The Irish Refugee Council (IRC) has been advocating on behalf of asylum seekers and refugees since 1992. It has identified the following key issues of concern with the current asylum procedure;

• Lack of transparency, including non-publication of decisions or guidelines.
• Quality of decision-making.
• Understanding of protection concerns.
• Discretionary nature of assessment of humanitarian leave to remain and other protection concerns.
• Quality of interpreting and translation services.
• Revocation of refugee status.
• Problems associated with the Dublin regulation.

Shahim is a computer technician and web designer who arrived in Ireland in July 2004. He spent four years in the asylum seeker process. Early on in the process he was issued a deportation order. This has since been revoked and Shahim has registered with the CAO hoping to study energy science. He is married to an EU citizen and lives in Galway.

"The hostel that I was based in was in Galway", he says. "You don't have a choice. I would have liked to stay in Dublin because of the existing Muslim community that is already there."

He speaks about some of the difficulties surrounding the hostel system; "In terms of food Muslims are bound to eat halal meat so by law the hostel has to look after those requirements. Muslims are supposed to be dispersed to hostels that can cater for their religious beliefs. Sometimes they don't even do that. You can end up in a hostel where the manager doesn't even know what halal food is. The dietary requirements are not really looked after."

"Galway had quite a lot of Muslims and they tended to be sent there. The manager was actually quite hostile to Muslims. He made some nasty comments to me along the lines that Ireland has got the right to ship off all Muslims back to where they come from. He was giving meat that wasn't halal and that's totally unacceptable. He's not allowed to have done that but he actually admitted it. They fixed the problem but of course that wasn't a person that I could trust."

"Food takes on a special significance when you're living in a place like that because you can't cook for yourself. You're at the mercy of someone else. They did actually have cooking facilities in that particular hostel but not in most others. In any case you can't afford to buy food. Food became a huge issue in terms of religious requirements. Other than that it was okay. Galway did have a Muslim community which helped."

Explaining the asylum process Shahim says; "The first stage is the applications stage and you have to do that when you arrive. Basically, it's a 12-page form that looks for brief information, personal information, where you come from and some background on your claim. They then put you in a hostel in Dublin. Most of the claims get dealt with in Dublin. From Dublin they then move you to one of the counties."

"I was dispersed to Galway. Once you're in the hostel you get a letter after a while. It's an invitation to come for your interview. Sometimes it takes a few months, some people wait six months but it could be longer. During the interview they actually go into quite a lot of detail about your claim and why you're here. It can be very nerve-wracking and it seems that the intent is to try and trap you or make you contradict yourself."

"There's then another wait to find out if your application was successful or not. Some people wait up to six or nine months or even a year. During that time you're pretty much confined to the hostel. The food's no good; the management are hostile to you. It's just a dreadful, dreadful place to be. You waste so much time there. You're really marginalised, you're socially excluded. You're poor; you have no money at all. Only about 3% of the applications are actually successful."

"It's quite a low figure", he observes. "If you want to you can then lodge an appeal which also takes a long time; usually over a year or so. Mine was unsuccessful and the second one was also unsuccessful."

Around October 2004, Shahim was issued a deportation order. "I got married the same month. I could leave the hostel under certain conditions. You get married and you can process your application for residency. Once you seek to get married to an EU citizen, according to the rules and regulations you have to show that you're living together and at that stage you have to leave the hostel. When you leave the hostel you have to also give up the €19.10 a week. It's not much money but it's something. It's not only that but the €200 supplementary figure as well..."

"Now at the time my wife was living in a council house in Galway. I moved in with her and we couldn't inform the council because my situation was very precarious. I had to go up to Dublin monthly to speak to the immigration [authorities]."

"I remember making a claim for [the €200 supplement] and I was due and I was told that I wasn't getting anything. They wouldn't even give me money to come up to Dublin. I was dead broke; I was actually surviving off my wife. So that was a very difficult time."

Shahim points out the lack of cohesion between different parts of the system; "The marriage in October [2004] was just a religious marriage, it wasn't a full on civil marriage. That only happened in June 2009 and that stage was when we put in the application of EU1 marriage to an EU citizen. Then we had problems with the council as well. They didn't want me to; they said that I wasn't allowed to live there. At the same time the immigration [authorities] were saying that I had to provide evidence that I was living with my wife, so it was a Catch 22 situation. During this period I wasn't receiving any income at all, because I had left the hostel system. I received nothing at all. Even the monthly trip up to Dublin caused me a lot of problems, it cost money."

"While I was in the hostel I only got €19.10 a week so from that angle I really was totally socially excluded. I didn't have much money, I had to stay in the hostel, and I didn't have much freedom of movement. You can leave the system but you're very restricted."

The deportation order, issued in October 2004, wasn't revoked until Summer 2009. "I lived that whole period under threat of deportation and with no income at all", Shahim says. "They want you to come up to Dublin every month basically to make you sign on; just to make sure you're still here. I think they also want to have it all hanging over your head. Actually, what I heard was that a lot of deportees or people who are waiting for deportation run away during that period. They might try to run away to England or France or Belgium. For me it worked in my favour because it at least gave me time to process my marriage."

"Citizenship comes after five years of permanent residency. So the first thing was to get permanent residence. You have Irish law and you have European Law. European law supersedes Irish law in some matters. My wife is from the UK and she has lived here for ten years. She was studying and doing part-time work so she has EU treaty rights. Once you can invoke that then you can get married to a non-EU citizen. The non-EU citizen can then get permanent residence in the host country and get a five year permanent residence stamp plus an immigration card allowing the person to work and study and so on. It basically allows you to have the same rights as any Irish citizen."

"Ordinarily, you could navigate through that process yourself but because of the deportation order, my solicitor was helping me fight the deportation order. It's not that difficult but you need to be aware of how to move along because you could fall into a situation where you don't know what to do and the wrong decision could jeopardise all of your progress up to that point."

"I think the delays are very deliberate", he says. "They don't want to make life comfortable and it seems like the state makes it as difficult as they possibly can for you. They can process the claims much faster, they've been given orders to do it a few times but they just ignored it. They make really silly mistakes."

"I remember they sent a letter to a guy I knew telling him that he had won his asylum claim and then about a month later he tried to go for his immigration card and when he tried getting his card they said 'oh sorry we've made a mistake'. By then he'd told his family and all his friends and all of that. That happened about three years ago and he's still in the hostel now."

Shahim explains how the current crisis has affected him; "The whole process has been exacerbated by the economic situation and the recession. Five years ago there would have been no doubt that I could walk straight into a job as soon as I was permitted to do so. I'm a computer technician and a web designer; I have sales experience as well so I knew I had a good track record as far as my CV is concerned. But now there's not much I can do with it."

"The five years that I was in the asylum system meant that I didn't get an opportunity to re-skill because you're deprived of education so that's left me not totally unemployable but certainly in a very difficult situation. Because of the lack of jobs I've started to plan to go back to third-level education and I've registered with the CAO so my next move is to hopefully go to college."

He describes the kind of marginalisation that asylum seekers experience; "Because I didn't interact much with Irish society during my time at the hostel there wasn't much of an opportunity to find out what they think of me. I did work for a period of time at the Galway One World centre. Most of the people that you socialise with tend to be other asylum seekers, you sort of become a big family. During my time as an asylum seeker I didn't interact much with Irish society but since then I have found it difficult to integrate. I've had some positive relationships in the last year; I live on a council housing estate. I've made some friends on the estate and I've told a few people that I'm an asylum seeker."

"Since I left the hostel I have had an opportunity to integrate a bit better. I don't discuss my time as an asylum seeker much; it's not something I talk about every day or anything like that because it was a very bitter experience for me. It's not that I try to conceal it but I only mention it when it's absolutely necessary."

"I think the government can help to remove barriers that stop people from integrating. In South Africa we obviously had apartheid which involved very visible, physical barriers that could stop people from integrating. We couldn't shop in the same areas, schools were segregated, we couldn't marry whoever we wanted, we couldn't socialise properly so those were real, real barriers. You don't have such things in Ireland but I think because ten or fifteen years ago Ireland was a very different county people may still have a bit of ignorance about how to deal with other cultures and other religions."

"There's quite a lot of racism in Galway. Most of the asylum seekers in Galway are black and they would experience racism on the street, even in the workplace. The way that it can be achieved is funding places like Galway One World centre. There needs to be more community level anti racism training. Government does have a role although with a recession I presume a lot of the funding is gone now."

As for the future, Shahim plans to stay in Ireland. "This place is my home; I've been in Ireland for five years. After five years you get used to a place and I decided to make this my home for the foreseeable future. I don't want my bitterness to overwhelm me or make me angry and hateful of the Irish people or the Irish Government. I put that aside and try to be as positive as I can. My studies will take three or four years ago and then hopefully I'll become a contributing member of society. That's my aim and objective. I want to be in a position where I can work for myself. Right now I'm not in that position. I can't be negative, I can't let it affect me and cloud my judgement."

"Hopefully in three years time I'll be graduating from College or university, I think that would be an important step in my stay here in Ireland. I think it would be a really positive thing and I would feel really great. It would open new doors, I could find a proper job. I could have that feeling that I'm a valuable member of society and I could contribute in positive ways and I think energy science is going to be an important field in Ireland. I'll be able to make my contribution."