Life On Hold: Inside the UK Asylum System
By Saarah Chowdhury
In 2023, 84,000 people claimed asylum in the UK. For months, or even years, they are stuck in the limbo of the asylum process, left to reckon with their forced migration and uncertain future while inside an often hostile and isolating system.
Zevan describes himself as one of the lucky ones. On the surface, it doesn’t seem that way: one night in June 2022, the 23-year-old was forced to make the difficult decision to flee his country the next morning. His face and name had been linked to his anonymous Twitter account that had advocated for LGBT rights and criticised religion. In the conservative Maldives, this led to a barrage of violent threats and the government issuing a warrant for his arrest, with officials ordered to “arrest him before others get to him first.”
However, among asylum seekers in the UK, Zevan’s journey seems relatively smooth. He was not in the half of them that year that arrived by the perilous small boat journey over the English Channel: He flew to Heathrow, where he was taken to an initial interview. The interviewer remarked on his good English, meaning that he didn’t require a translator over the phone to advocate for the necessity of his staying in the country. The judgments of these officials were crucial, as Zevan says: “Sending me back would have been a death sentence.”
The internet may have been why Zevan needed to flee his home country, but it also allowed him an abnormally strong level of evidence in his asylum case. He was able to show dozens of articles on Maldivian news sites about his case and the government’s warrant for his arrest, unlike the thousands who arrive and must use their own memory and articulation of their often traumatic experiences to try to gain asylum in the UK.
Despite these factors working in his favour, Zevan still describes what followed as “a multi-year process” that “drains you of every iota of willpower you have.”. He is not alone in this; in January 2023, the Mental Health Foundation, in conjunction with organisations such as Refugee Action and The Royal College of Psychiatrists, published a report stating that “current immigration policies which reinforce a complex and hostile immigration system can contribute to feelings of isolation and loneliness among asylum seekers and refugees”.
Forced migration carries its own traumatic events before arrival in the UK. The report states that “pre-migration trauma can include torture, war, imprisonment, physical assault, sexual assault, loss of livelihood and losing close family or friends”. The prevalence of PTSD among adult asylum seekers is 31%, compared to 4% of the general population. The report adds that “the conditions refugees live in post-migration can have an equally powerful influence on their mental health”.
Where asylum seekers stay while their applications are processed is a common political talking point, whether that is in hotels, army barracks or on the Bibby Stockholm barge. Asylum seekers are meant to receive an allowance of £39.63 per week, or £8.86 in catered accommodation. Zevan says that he never received his, and had to ration the £180 he had brought to the UK while not knowing how long he would be in the hotel. I asked why he didn’t enquire further than once asking a hotel inspector: “You don’t want to seem ungrateful”.
The allowance has not kept up with the cost of living, leaving asylum seekers impoverished, unable to improve their living conditions because they are not allowed to work. This is despite rules in Germany allowing asylum seekers to seek employment six months after their application, and France allowing it after three. According to the report, 84% of people said they did not always have enough money to buy food, 95% that they could not afford to travel by public transport, 63% that they could not always afford the medicines they needed, and only one in four people said they could afford essential cleaning products. Zevan barely left the hotel for weeks at a time due to not being able to afford the bus, instead using his money to buy essentials such as deodorant, or for the occasions he travelled across London to see his immigration lawyer to build his case. Zevan could not afford to buy a winter coat his first year in the UK: “I just put on three or four layers of clothes.”.
Headlines have flippantly talked about asylum seekers being bored in the hotels, failing to explore the detrimental mental health impacts of being alone in a new country after forced migration, without enough money for essentials, let alone for socialising or building a new support network. Zevan rarely socialised with others in the hotel, because there was no communal space. Even when people do find community, it can easily be ripped away by being moved, with an asylum seeker quoted in the report saying ““As a result of being moved to different accommodation, my child had to move school. My child said to me: ‘when will I see my friends again?’”
These problems are exacerbated in accommodations such as army barracks and the Bibby Stockholm barge, which the report severely criticises due to their risk of retraumatising those who experienced abuse and torture from military personnel before their displacement, or who had perilous journeys by boat to come to the UK. Furthermore, they may diminish the integration and mental health of asylum seekers due to their distance from the wider community, further isolating asylum seekers from any semblance of normal life.
Zevan left the hotel in May 2023, 11 months after entering. He was fortunate enough to have his case heard three months after he had arrived; this was true for only 10% of asylum cases in 2022. He spent his remaining time looking for a job, which he was in a position to do with relative ease due to his training as a science technician and his proficiency in English. Even with these factors in his favour, an eviction only a few months later led him to be in overdraft with his bank, escaping homelessness by a narrow margin. This is part of the multi-year process Zevan encapsulates in his experiences of being an asylum seeker; establishing a life in a new country with no safety net.
The British Red Cross says there has been a 140% increase in the destitution of people they support with refugee status since the move-on period after being granted asylum was set at 28 days in August 2023. Based upon a cost-benefit analysis done by the London School of Economics, they recommend increasing this to 56 days, especially since it takes at least 35 days for a first Universal Credit Payment to be received, which someone can only apply for once they have been granted asylum.
Despite these challenges, Zevan rebukes the idea that those living in the hotels, barracks or the Bibby Stockholm would rather stay there. “You just want to move on with your life. Just because you are existing does not mean you are living. Existing and living are two completely different things.” He now works as a science technician at a secondary school in London, and is working to build financial stability and potentially continue his studies.
