30 Can’t Stay. Can’t Go. Refused asylum seekers who cannot be returned work alongside lawyers to get the right kind of While the process of obtaining documents or proving advice around what steps are needed to be nationality continues, the person is left destitute: taken, and then we would help with the sort of practical support. So that could be arranging The difficult thing about it all is the length of trips to embassies, arranging for witnesses time that that takes, and that someone is in to accompany them and write statements, destitution. (Red Cross staff member, Glasgow 1) referring them to community groups and things like that. They [community groups] might be able to provide support and evidence that the 3.14 Detention person is a member of a particular community. When we do send them to embassies, helping Immigration detention refers to the government them prepare what kind of documentation they practice of detaining asylum seekers and other need. (Red Cross staff member, Leeds) migrants for administrative purposes, typically to establish their identities or to facilitate their 3.13.3 Disputed nationality cases immigration claims resolution and/or removal (Silverman 2016). It is an administrative process The Red Cross refugee support service frequently rather than a criminal procedure. comes across disputed nationality cases, in which people need to obtain documents to prove their At least seven of our participants had been in nationality: detention at some point. Five were detained on arrival in the UK and claimed asylum while in So there are cases where someone’s nationality detention. is disputed – cases where people need to get documents from their country of origin, and they Violet (Zimbabwe) arrived in the UK in 2003. She can’t get those documents. Or where someone was detained in 2008 and was released from needs proof of their nationality to be able to get detention because the Zimbabwe Association documents that would mean that they’re able to campaigned for her release. return home. I think they’re the cases that can’t proceed because they can’t get evidence. So Joshua (Ethiopia) arrived in the UK in April 2000. cases where there are disputes about whether He was detained in March 2005 and spent a total somebody is Sudanese or Eritrean, if somebody of four months in detention: simply can’t get those documents then you’re in this impasse with the Home Office. (Red Cross They catch me for I sleep in the street rough. staff member, Glasgow 1) They arrest me and put me in police station for two weeks, and then take me to detention, The staff member in Leicester mentioned a and I stay there for three months. They try to particular case: remove me. They take me to airport, Heathrow, on 6 June 2005, and when I reached there Well, it’s like the other day I was with this lady; they tell me that my flight was cancelled, and she’s been refused because the Home Office they don’t tell me reason why. And they put me say she’s Ethiopian. She claims to be Eritrean back in detention and released me a month and she’s got no identification. Now she’s said, later, only to be homeless. (Joshua, Ethiopia) “Okay, you say I’m Ethiopian; great, give me an Ethiopian passport.” So we called the Ethiopian embassy here and they’ve said, “We’re not 3.15 Statelessness going to give anybody a passport if they don’t have an ID already that proves they’re The UK statelessness procedure was introduced Ethiopian.” So I said, “Well, she doesn’t have” in April 2013. The Birmingham, Leeds, Leicester and they said, “Well, then we won’t be able and Teesside Red Cross refugee support services to help her.” So I thought, okay, let’s call the have all referred cases to the Liverpool Law Clinic, Eritrean embassy and see what they say. Same which specialises in working with stateless people. thing; they said, “Does she have Eritrean ID?” The Leeds service found that the clinic has not I said, “No.” They said, “Well, we can’t help.” recently had the capacity to take on referrals. The So the only solution that they gave is that if she Leeds staff member acknowledges: “It’s quite finds three members of her family who have a complicated application to make and to get an Eritrean ID – but she’s here alone. So she’ll accepted.” For this reason, and because no legal never be able to provide that evidence; so she aid is available, local solicitors are reluctant to take is in limbo. (Red Cross staff member, Leicester) on such cases: