Can’t Stay. Can’t Go. Refused asylum seekers who cannot be returned 29 3.13 Documentation difficulties Through its restoring family links service, the Red Cross can provide assistance with tracing The documentation difficulties experienced by family members in the person’s country of origin. each of our refused asylum seekers are detailed They may then be able to assist with gathering in their individual stories. The Red Cross staff documents. One of the staff members in Glasgow members interviewed also commented on the expressed concern about the fact that the documentation difficulties they have come across. Home Office requires a person to use the Red Cross tracing service to prove they are taking all 3.13.1 General issues related to reasonable steps to leave the UK. He questioned documentation the ethics of making the Red Cross part of the burden of proof: Staff mentioned a number of issues that can hold up voluntary return or AVR as well as the process So then that creates ethical issues – in terms of making a further claim, such as a Stateless of sending people here and how does the application. One issue is that the person might Red Cross respond to that. (Red Cross staff not have the documents their embassy requires to member, Glasgow 1) re-document them. One of the staff members from the Glasgow Red Cross provided an example: 3.13.2 Issues relating to embassies If you’re Palestinian, you get issued with a An issue mentioned by most of the Red Cross national identity card, and without that national staff members was that many people are not able identity card you can’t ever get any other to travel to their embassy (most embassies are in documents. And you can’t be re-issued with London), due mainly to a lack of finances. Even that unless you’re in Palestine, or a close relative when they do get to the embassy, the embassy can get it re-issued. So, if you’re over here and staff may refuse to see them if they have no you don’t have that ID card, there’s no way you documentation. can prove your identity. There’s no way you can get other documents. If you don’t have any Embassies will often not even respond to close relatives in Palestine, you can’t get it, so correspondence from Red Cross caseworkers: you end up trapped. For one of the clients, we did a family tracing to try and see if we could I mean, these people [Joshua from Ethiopia find the person’s mother, but we weren’t able and Faheem from Palestine] in particular, they to do that…. So people are effectively stuck…. need to communicate with their embassy Then they just end up here destitute and or to try and get documentation. We’ve homeless, and there’s not much you can do. tried repeatedly to try and get some sort of (Red Cross staff member, Glasgow 2) response from the embassy to either say they are or aren’t from that place. It’s impossible it One of the Red Cross staff members in Glasgow seems. It seems impossible. You can try and (Glasgow 1) mentioned cases in which the Home write letters, try and write emails, try and call, Office has impounded people’s documents but we never get any response. That’s to prove because they believe them to be fake. The Home that that person is from that country. Yes, so Office then refuses to release the documents to that element of their case is incredibly difficult. the client’s lawyer and the lawyer cannot consult (Red Cross staff member, Birmingham) an expert witness to verify the documents. The staff member from Birmingham went on to Other issues mentioned related to cases when comment: people have no documents on arrival in the UK; when people have lost contact with their family in I suppose the interesting thing with these two their country of origin; and when people do not people is they’re just very open about wanting know where they were born. The transient lifestyle to leave the UK…. I suppose it’s really stark of refused asylum seekers also makes them more with them that they are very stuck. (Red Cross likely to lose any documents they may possess: staff member, Birmingham) They might have been refused two years ago The staff member in Leeds mentioned some of the and when they were evicted from their asylum ways in which the Leeds Red Cross helps this group: support house, left all their belongings there…. So they won’t have anything. (Red Cross staff The evidence [needed] would often be around member, Birmingham) proving their nationality. So we would sort of