Working with homeless EU migrants – do you know their rights?

This half-day training delivered by Adrian Berry, barrister at the Garden Court Chambers and Adam Weiss, the deputy-director of AIRE Centre, seems to have struck the right cord with participants. Mostly because of a good mix of participants, who deal with homeless EU nationals in their day to day work and wanted to know more on how to ensure the rights and wellbeing of their clients are protected.

While the pilot on expulsion of homeless EU personss has been in operation for more than 6 months, this type of strategy for dealing with homelessness, underpinned by the prospect of immigration enforcement for those who do not comply, is a completely new thing. This understandably leaves a lot of staff dealing with homeless migrants, who’s focus of work isn’t immigration law, confused. And rightly so. Trying to determine person’s rights under the current EU treaties is extremely complicated even for the more savvy immigration lawyers.

It should then be of little surprise that event the most fundamental provision of the pilot, the legal basis for coercive expulsion of EU nationals is far from solid. Even to the extent that AIRE Centre, ILPA and MRN all believe that coercive expulsion of this type is unlawful, which would mean that the UKBA pilot is in breach of current EU legislation and treaties.

But leaving that aside for the courts to decide, the training sessions were tailored for people with no or little legal background and leaving most of the afternoon sessions aside for detailed Q/A on specific rights and procedures. Participants firsthand experience of the pilot added a practical dimension to the course and questions on specific cases were asked throughout the sessions. Something we will be adding to our Factsheet and Frequently Asked Question documents we produced to assist staff in understanding the pilot.

Judging by the feedback our main objective to equip participants with confidence that they've got a good understanding of the rights available to migrants, and of their responsibility to ensure these are read into the procedures for providing advice has been met. Participants left with a sense of better understanding and a good list of contacts with details of who to call to get more advice and help.

One thing which was voiced by the participants at the end of the training was that more courses like this are needed. Why? Well let me give you an example of somewhat typical case frontline staff come across in their work. Leave a comment in the box below if you immediately know what to do. If you don't, keep this page bookmarked as we will be adding a couple of videos from the training and updating you with more information on the pilot.

A man comes to you for assistance. He is sleeping rough in a make-shift tent. The man says that he was working on a building site in the UK for a couple of years but the work dried up six months ago. He asks you to help him find some accommodation, food and a little money for essential living needs. He has a nasty infection on his leg and is only capable of walking short distances. He is not interested in going back to Poland but would like to find work in the UK. He says he is not in contact with any family members but thinks a brother who he used to live with in Poland is working on a building site in Wembley. He says he is Polish but he has no travel documents on him. He is worried if he asks for help he may be sent back to Poland.