Public Law Solicitors

As part of the Home Office’s ‘Rough Sleeping Support Service’, charity workers are contacting legal representatives requesting information regarding their clients’ immigration matters, despite the clients not giving consent.

When this scheme was first introduced to target EU-national rough sleepers, it was deemed unlawful and discriminatory by the High Court in 2017. Recently we have noticed that there has been an increase in communication from charity workers, requesting constant updates from us on our clients’ immigration matters.

Some of these charities have supported our homeless clients in the past and are aware of their vulnerable circumstances, and in some cases, our clients have specifically informed us that they do not want us to disclose their sensitive and personal information to the charity workers. Despite informing charity workers that our clients do not want us to share their information, or any updates regarding their immigration matters, these charity workers persistently contact legal representatives for continuous updates, which has placed legal representatives in a rather inconvenient situation.

It is not in our client’s best interests for their data to be circulated to charity workers and then presumably fed to the Home Office. Our clients who are rough sleepers are extremely vulnerable and some have serious mental health issues. Their cases sometimes fall out of the scope of legal aid funding and require that we submit exceptional case funding applications for the firm to represent them.

In the past few years, there has been some media coverage regarding certain charities that have been given large sums of money to harvest data regarding their beneficiaries who are rough sleepers. This has resulted in some extremely vulnerable people being referred to the Home Office by the charities and then deported. It is extremely important to note that their personal information and sensitive data is being sent by the charities directly to the Home Office without the individual’s consent.

It is believed that the Rough Sleeping Support Service is a new addition and an extension to the government’s hostile environment policy. It is thought to be orchestrated by the Immigration Enforcement department at the Home Office and is a similar attempt to the previous EU targeted scheme, to use a discriminatory policy in order to deport homeless people from the UK. The scheme is very concerning because Immigration Enforcement are specifically targeting non-EEA and non-UK rough sleepers. Upon receiving their details, Immigration Enforcement are very prompt in carrying out a status check. This can ultimately lead to the client being deported in a matter of days without any chance of proper legal representation due to the funding issues.



Author Kiren Azam is a trainee solicitor in the Public Law department, based in Dalston and is supervised by Immigration director Ayan Yalchin. Kiren represents clients who have been unfairly treated by a government department, the local authority, or a tribunal. When her clients' appeal rights are exhausted, if there are merits to their case, she looks to challenge their unfair treatment by way of Judicial Review. Kiren has experience in challenging unlawful detention, false imprisonment, unlawful delays, challenging refusals of human rights applications, and challenging charter flight removals.

Contact trainee solicitor Kiren Azam on 020 7275 2796 or at KirenA@duncanlewis.com