A lawyer is charging Suleiman £900 for an application that should be free for him as a refugee.
I strain to understand what Amir* is saying; his English is broken and the phone signal in Brook House immigration removal centre is notoriously bad. “I have a ticket for Friday” he says. It’s Monday. I’m not sure what to say. “Do you have a lawyer?” I ask limply. I’m not optimistic.
Most likely, Amir does not have a lawyer. He might not know how to go about getting one. One in three people in detention do not know they are entitled to 30 minutes of free legal advice. It’s also possible that Amir’s case is not in the scope of Legal Aid since the cuts. Best case scenario is that Amir is entitled to Legal Aid and does understand the Legal Aid ‘surgery’ system in England’s immigration removal centres. But he will be told that he must wait for an appointment, as most people have to wait over 1 week and there is no official mechanism to prioritise people. The Home Office will have forcibly removed Amir before he has a chance to secure legal representation.
