Jims Family are here to stay - beneficiaries of the recent Amnesty

   Jims Family Must Stay

Felicia Jims and her four children came to the UK in June 1998. Felicia’s husband was a diplomat, and for the previous seven years the family had lived in Hong Kong.

Felicia’s husband accompanied the family when they came to London, but he returned soon afterwards to Nigeria, promising to send money for the family to join him. However, he abandoned the family, and efforts to contact him were unsuccessful.

The family went to see a solicitor in who advised them to claim asylum. He charged them hundreds of pounds, and refused to release papers as his bill was not paid. Friends were supporting them financially, but due to the high cost of living in London, they moved Manchester. At first the friends continued to support them, but financial support became more difficult.

Because the solicitor in London would not release the file to their new legal representatives, the family found it extremely difficult to prove that they were asylum seekers and they were shunted from one Social Services office to another. The Asylum Seekers Team initially would not grant support and, after eight or nine weeks, they contacted the Home Office to enquire about the family’s status. In the meantime, Felicia was given £42 per week for a family of five (an amount of £1.50 per child per day).

Kate’s asylum application was treated separately as she is not a dependent child, and due to various circumstances, she did not complete a Statement of Evidence form, did not attend an asylum interview in Croydon and did not attend in court for the appeal. However, despite not hearing any evidence the Adjudicator refused asylum. Social Services stopped their financial support for Kate and an application was made to the National Asylum Support Service for vouchers. To date (nine weeks later) they have not processed the application, despite their stated aim of making a decision within two working days.

In 1999 the Home Office announced a "concession" changing the time limit under which immigrant families with young children can be forcibly removed from the country. It was decided that children who had spent seven years in the UK should not be uprooted without strong reason. Although the Jims family do not strictly fit within the terms of this concession, what is the point of deporting them to Nigeria? None of the children speak any Nigerian languages, and two of them having been born in Hong Kong, have never been to Nigeria. The situation that the family find themselves is not of their making, and they should be allowed to stay in the UK which they consider their home.