MARSHALL, his wife, and their three children are refugees. They sought asylum in the UK in 2020, and spent the next four years in asylum hotels. Today, they have been granted leave to remain, but their time in the asylum system was difficult. They were moved around frequently. The food that they were given was so bad that their son was diagnosed with malnourishment.
For three years, they were left without any basic subsistence support because the Home Office sent their Asylum Support Enablement (ASPEN) card to the wrong hotel and refused to issue a replacement. Like all asylum-seekers, they could not work because of the general ban on employment.
Despite all this, Marshall and his family desired only two things while waiting: to practise their English and to find something meaningful to do. Marshall speaks highly of the assistance that he received from Migrant Help, as well as refugee projects run by other charities.
It was at a church near his asylum hotel, however, that he found not just assistance, but also a sense of community, opportunities to make himself useful, a way of discovering the peculiarities of British society, and kind people with whom to develop his language skills. He was not a Christian then, but that did not matter: all the church wanted was to make Marshall and his family feel loved and welcomed, and to create a space for them in which they could flourish and belong.
There are thousands of stories all over the country of churches’ welcoming asylum-seekers and refugees such as Marshall, helping them to find community in the UK and to be integrated into society — despite the odds.
Indeed, not only does the Home Office currently fail to prepare asylum-seekers adequately for life in the UK: it also actively discourages their integration by prolonging their dependence on state support, socially isolating them, and depriving them of dignity and autonomy. By doing this, the Government also encourages the UK public to view all immigrants, particularly refugees, as permanent foreigners rather than potential neighbours.
IT COMES as no surprise, therefore, that recent Census data show that almost three in four non-EU-born and four in five EU-born residents who arrived in the UK since 2011 do not identify as British, and do not feel an affinity with any nation of the UK.
Integration is a two-way street. Refugees must want it — and most are desperate to find a new place to call home, because they have nowhere else to go — and we must enable it. Judging by the way in which asylum-seekers are treated when they arrive, however, they are being told that they will never belong to our shared British community.
It is, therefore, remarkable that refugee integration is happening at all. And churches, a new research report published by Theos reveals, play a significant part in this process. They provide essential front-line services, including clothing banks, English-conversation cafés, and administrative assistance. They also make their assets, including buildings, volunteers, and networks, available to secular refugee charities.
In addition to these widespread services, churches make a unique contribution, in that, with a much broader remit than most secular charities, to “love the stranger”, they adopt a person-centred approach, building deep and meaningful long-term relationships and restoring asylum-seekers’ trust in Britain. They also empower asylum-seekers and refugees to get a stake in local communities.
There are some obstacles, of course. Unfounded fears of proselytism, debunked claims that churches facilitate “bogus conversions” to help ill-intentioned asylum-seekers strengthen their claims (News, 15 March 2024), and stakeholders’ general suspicion of churches, which prevents many of the latter from entering into partnership with them, all negatively affect church activities.
STILL, there is reason for hope. In a recent White Paper (News, 16 May), the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, described integration as one of the core principles underpinning reforms to the immigration system — although the paper provides few details of how this will be achieved. While it is unlikely that the dysfunctional system will be completely overhauled, as many are calling for, there might be some slight improvements.
Rather than reinvent the wheel, a good first step towards fulfilling the Government’s aspirations would be for it to learn from churches across the UK which already facilitate integration through patient and persistent community engagement.
Second, the Government should invite churches to the policymaking table, and participate in strategic discussions about integration at all levels of government. All stakeholders would benefit greatly from the insights, established networks, and practical experience that churches can offer.
There is a long way to go, but, if the Government’s aim is to create integration-orientated immigration and asylum systems in Britain, it should heed the wisdom of our churches and recognise their essential contribution to the discussion about integration.
George Lapshynov is a researcher at Theos. His report, From Strangers
to Neighbours: The Church and the integration of refugees, is published this week.
