Campaigners call for asylum seekers to be allowed to work after Sheffield raid

A campaign group called Lift the Ban has spoken out after a suspected immigration offender was arrested for working in Sheffield.

They are calling for asylum seekers to have the right to work after six months to boost their income, improve integration and ’ensure their talents aren’t wasted’.

A Lift the Ban spokeswoman called Megan said: “Due to an ever-increasing asylum backlog, many people wait years while their asylum claim is being processed, forced to live on less than £6.50 per day, while their talents are wasted and their integration set back. The person targeted at the Jet garage described as a ‘suspected immigration offender’ may well have been in this position.”

She spoke out after a raid on Jet Cutler Service Station, Northfield Road, Crookes earlier this month.

At the time, a Home Office spokesman said: “Illegal working causes untold harm to our communities, cheating honest workers out of employment, putting vulnerable people at risk, and defrauding the public purse.”

Lift the Ban quotes asylum seekers including Joyce, who said: “We want to work, to pay bills, to pay tax. Put something into the community so that money can help the ones who really need help.”

And Farhat: “I want to work because it gives me the feeling of being someone. I want to work because I don’t want to look back after five or 10 years and realise I did little except sit alone in a room and wait for a decision on my asylum claim.”

Another said: “I’m a midwife, and here I am wasting away. When my services are well needed out there, and I heard they are now going out of the UK to recruit midwives. And here I am, wasting away.”