A small boat migrant has warned other asylum seekers not to come to England because “there is nothing here”.
Alaa Eldin, from Syria, said he had been homeless for the past five months and had to sleep rough under a rowing boat on a beach because he was unable to work after his asylum claim was withdrawn.
Mr Eldin, who crossed the Channel in a rubber dinghy more than two years ago, said he was now desperate to leave Britain and head to Germany to find work.
The 25-year-old, who told his story to local reporters after being found on the beach, said he regularly tried to sneak into the back of lorries at the Port of Dover, in Kent, to get back to mainland Europe.
“I want to work and get a job as a plasterer. But I have been here for more than two years and I’ve been out on the street for five months,” he said.
“I don’t have money. I don’t have anything. I’m tired and I want to leave. Because I don’t have a home I have to sleep on the beach and sometimes it’s so cold I have to light a fire.”
Mr Eldin, who fled the Syrian civil war nine years ago, warned other migrants that delays in the asylum system meant the chances of securing the right to remain and working were limited.
“Don’t come here any more – the system is broken. England has come down. It’s not like before. There is nothing here,” he said.
Mr Eldin, who escaped to avoid conscription into the army, initially moved to Germany, where some of his family are living. After falling out with them, he crossed the Channel on a people traffickers’ dinghy in August 2021 to seek asylum in the UK.
He stayed in Leeds, where he hoped to settle and earn money as a plasterer, but quickly discovered that asylum seekers are not allowed to work while their claims are being processed.
Mr Eldin claims the process was dragging on, so he decided he had no future in the UK and applied to voluntarily leave. He said that as a result, officials withdrew his asylum case, meaning he was no longer entitled to any form of state benefit or accommodation.
Home Office data show that of the 112,138 initial asylum decisions made between January and Dec 28 last year, 35,119 were “non-substantive decisions”, which include withdrawn or paused applications.
This would mean that 31 per cent of 2023 asylum decisions were withdrawn or paused, up from 22 per cent in 2022 and 16 per cent in 2021.
Mr Eldin admitted he would stay in Britain if he could get his asylum status returned and be guaranteed to win his application. He said he needed a solicitor to do so, but because of the backlog of cases he would face a wait of five months.
He returned to Dover five months ago in the hope of sailing back to mainland Europe. He has made friends locally, who put him up a couple of nights a week, but they cannot do so permanently because it would breach their tenancy agreements.
He is being helped with legal advice by the Dover Outreach Centre, a homelessness charity, and uses its Sunrise community cafe for meals.
Noel Beamish, the trustees’ chairman of Dover Outreach, told KentOnline: “Alaa is one of many asylum seekers wanting to leave the UK. The asylum process takes a considerable amount of time and they are put in accommodation that doesn’t suit them. They find things don’t work for them in the UK so they want to go elsewhere in Europe.”
A Home Office spokesman said: “It is long-standing government policy that we do not routinely comment on individual cases. If an individual does not have the right to be in the UK, we will make every effort to return to their country of origin or a safe third country.”
