At Right to Remain, we see public legal education as a way to shift power. We believe that knowledge of the asylum and immigration legal system and processes belongs to all of us – not just lawyers and professionals. In this context, we also talk a lot about what it means to give legal support and where the line sits between legal support and legal advice, and how to navigate that line when it is rarely as clear as we might want it to be. In practice, we are often working in a grey, messy space where the power might operate in a certain way in the room and where there is and isn’t trust. In addition, the structure of the relationship between people, the urgency of the situation, and the way someone has come to us for help – they will all inevitably influence how legal support is given and how it is received. 

In this longer blog, I wanted to share some lessons and reflections from leading on public legal education work at Right to Remain on what it means to give legal support in the migration justice movement when the conditions are not ideal and what it actually means to build trust in the reality people are facing. 

What’s the difference between legal advice and legal support? 

Legal advice means telling someone what to do based on their personal circumstances and the law. For example, this could mean telling someone what type of application they should make, making an application on someone’s behalf, advising how likely their case is to succeed, or what specific evidence they need. In order to give legal advice on someone’s immigration or asylum case, you must be regulated by the Immigration Advice Authority (IAA). It is a criminal offence to give advice without regulation and more importantly, bad advice can have life-altering and devastating consequences. 

Legal support means taking action without giving legal advice. This can look like lots of different things and there are many examples:sitting with someone and reading parts of the Right to Remain Toolkit together, looking up technical words, gathering documents or letters, typing up their own words, helping to write emails to solicitors or support services, reading through a refusal letter together, preparing for appointments, making a safety plan for when they are reporting, accompanying them to reporting or legal appointments, visiting them in detention, listen, validate, and check in with them as they move through the process. Legal support can be given by anyone as long as you have the permission of the person you are supporting to take action.

Why this matters

I came from over a decade of frontline experience to join Right to Remain,  this included work as a caseworker regulated to give immigration advice. I also planned and delivered training for staff in public sector services and voluntary sector organisations supporting people seeking asylum. Delivering these sessions as a caseworker, I used to frequently warn against overstepping and encouraged attendees that if the person they are supporting is facing challenges or has questions about their immigration/asylum application then they direct them to their caseworker or lawyer for advice. I delivered  those sessions with countless examples in my mind of people I was working with who were living with literally life-changing consequences of poor unregulated legal advice or well-intended but ill-informed action of others such as missed deadlines, submitting the wrong application, missing an appeal hearing and incorrect information being shared with the Home Office without their consent. 

When people attend Right to Remain workshops and events, I hear the concerns of the many grassroots groups and organisations doing invaluable frontline work, who are exhausted and overstretched.  They are understandably concerned about crossing the line into giving legal advice recognising the high stakes, both for people in the system and for groups who are not regulated to give immigration advice. It is right to be cautious, and also we are also navigating very different terrain now. The days of finding someone a legal aid lawyer, often one of the most straightforward things on my to-do list as a caseworker, are long gone and the vast majority of people are going through an increasingly confusing, complex and punitive asylum and immigration system without any legal representation. 

Raids are increasing, detention is expanding and communities are faced with state violence every day while grants of leave are getting shorter and routes to settlement are becoming more complicated and expensive. We know that people with legal representation are more likely to have stronger, better-prepared cases and better outcomes sooner. We know that immigration enforcement operates best when people feel isolated, frightened, and unable to ask questions. Right now, stepping up and giving legal support is one of the most important ways we can protect each other, especially at a time when the safety and survival of our communities is at stake.

Navigating the grey area between advice and support

As part of Right to Remain workshops, we read aloud different scenarios and ask the group: “Do you think this is an example of giving legal advice or legal support?” Some of the scenarios are obvious, for example telling someone what information to write in their immigration application is clearly an example of giving legal advice. However, other examples almost always lead to a debate: for example, is it advice or support if we listen to someone’s story and point out what parts need further explanation to make sense to the listener (for the record, we think this is a good example of legal support!) When we dig deeper into those concerns, the issue is often not just the action itself, but the relationship between the people in the room: who holds knowledge, who feels responsible, who feels able to disagree, and consequently how easily support could start to feel like advice. 

This grey area also exists because the structure of “helping” itself is not neutral. When someone comes to you asking for help (especially if you are working for an organisation), there is already a power dynamic in the room and what you say may carry more weight than you meant it to. This is a real challenge of giving legal support which we believe can be addressed through building long-term relationships of trust where people in the system are able to make informed decisions for themselves. 

What does it mean to build trust?

When we talk about types of legal support like creating a safety plan in case of detention or preparing for an asylum appeal hearing without a lawyer, this work ultimately depends on who you trust: who you call in an emergency, who will believe you, who you feel safe crying in front of, who you are willing to show your Home Office letters to. At the same time, I hear and feel the very real pressure of community groups and caseworkers moving from one fire to the next. Someone comes in with an appeal deadline that day and they don’t have their refusal letter. Someone else is being evicted from asylum accommodation and has 2 days left on their support discontinuation letter. Someone is fleeing domestic violence and is turned away from a shelter because they’ve been told they need to apply to get access to public funds. These are people who are also frightened, confused, and faced with threats to their safety. So, how exactly do we build trust in the realities of this work? 

In this work, trust is not built because we can promise good outcomes – usually we cannot.  We cannot guarantee that someone will be safe, that the Home Office will act fairly or that they will not be harmed by a deliberately racist and hostile system. 

So much is also outside of our control, but what we can influence, and what we must hold onto, is how we show up for one another. 

The starting point for building trust can simply be how we show up in the interaction itself. Of course it is important to be warm and approachable, but someone can also be met with kindness and feel unclear, judged and without agency. This is why we say only give legal support with the permission of the person receiving it. Trust is built when someone knows you are really listening; that you will check before assuming; that they can ask for help without losing control over their own situation; when they understand the limits of the help being offered and know that sometimes the answer to their question might be, “I don’t know,” but it will be honest. It is also built when there is space for their feelings to just be, without someone rushing to fix them and who can say “what you’re feeling is real and you’re not alone in this.” The everyday ways we are with each other, how we listen, how we treat people and whether our values show up in our behaviour (and not just our slogans) are not separate from justice but are part of how justice and solidarity is built. 

I’d like to end with Ursula K. Le Guin, from The Dispossessed, which explores mutual aid, freedom, responsibility, and what it means to live without saviours. 

“We know that there is no help for us but from one another, that no hand will save us if we do not reach out our hand. And the hand that you reach out is empty, as mine is. You have nothing. You possess nothing. You own nothing. You are free. All you have is what you are, and what you give”

Remember: solidarity is a verb!

-Ally Swadling, Lead Legal Education Officer