Detainees with indefinite leave to remain are not entitled to Home Office accommodation

An immigration detainee who has indefinite leave to remain must apply to their local council for housing benefit rather than for a bail address or asylum support provided by the Home Office. In R (AT (Guinea))) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWHC 2709 the claimant AT had previously been granted indefinite leave to remain but had claimed asylum when the Home Office tried to deport him.

AT was granted bail by the First-tier Tribunal on three occasions. The judge insisted that AT is discharged to a stable address. Unfortunately, AT was not able to provide that for himself, so he applied to the Home Office for asylum accommodation under section 95 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999.

When rejected, he appealed that decision to the asylum support department of the First-tier Tribunal. The appeal was dismissed on the ground that he was not “destitute” within the meaning of the legislation because he could apply for support from his local authority.

Nigel Poole QC agreed with the specialist social support judge:

The Claimant was, until 22 January 2019, a person with indefinite leave to remain. Accordingly, whilst the appeal against his deportation order was pending, he was not under “immigration control” for the purposes of the 1999 Act, and therefore he was not excluded from eligibility to benefits under s.115 of the 1999 Act.

As a result, Nigel Poole QC rejected AT’s claim that the Home Office had behaved irrationally when refusing to provide him with accommodation.

The above case illustrates that the Home Office support with accommodation should only be used as a last resort.