The National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns (NCADC) has announced a desperate cash crisis and imminent closure – very, very bad news for those desperate asylum seekers who rely on the organisation.

NCADC is unique – the only national organisation which supports those facing deportations and assists them in establishing campaigns for the right to stay.

For the past ten years it has linked campaigns together and provided huge amounts of information on the daily struggles faced by asylum seekers, both in detention and in the community.

The problems faced by NCADC comes at a time when legal aid for those fighting asylum cases has been seriously restricted and new qualification requirements for immigration practitioners means many are left to represent themselves.

NCADC is often a last resort for desperate asylum seekers. For the last six years, NCADC has been funded by the Community Fund (now the Big Lottery Fund) but this funding has now ended. In 2002 NCADC’s grant was suspended and an investigation launched into the organisation’s ‘political activities’ after it was vilified in the Daily Mail.

Generous donations from individuals and other supporters carried the organisation through until the Community Fund monies were unfrozen.

But following the Daily Mail attack and the resumption of the Lottery Fund money, NCADC has been placed in a position where its activities have been minutely scrutinised.

Many organisations and individuals are appalled at the thought of there being no NCADC to turn to.

“NCADC has been invaluable in helping doctors in the Medical Justice Network to gain access to detainees. … If they are forced to close, many deserving refugees will become even more vulnerable than they are already. I urge you to support them.”

Frank Arnold MB FRCS, Doctor, Medical Justice Network

“I am so sad to hear that you are going to close all your office. Please stay!”

An asylum seeker

“We need to campaign for NCADC to keep their doors open for those who are suffering under the threat of deportation to where their human rights were severely abused.

“The work they are doing needs some money and this is very important because they can’t achieve their objectives and help refugees and asylum seekers without it. They can’t disappear because our lives depend on them.”

An asylum seeker

“NCADC provide the most prompt information service in the UK on issues affecting migrants, they are unique in helping to set up and link the individual anti-deportation campaigns around the country, and they provide moral and practical support for the right of individuals to free movement about the world.

“In particular, they have over 12 years been uncompromising in opposing the barbaric practice of imprisoning tens of thousands of innocent people every year in immigration detention centres.”

Bill MacKeith, Barbed Wire Britain Network to End Refugee and Migrant Detention.

“I have acted for a number of people who have faced unwarranted and unlawful violence at the hands of detention centre officers or escort officers. Without the work of the NCADC, these cases would have gone unreported and the abuses unchallenged.”

Sarah Ricca, Hickman and Rose Solicitors

“The end of support for NCADC has to be seen as part of a pincer movement against would-be refugees.

“First the government made it harder and harder for people to come here legally to claim asylum. Then they removed levels of appeals etc, next they removed access to decent legal representation."

“What is left?"

“Campaigning. Raising public consciousness about the iniquities of the system - engaging local people in defending asylum seekers’ rights and involving the media - is the last bastion of support for so many asylum seekers today."

“If we take that away, we take away a really important level of the struggle for justice in a totally unjust system. It is not just that the fate of individuals, many facing persecution and hardship, will be sealed."

“But that the general population, in this era of calculated disinformation, will remain ignorant and the chance of involvement of decent people in. the fight for human justice will be lost.”

Jenny Bourne, Campaign Against Racism and Fascism

“…My husband in Amman …sends his thanks to you for your continued support throughout … out of everyone… you listened the most, and your phone line was ‘open all hours’.

“I do hope, beyond all hopes, that you can get sustained funding to keep NCADC going. We’ve sent a donation, but it’s sadly, not enough. Inshallah!”

“We’ve always wanted to meet you - and even though we haven’t, it feels as if, somehow, we have."

“May others follow our lead to get the life they too, deserve. ‘Never give up’ is the message we give (and you can pass this on) and “sometimes, just sometimes, you just have to take a risk ... we did”.’

Gina and Nabil Musa

“I was dismayed to learn of the funding crisis at NCADC. They are providing an invaluable service to immigration practitioners, and just now when there are serious problems in the detention estate, particularly the increasing number of cases of suicide and self-harm, they are the only organisation which offers day to day information about the state of affairs.”

Lord Avebury

“I have been writing about immigration and asylum for some years and NCADC has been an invaluable resource. They send out accounts of what is happening to people seeking asylum and other aspects of the issue."

“They are always very helpful to journalists. I have always found Emma Ginn to be immensely knowledgeable and helpful."

“Their compassion and campaigning have helped many people seeking asylum who have few if any other allies. But they do not let emotion or red mist cloud their responsibility to provide information that given the obvious constraints in asylum cases, is as accurate as possible."

“Their demise would be close to catastrophic for the asylum seekers they help. For the rest of us, we would lose a key resource for keeping us in touch with things that are happening under our noses, but which otherwise we would not know about.”

Melanie McFadyean, freelance journalist

As well as rushing off donations to keep this vital campaign alive (see below) Socialist Resistance supporters may well feel they want to do more.

Certainly what has happened to NCADC not only highlights the iniquituos power of the Daily Mail, but the problems with funding for thousands of essential voluntary organisations.

Cuts in local government funding, and the spineless way that local councils have given into them over more than a decade have meant that organisations have become more dependent on the undemocratic lottery funding.

These are issues that Respect should be addressing in its local government manifesto in order to put together a platform which can reach out to new forces and build the broad based political alternative to New Labour we so desperately need.

Please visit the NCADC website to contribute vital donations today! www.ncadc.org.uk