Churches in Britain have a long history of alleviating the deprivation of some of the most marginalised. CAP was born out of a recognition to try to eradicate the root causes of this deprivation. Over the last decade increasingly the most deprived have been political migrants and economic migrants.

People seeking asylum in the UK who have had their application refused (often through unfair and incompetent processes) sometimes cannot be deported because it is not possible or safe to do so. Government policy is to use a carrot and stick approach of making rejected asylum seekers destitute whilst offering very basic support if applicants say they will “voluntarily” return to the place they fled.

Many people, including Christians, are scandalised that destitution is being used as a tool of Government policy. For some Christians the obvious root of the destitution has challenged them to do more than just put sticky plasters on the problem.

In churches there has been a groundswell of support for a campaign to change the root causes of the destitution of people seeking asylum in the UK. Christians looked to CAP, as the leading faith-based campaigning organisation, to start a campaign.

CAP spent over a year surveying what the reality and response was on the ground. We also checked whether we should campaigning on the poverty of economic migrants (legal and illegal) and refugees with permission to stay. With the help of other organisations we were clear the destitution is the most urgent, absolute and emotive migrant issue.

Being new to asylum issues we had to work collaboratively and at first this was the church-based groups (Enabling Christians Serving Refugees, Churches Refugee Network, Churches Commission for Racial Justice and the National Catholic Refugee Forum). All of them were happy for CAP to take a lead, building on our twenty years of campaigning experience.

Over time, and as our campaign has become more respected, we have worked closely with grassroots projects and also a round-table of national agencies working with destitute asylum seekers.

One of our first tasks was to draw an “influence tree” to be clear about who we should be targeting. This identified national decision makers (government ministers and MP’s), national opinion formers (the London based media) and grassroots supporters.

The direction of the campaign has been particularly helped by a workshop by the National Immigration Forum in the USA. We will only change the government policies when we convince them that it is in their interest to. We have to have a stronger, more coherent solution than theirs or Migration Watch. Whilst we can be clear about the considerable benefits, it’s the problem (as defined by us) and the coherent solution that will change the policies. Campaigns are more likely to be successful where they are explicit about the underlying societal values underpinning them.

The Living Ghosts campaign has been very popular with thousands of people getting involved from the top of the church, outside the church but most of all our bedrock of Christians who believe in taking action to stop the causes of economic injustice. New supporters have also got involved in our other campaigns for fair finance and a Living Wage.

Whilst our campaign aim (work for those who can; support for those who can’t) is a struggle, we are convinced that the Government will eventually recognise that it inhumane, expensive and counter-productive to make refused asylum seekers destitute.