Burdened by poverty, a father struggles to pay for journeys from Cork to Dublin to sign immigration paperwork

Ali Ishrat Malik has little appetite for anything other than water, he says, sat at a table at a café on Dawson Street.

He is just back from the immigration office on Burgh Quay. By now, it is a familiar trip.

Since January this year, he has had to travel regularly from Millstreet, a small town in County Cork, to the Dublin offices, he says.

Ever since he got deportation orders for him and his 13-year-old daughter Ahber – which he has appealed.

At first, it was every month and more recently every two months, he says, to sign deportation paperwork.

“If I don’t they …” says Malik. He puts his wrists together in invisible handcuffs.

But finding the money each time is a real struggle.

In December 2023, Malik lost the right to his weekly asylum allowance and the right to work because he has been refused all three statuses that people seeking asylum can get.

“It’s very difficult to survive. Before, I had the work permission, I did a job,” says Malik, who worked as a security guard.

A caseworker at Killarney Immigrant Support Centre (KASI) bought his ticket to Dublin this time, he says, casting the train ticket on the table.

Those who have been issued with deportation orders have to show their faces to an immigration officer and sign paperwork regularly, proving they haven’t gone off grid. But it’s unclear why they have to pay to come to Dublin to do it, rather than at a local Garda station.

A spokesperson for the Department of Justice referred queries about the policy to An Garda Síochána.

A spokesperson for An Garda Síochána –  whose Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB) is in charge of deportation – hasn’t responded to queries sent on 2 October.

Lucky Khambule of the Movement of Asylum Seekers Ireland (MASI) says MASI knows people in the queue for deportation who live in extreme poverty.

They struggle to afford the cost of commuting to Dublin, he said. “At MASI, we see this as a punishment and inconvenience to people.”

Cost of commuting

Khambule says if the GNIB wants people on the deportation queue to travel to Dublin, they should help them with transport fees. “[They] have no income to take care of themselves.”

But they should be able to sign at Garda stations anyway, he said.

Paying to get to Dublin has always been difficult, even for asylum seekers headed to interviews or appeals who have a meagre weekly payment, said a spokesperson for KASI, the non-profit in Killarney.

“They are certainly beyond the means of people whose payments have ceased, such as Malik,” they said.

People may borrow money, fall into debt, they said. “We don’t see why appointments like stayed-deportation sign-ins cannot be done in local GNIB offices in Kerry and Cork.”

Since July, people in Cork and Limerick seeking to register an Irish residence permission for the first time also have to travel to Dublin to do so. It means non-EU immigrants in those counties can now renew their permissions online instead of at local Garda stations.

A spokesperson for the Department of Social Protection (DSP) said it accepts applications for help with essential expenses from those facing deportation, under its supplementary welfare allowance scheme.

Officials look at the law and the circumstances to make sure payments get to those who need them most, said the spokesperson.

Malik didn’t know that. But Fahmeda Naheed Osman, a community activist in Cork, said on Thursday that she and others are going to draft an application for him.

Stand clear of the closing doors

On 1 October, Malik pulled two blank forms out of his backpack, threw them on the table and started to cry.

Immigration officers had handed them to him, he said. “They said fill the form, then we deport you,” he said.

They wanted to take his photo, he says, burying his face in his hands.

The forms Malik got at the immigration office don’t have any official Irish government headers and ask for a “permanent address” in Pakistan, their place of birth.

Malik’s lawyer, Imtiaz Khan of IMK Law Solicitors, has taken their case to the High Court, hoping to revoke their deportation orders. Malik says Khan doesn’t think he can be deported while that’s pending.

Khan has written a letter for immigration officers that says his client’s case is on Ms Justice Niamh Hyland’s holding list.

That means sitting under a raft of cases raising the same point, waiting for a decision on the lead case that would apply to them, too. That can take a long time.

Malik says he wanted to say all of that at the immigration office, but he was too afraid and couldn’t articulate himself in English. “Can they interpret for me?”

A spokesperson for An Garda Síochána did not respond to a query asking if its GNIB unit can still deport people if they have a case pending before the court.

Malik’s daughter was three when they arrived in Ireland, he says. They’ve lived here for the past decade.

She’s in school right now, he said.

He says he doesn’t want her to be forced to leave everything behind – her life, friends and classmates – traumatised by deportation.

She doesn’t even speak Urdu, he said. “How could they reroot her?”

He pulls an expired asylum card out of his pocket with a photo of a smiling little girl.