All they will call you will be...deportee

That is a lyric from a sadly beautiful Sweet Honey and the Rock song. I spent all day at a conference on refugees and asylum seekers. Twelve speakers from government, trade unions, academia, and civil society. In sum:
U.N. and E.U. law provides automatic protections for anyone claiming refugee status.
Those laws are being ignored as European states try to erect barriers to those fleeing war and various forms of misery.
The U.K. is particularly harsh on asylum seekers. Once applications are rejected, these stateless souls become destitute.
Civil society often picks up the slack, but they need to engage the government in living up to its legal responsibilities.
The best way to achieve same is for devolved governments (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) to adopt a more liberal stance toward refugees and asylum seekers and shame the Home Office (i.e. the U.K. government) into providing housing and legal counsel for asylum seekers.

One of the worst things I heard was that the U.K. government is becoming more aggressive about deporting asylum seekers in order to make way for the Syrian refugees it has committed to accepting. Civil society, churches, and individuals will provide support for people who have chosen to move here; the government just needs to get out of the way so refugees can legally work and find housing and stop living in fear of having to return to whatever violent environment they fled.
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