submissions were refused in September 2010 and having once again lost his support and having been evicted from his accommodation, he and his wife have been staying with a friend. Ghanim describes how being stateless makes him feel “lost”. He said that “every day I feel like I’m going to die, I feel that events will crush me. Sometimes I want to die, to get rid of these things.” Other stateless Kuwaiti Bidouns interviewed describe similar experiences of being totally reliant on friends following the refusal of their asylum applications.294 Imad, aged 28, has spent almost a year destitute and finds uncomfortable parallels between his situation in the UK and the conditions he had fled in Kuwait. He explained: “Firstly, I have no papers, this is the same as back home. Secondly, I can’t move or travel, also the same as back home. Thirdly, I have no job. It is the same life as I was living in Kuwait, there is no difference…I see myself as not a human. Because I have no documents I am not a human. Of course it affects me as a human because since birth when I opened my eyes for the first time I have had no status. I don’t want my children to have to feel the same way I do. It is a tragedy.” Amani,295 aged 35, was destitute and in limbo immediately after her asylum appeal was dismissed in September 2008 until she was interviewed for the research in February 2011. She has also had three sets of further submissions refused, despite producing expert evidence that she is a “undocumented” Bidoun as claimed. Her assessment of her situation chimes with that of Imad. She says: “the refusal is difficult. Because of this my situation is the same as it was in Kuwait. I have no ID, no work, no education, no freedom.” Section 4 accommodation and support for stateless and “unreturnable” refused asylum-seekers The majority of participants in the study were refused asylum-seekers. The government expects them to leave the UK as they have been found to have no right to remain. However, the Secretary of State is empowered to provide “facilities and accommodation” to someone who was, but is no longer, an asylum seeker.296 The Secretary of State has made regulations that set out eligibility criteria which are applied in all cases except where the applicant is being released from detention.297 Applicants must pass a two-stage test. First, the “failed asylum-seeker” must appear to the Secretary of State to be “destitute”.298 There are references in secondary sources that indicate that refused asylum-seekers have difficulty in proving that they are destitute.299 Secondly, they must satisfy one of five conditions. The most relevant conditions for participants in this study were either that the person is taking all reasonable steps to leave the UK or to place themselves in a position in which he or she is able to leave the UK,300 or that the provision of accommodation is necessary for the purpose of avoiding a breach of a person’s Convention rights, within the meaning of the Human Rights Act 1998.301 100 294 Participant 15. 295 It was not possible to obtain a full paper file for this case but factual aspects were checked on CID as well as the limited papers available. 296 Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, section 4(2). 297 Immigration and Asylum (Provision of Accommodation to Failed Asylum-seekers) Regulations 2005. 298 The definition of destitution is the same as considered in the test for section 95 support. 299 Willman, S. and Knapfler, S., op. cit., pp. 279-81. 300 The Immigration and Asylum (Provision of Accommodation to Failed Asylum-Seekers) Regulations 2005 No 930, Regulation 3(2)(a). 301 Ibid., Regulation 3(2)(e). Mapping statelessness