Yes, the process started when I was finally able to access some form of human interaction in the Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Center. The ever-interesting ILPA.org gave me 160 pages of supposed immigration solicitors and how to contact them; sadly, reading the list left me feeling more sexually harassed than anything else. When I visited the Home Office here in Liverpool on this last Wednesday morning and was informed that I have my asylum interview on this next Monday morning, I was also told that the Home Office would be mailing a letter to me with the name of a solicitor here in town willing to legally represent me. That envelope has still not arrived, and it is Saturday afternoon. That's not so surprising. I never receive any post. (Look! I have been long enough that I have started using British English... what a redundant phrase!) My eccentricity on this topic is about to show: Please tell the Royal Princes that, yes, I did already send Madonna two girl-talk letters with no response recieved, but I feel a little inappropriate about sending them any more mail until I hear back first. It is only proper to wait.
Back on topic, my search for a solicitor ended yesterday afternoon without success despite all of the faxed inquiries I sent for over a week and a half when I received one solitary email response from the barrister who is also seemingly the director of the Cambridge Immigration Legal Centre. Chronologically, our conversation went as follows...
-----Original Message-----
fname: Tanya Hedelisa Albon
sname: Varilek
bdate: 12/10/1977
nationality: USA
telephone: no mobile yet
sender_email: varilekova@.........com
address: temporary housing for asylum seekers
23 Percy Street
Helen House #16
Birley Court
Liverpool
L8 7LT
status_in_uk: Temporary_Leave_to_Remain
reason_to_come:
enq: Greetings,
I am in the asylum seeking process here in the UK. I arrived on 08MAR2010, wrote on my immigration paper that I was here to seek asylum away from the US government and all it can influence to harm me, was told I was to be in the DFT system, and was detained at both Colnsbrook and Yarl's Wood. Last Friday, 12MAR2010, I was released to the asylum housing system and have been here in Liverpool at Birley Court ever since. I just received my asylum interview date from the Home Office; I will present my reasons for seeking humanitarian protection here in the UK at the Home Office in Liverpool on Monday, 22MAR2010, at 1PM. Having never practiced law anywhere in my life but being pretty good with anything that needs to follow a logical structure, I know I need to find legal representation and advice for this asylum claim. I am financially destitute, but I am sure you are used to that from asylum claimants asking for your help. I cannot yet afford a mobile phone, but I do have a SIM card I procured while in Yarl's Wood. Contacting me through post or email would be best. Do you believe you can help me?
Thank you for your time and attention,
Tanya H. A. Varilek a.k.a. Squid B. Varilekova
P.S. http://frisco-squid.blogspot.com contains barely anything that the US government has done to me, but it contains my arguments for my own human rights to be reinstated that made them attack me all the more. It makes more sense when read chronologically. Please do not miss November, January, nor February. I plan to update it once I have a free moment to do so.
validation: ZR0QY
ref: TV21263
submit: Submit
--
This is a user Enquiry from cilc.co.uk
-----END Message-----
-----Original Message-----
From: cilc@cilc.co.uk [cilc@cilc.co.uk]
Sent: 3/18/2010 8:48:12 AM
To: varilekova@..........com
Subject: Re: cilc.co.uk Enquiry Form
Dear Tanya,
Thank you for your enquiry. You have send us a link and we have briefly looked at it for few seconds. It contains a lot of information which would require a substantial time to read and one MAY NOT after reading the same follow the logic. We note you are a logical person.
Would you please help us to help you by giving us a brief explanation of:
(1) why you are being persecuted in the USA? and
(2) most importantly, what exactly do you want from us by way of advise?
We cannot give you the best possible advise UNLESS we have a good understand of your reasons for seeking asylum and exactly what you want from us by way of advise.
Please note that although we give our intial advise for free, we are NOT legal aid service providers and therefore, we would not be able to help you any further FOR FREE after given you the FREE ADVISE. So, please make the most and best use of this privilege.
Best wishes
Mohammed Alabi LLB(Hons.)Barrister
Director, CILC
-----END Message-----
At this point, I asked myself what could ever make anybody so snarky to a financially desitute woman pleading for guaranteed physical safety in a foreign country, particularly if the barrister had never met the woman before. I mustered all of my polite tact to email him back...
-----Original Message-----
Sadly,
Because you are not willing to represent me in my plea for political asylum here in the UK, I will not be able to speak with you on these matters. I am only able to speak with legal representatives willing to be bound by rules of confidentiality with my extremely legally sensitive situation. If the US government had been trying to kill you in publicly acknowledged ways that no one ever acknowledged to your face ever since since May of 2009, you would understand. I now regret choosing the Cambridge Immigration Legal Centre as my first and almost only choice for representation. Thank you for impeding my ability to locate a suitable solicitor. Please take care.
--Tanya Hedelisa Albon Varilek
-----END Message-----
Sometimes, I impress myself on just how polite I can be. I, of course, have received no response. As a result, I spent last night in a pub up by the University if Liverpool doing my own human rights research for my asylum interview. I read and made notes on the Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of the Council of Europe.
Hey look at that! Even as a non-citizen of the UK, just by being here, I am guaranteed personal privacy for myself and my correspondence, a right to not be murdered, a prohibition from being tortured or a slave, a freedom of assembly and association, and a whole ton of other things including the "Right to an Effective Remedy" if any of these or any other guaranteed rights are being infringed upon by any government, authority, or person as described in Section 1, Article 13. I really like that last one.
There is also a "Prohibition of Imprisonment Over Debt" paragraph that was added in Strasbourg, 16.IX.1963, Article 1. Though it is nice to know it is there, I am pretty sure it does not apply to me since the only outstanding debt anybody has told me that I currently have is the $25.13 electric and gas bill on the recordbooks of Pacific Gas & Electric for the room I used to rent in San Fransico from roughly the months of December 2009 to March 2010. Yes, yes, I know... I have barely any discernible carbon footprint.
On my list of other things causing my dismay is the inability of my facebook.com account to function almost at all these days. I cannot even seem to look at my own facebook wall after I login. Hello? This considered a NORMAL feature of having ANY facebook account! Most distressingly, I cannot seem to view anything but the non-chronologically listed items placed in my "News Feed" for me. Hello? You tell me I have messages! Why is it I cannot read them?
Well, I should probably proofread this an be on my way. Being actively denied a both timely medical attention and a legal representative by forces that will not identify themselves to me has left me with a great deal of legal human rights research to do by Monday afternoon.
I have never let the US government terrorize me into being forced to break the law, do anything even slightly morally questionable, or even not being my completely natural self. Why should you? Please take care out there.
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