From the Channel ports to a national service#
Migrant Help began in 1963 as the Kent Committee for the Welfare of Migrants, set up by Helen Ellis to help displaced people arriving at the Channel ports. It took its present name in 2010. Since 2014 it has given government-funded advice to people seeking asylum across the UK, and today runs the Home Office's asylum advice, issue reporting and eligibility service. It also supports survivors of slavery and trafficking (a team it set up in 2008), helps refugees resettled in the UK and vulnerable people with the EU Settlement Scheme, and runs an interpreting business, Clear Voice, whose profits return to the charity.
Getting advice from Migrant Help#
The contact page lists a free helpline open around the clock, every day of the year, a web chat, and a self-service portal for raising problems in 13 languages, including Arabic, Farsi, Pashto, Tigrinya, Kurdish Sorani and Albanian. Advice is given in your language; staff also give face-to-face advice in initial accommodation and reach out to vulnerable clients, and an introduction to its asylum services is available in British and International Sign Language. If someone else contacts it for you, it needs your signed consent form.
Two limits are worth knowing. Its asylum service is for people who have claimed, or plan to claim, asylum in the UK. And it advises on rights and entitlements but does not give legal advice or representation; if you need that, it gives you a list of qualified advisers.
For trafficking, its I might be a victim page sends adults to the Salvation Army's referral helpline and lists Migrant Help's own offices, with leaflets in Albanian, Chinese, Polish, Romanian and Vietnamese.
What its FAQs say about names and records#
Migrant Help's answers deal with Home Office records rather than deed polls:
- A new name on your UKVI account. Its FAQ on keeping your personal details updated follows GOV.UK: you sign in with your identity document, and to change your name, date of birth or nationality you also need an identity document proving the change is needed.
- A wrong name on an eVisa. Report errors in your name, date of birth, nationality or photo straight away through the Home Office's error-reporting service, or your support may stop; it expects a reply within five working days.
- A wrong name on an asylum registration card (ARC). Use GOV.UK's ARC enquiry form, which also covers a change of address.
- Bank accounts. Needed for Universal Credit; the bank will ask for your eVisa share code and proof of address.
A deed poll while you are seeking asylum#
You can make a deed poll in the UK whatever your nationality, but it does not change Home Office records on its own. The Home Office expects your eVisa to match your passport or national identity card, and changes it on other evidence only for recognised refugees, stateless people and others who cannot approach their own country's authorities. If your asylum claim is still being decided, talk to a qualified immigration adviser before you change the name you use with the Home Office.
- What UKVI asks for when a name changes, step by step.
- The handbook's immigration guide sets out what to change first.
- Refugee and migrant charities: others who help with the Home Office side.
This page describes what Migrant Help publishes on its own website, read on 26 October 2026. Migrant Help has not reviewed it, and listing a charity here does not mean it recommends this handbook or any deed poll service.
