Tag: asylum seekers

Refugee report: February


February 2023

The report for February/January 2023 thanks to group member Andrew for the work on this post.

As we await yet another immigration bill (this time designed to send anyone arriving here “illegally” on their way immediately) let us consider what legal means of arrival still exist.

The Johnson government committed the government to providing safe and legal routes of entry as part of a broader programme of asylum reforms outlined in its New Plan for Immigration policy statement (March 2021).  It wanted fewer people to come to the UK as asylum seekers and more to come through safe and legal routes.

A December 2022 statement by the Prime Minister went further.  Rishi Sunak announced that the Government now intends to make further legislative changes so that “the only way to come to the UK for asylum will be though safe and legal routes”.  He said that the Government would create additional legal routes “as we get a grip on illegal migration” and would introduce an annual quota for refugee resettlement.

Refugee rights campaigners have previously called for an annual target for refugee resettlement.  But they have also cautioned that safe and legal routes are not available to everyone who needs protection.  Consequently, they want them to be provided alongside an accessible in-country asylum system.

The other continuing issue about immigration is the endeavour by the government to prevent legal stays to the proposed deportation policy.  Much of the debate has centred on possible appeals to the European Court of Human Rights, which is referred to as a “foreign court”, but is actually an international body on which the UK is represented.  The Home Secretary is keen to leave the ECHR in the event of dispute, putting the UK in a class with Russia and Belarus.  There is opposition to the possibility of this happening, not only in the legal profession but also in the Conservative Party.  Also, the High Court has now allowed appeals against their finding in favour of the government over the legality of the Rwanda plan to go ahead.

Elsewhere, the head of the Windrush inquiry has expressed disappointment after the home secretary confirmed the government was dropping three key commitments made in the wake of the scandal.  The Home Secretary Suella Braverman, told MPs she would not proceed with the changes, including establishing a migrants’ commissioner. They were put forward in the report into the wrongful deportation of UK citizens of Caribbean descent. Wendy Williams said “crucial” recommendations had been scrapped.

Ms Williams’s formal inquiry examined how the Windrush scandal unfolded at the Home Office – when British residents, many of whom had arrived in their youth from Caribbean countries in the 1950s and 60s, – were erroneously classified as immigrants living in the UK illegally.  In a written statement in the House of Commons, Ms Braverman insisted the Home Office was looking to “shift culture and subject ourselves to scrutiny”.  But she confirmed that plans to beef up the powers of the immigration watchdog; set up a new national migrants advocate; and run reconciliation events with Windrush families would be axed.

The government plans to end providing accommodation for Afghan refugees by the end of the year. Currently, 9000 Afghans are living in hotels.

The stories above have contributed to Human Rights Watch, in its annual report, declaring that the actions of the UK government breach domestic human rights obligations and undermine international human rights standards.

Debate about the right to work for asylum seekers has become more prominent lately. Canada allows claimants to work straight away, Germany after 3 months, compared to the UK’s 1 year if the claimant is still waiting a decision.

Asylum support cost in 2022 was £898 million; £5.6 million a day was spent on hotel accommodation.

Final fact: for those applying for visas for partners to come to the UK the cost of the process has been calculated at £8,110 over 5 years and £13,326 over 10 years, not counting lawyers’ fees.  It has been suggested that this money could have been spent into the economy rather than the government’s coffers.

AH

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Refugees in the UK


Report on refugee and asylum issues in the UK

September 2022

The change of Prime Minister this month has led to changes at the Home Office. The new minister, Suella Braverman, will have initially to deal with the question of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda, the issue of which is still under judicial review. The hearings have started this week.  The new Prime Minister, Liz Truss has declared her support for the plan, indeed suggesting its extension to other countries.  An aide told the Mail on Sunday: “She’s determined to see the Rwanda policy through to full implementation as well as exploring other countries where we can work on similar partnerships.”  It would not seem likely that the new Home Secretary will mark much of a change from her predecessor.

Despite the legal challenge, the government plans to deport 19 people to Rwanda in the coming days. Information shared by charities indicates that six were trafficked or tortured, including one who was detained and beaten for eight weeks at a warehouse in the Libyan Desert.

Medical Justice have this week published “Who’s Paying The Price?: The Human Cost Of The Rwanda Scheme”, a comprehensive analysis of people targeted for removal to Rwanda which details medical evidence of the harm inflicted on them.  The charity says: “The policy is damaging in general for anyone, acutely so for such vulnerable torture and trafficking survivors who are already paying a high human cost even before any flights have taken off to Rwanda.”

As one of the side issues to the debate, the charity Freedom from Torture is directing public attention on to the airlines who are or are intending to facilitate the flights.

Another central element of the immigration plan – the setting up of new processing centres for asylum seekers – also appears to have stalled after the Ministry of Defence admitted to the Observer that, despite evaluating 100 different sites for the Home Office since January, it has yet to publicly identify a new one that might be used. The only site named so far as “asylum accommodation” – in Linton-on-Ouse, Yorkshire – was abandoned after the Home Office failed to move any asylum seekers there and the MoD withdrew from the plan.

The Observer has revealed that the government is considering reintroducing its notorious refugee pushback policy for use against small boats crossing the Channel.  Five months ago, after the heavily criticised policy was officially withdrawn by ministers, documents released under freedom of information laws suggest the government is reconsidering the tactic that has been blamed for drownings in Greece.

The numbers arriving in the country by boat continues to grow, to over 25,000 this year, given the good weather.  3,733 people crossed the Channel during the week to 28 August – twice as many for all of 2019.

Acceptances

What has been notable has been the large number of acceptances by the Home Office of asylum seekers’ claims.  New rules on inadmissibility have added to the time taken to process asylum seekers, but the proportion of acceptances in the long term remains high.

A large number of Albanians has, however been returned on the grounds that the country Is safe.  The government has been endeavouring to set up returnee agreements with other countries to facilitate repatriation; at present they have 5, the latest of which is with Pakistan.

By comparison with other European nations, the total number of asylum applications in the UK since 2012 has been 386,000, the 6th largest in Europe.

Outside of the refugee influx, more work visas have been issued to arrivals from India than any other nation (Ukraine is the next largest).

The Afghan emergency last year resulted in 16,000 nationals being brought over here.  Of these, 9000 are still living in hotel accommodation.

The total number of Ukrainian refugees now in the UK is 115,000.  Visas issued under the Family and Sponsorship schemes total 177,000.  For comparison, Germany has so far taken in 971,000 Ukrainians.  The UK government has, however, indicated that host households will have their “thank you” payments doubled to £700 per month.

AH

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Refugee Report – June


Refugee Summary

July 2022

Following the frenetic events of the last week, it is probably worth taking a moment to see where we stand on the refugee front, 60 years after the first Commonwealth Immigrants Act began the process of legislating against incomers. The Nationality and Borders Act has now brought into force more of its provisions, including a Home Office explanation of  ”differentiation” between different types of refugee (the proposed two-tier system).  The effect is that it will take longer for some arrivals to be granted residency and harder for them to bring family to join them, but the changes are not huge, according to human rights lawyer, Colin Yeo, who commented:

The policy exemplifies Priti Patel’s modern Home Office.  It pretends to be tough as old boots but in reality it creates genuine but fairly minor problems for very vulnerable people with no likely policy outcomes achieved.  What it does do is make more work for officials, thereby worsening the backlogs in the asylum system.  It is not just pointless; it is actually counterproductive.

However, AI has commented in its monthly report to local groups the effect of the government’s effective withdrawal from the UN Refugee Convention (See foot of page).

The Afghanistan Citizens’ Resettlement Scheme (ACRS), which had opened in January, and is meant to take 20,000 refugees, has now added guidance on those seeking to come via Pathway 3 (mostly employees of UK organisations in Afghanistan).  Three groups have been established; those who had places allocated, but missed out (who will be assisted); those who came via the UNHCR (who can now begin to be referred) and those others at risk, such as women and girls (1500 places allocated).

In May, 2,871 migrants were apprehended crossing the Channel by small boat compared with 1,627 in May 2021, a 75% increase. Similarly, during the first three months of 2022, 4,540 people were detected arriving by small boats compared with 7,432 during the last half of April, May and June after the MoD took over.  The Navy is said to be keen to be let off enforcing control f the Channel, a policy on which they were not consulted.

By mid-June 77,000 Ukrainian refugees had entered the UK and 135,000 visas issued.  It may be noted that Germany has so far taken 700,000 refugees.

Although the courts have not yet decided whether offshoring asylum seekers to Rwanda is lawful, the Home Office plans further flights.  The HO said “No court has actually ruled that this partnership is unlawful and that includes the ECHR.”  Thanks are due to group members Peter and Lesley for protesting the planned flight from Boscombe Down and subsequent press appearances.

On the subject of tagging claimants, a 12-month pilot scheme is planned to test its value as a monitor and for collecting data – it is already in use for those on bail.

On the vexed issue of the actual ages of asylum seekers, the Home Office is recruiting 40 social workers to help assess claimants’ ages using “scientific” methods.

Statistics
  • Asylum claims Jan-Mar 2022 12,508 (for 2021 2,022)
  • Main countries of departure – Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Eritrea
  • Number waiting more than 6 months for a decision Q1 70,000 in 2017 the number was 14,000)
  • 75% of applicants receive grants of protection (Syrians are at 98%).
  • It is worth noting that the equivalent percentage in 2010 was 25% and in 1995 4% (with fewer applicants, iof course).
  • The number of enforced returns in 2020 was 3,000 (in 2010 15,000),
  • And voluntary returns 5,000 (against 30,000).

Clearly, asylum seekers are far more likely to be granted residence now than in earlier years, but are subject to far longer waits for the process to complete. Whether the new Act will alter this is open to debate.

Also: –

The Napier Barracks, which became notorious as an inadequate location for prospective arrivals, has been deemed to have improved since the original aim.  No immigrants now will spend more than 90 days there.

A Lords Committee looking into the document “Life in the UK”, prepared for those seeking settlement or citizenship, have described it as a “random election of obscure facts and subjective assertions.”

Refugee Week was held in late June this year, but passed with disappointingly little media coverage. AI supported a number of events under the umbrella.

Amnesty’s comment on the new refugee legislation:

On 28th June, the UK’s interpretation of the definition of a refugee and the rights to which every person who is a refugee is entitled will significantly change from that required by the Refugee Convention. What does this mean? It means the government is unlawfully rewriting its shared obligations under international law. To the extent, it is dangerously undermining what our country, not only agreed to, but helped draft and negotiate in 1951. 

These changes are lawless and reckless.  Its consequences directly contradict our values of shared humanity and compassion and have been rightly rejected by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, leading lawyers, and former senior judges in the UK.

Here are five things you need to know:

  1. The evidence refugees need to provide will become overly obstructive and wrongly prevent some refugees from proving their status and rights, making the lives of people that have fled war and persecution even harder.
  2. People who claim asylum based on their sexual identity or orientation being the cause of the persecution they face, will need to meet extra tests.  This will exclude thousands from the asylum they are entitled to and that they need to safeguard them from persecution.
  3. Refugees that arrive or enter the UK without prior permission will be penalised, both by criminal prosecution, imprisonment and by exclusion from their full rights to asylum in the UK, directly violating the Refugee Convention. 
  4. It will lead to the government refusing asylum to those who arrive or enter the UK without prior permission, presenting a grave risk that people are sent back to torture and other forms of persecution.
  5. It will discriminate between refugees in the UK by denying many of them their full and equal rights to asylum under the Refugee Convention. It will leave them:
  6. Insecure by periods of short-term permission to stay that must be constantly renewed by formal application
  7. Impoverished by exclusion from public funds
  8. Separated from family by denying or delaying family reunion rights.

Andrew Hemming

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Refugee developments


Issues to do with refugees and immigrants continue to make waves in the UK

The main development post-Christmas 2021 on the UK refugee front has been the announcement of plans for the proposed Afghan Citizens’ Resettlement Scheme, originally promised in the Summer. Ministers confirmed that the resettlement scheme will open this month, providing up to 20,000 Afghan women, children, and others most at risk with a safe and legal route to resettle in the UK.

The ACRS will build upon the UK’s continuing efforts to support those at risk, alongside the relocation of British nationals, and those who supported our armed forces through the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy (ARAP).

The ACRS will prioritise:

  • those who have assisted UK efforts in Afghanistan
  • extremely vulnerable people such as women and girls at risk and members of minority groups

Minister for Afghan Resettlement, Victoria Atkins, said:

“We are committed to supporting everyone we have evacuated from Afghanistan to make a success of their new life in the UK. I’m very grateful to everyone who has stepped forward to help. The Afghan citizens resettlement scheme provides a safe and legal way for the most vulnerable and at-risk people from Afghanistan to come to the United Kingdom and rebuild their lives, as part of the New Plan for Immigration. Operation Warm Welcome is a huge national effort which could not succeed without the compassion and determination of our partners in local government, the private sector, voluntary organisations and the great British public. “

Further details will be set out this month, but a row has immediately broken out about how many of the refugees are among those already in the UK and whether the “most vulnerable” will be able to be resettled before 2023.

In 2021 a total of 28,300 refugees and asylum seekers arrived in England by boat, three times the number for 2020. The largest number arrived in November, many of them from Afghanistan. The sharp increase in numbers is at least partly accounted for by the reduction in ferry crossings post-COVID and the tighter control of lorries using the Channel Tunnel.

Government figures show that only 1,171 refugees were granted protection through resettlement schemes in the year to September.

Border Force officers are threatening to strike in response to Home Secretary Priti Patel’s Channel “pushback” tactics. The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) said it was “totally opposed” to Patel’s tactics, which would see Border Force jet skis block and redirect migrant boats in the Channel back toward France. Both PCS and the Care4Calais charity have announced they’ll take the Home Office to court over the policy, while PCS General Secretary Mark Serwotka said his members could go further by striking and refusing to implement it.

Home Office policy

The Independent revealed that the government has given more than £700,000 to a “migration behaviour change” company that runs communications campaigns targeting asylum seekers in their home countries.

The Home Secretary ‘s latest thinking on asylum seekers seems to be directed at keeping even tighter control of those awaiting decisions. Under the Home Office’s “new plan for immigration”, Patel is expected to announce early in the new year that small boat arrivals will be electronically tagged.

Ministers also hope tagging working-age people will make it harder for them to work illegally while their asylum claims are processed, and make it easier to remove those whose application for asylum has failed. The plan has been described as “desperate and draconian” by the chief executive of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants.

New bill

The Nationalities and Borders bill continues its progress, having now had a second reading in the Lords. The government’s current emphasis was expressed by Home Office minister Tom Pursglove, who said that the government was reforming its approach to asylum through its new plan for immigration.

“Seeking asylum for protection should not involve people asylum shopping country to country, or risking their lives by lining the pockets of criminal gangs to cross the Channel,” he said. “The nationality and borders bill will make it a criminal offence to knowingly arrive in the UK illegally and introduce life sentences for those who facilitate illegal entry into the country. It will also strengthen the powers of Border Force to stop and redirect vessels, while introducing new powers to remove asylum seekers to have their claims processed outside the UK.”

Free Movement have concluded that the changes to the bill have made it worse, mainly in the area of making it more difficult for asylum seekers to get hearings: “This Bill will entrench existing problems: people with a legitimate basis to stay in the UK – and genuine grounds to fear removal – can be removed without effective access to justice. Making it legally easier to remove people from the UK in principle does nothing to make the system any more efficient in practice. Greater effort should be made to increase the quality and accuracy of Home Office decision-making in the first place.”

Bridget Chapman, a blogger and refugee charity worker has noted the Home Office’s claims about the ages of migrants – her comments follow (courtesy of Free Movement)

  1. The Home Office has suggested that over 1,100 adults have lied and pretended to be child asylum seekers over the past year
  2. The Home Office has weaponised this claim and has used it to undermine sympathy for young refugees, saying they are not genuine children but predatory adult men
  3. Actually the figures are misleading anyway because of the completely inappropriate and inadequate ways in which assessments are made after young people arrive
  4. They are also misleading because many of the age assessments which find them to be adults are subsequently overturned (those pesky activist lawyers again, damn them)
  5. The Home Office is now promising ‘scientific methods’ for accurately assessing young people’s ages
  6. These methods don’t exist
  7. Much of the media are reporting on these ‘scientific methods’ and uncritically regurgitating Home Office press releases
  8. We should all be really cross about that
  9. There is a real danger to the many asylum-seeking children who are wrongly assessed as adults and have their safeguarding put at risk as a result
  10. Those of us working on the ground with young refugees have serious and growing concerns about this.

However, the biggest attacks on the bill have been about Clause 9, the ability of the Home Secretary to remove British citizenship more easily than at present. It has been suggested that this leaves up to 6 million citizens in jeopardy of such an eventuality.

On campaigning, note that the organisers of Refugee Week will be holding their planning conference online on two dates:

Monday 7 February 1030am – 1245pm
Friday 11 February 1030am – 1215pm

Places are available.

Other bills which will have an effect on human rights were discussed in a previous post.

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Refugee Report


We are grateful to group member Andrew for his work in preparing this piece on the important topic of refugees and asylum seekers. There has been a lot of activity on the legislative front this month concerning refugees and related matters .  

There has been much activity on the Nationality and Borders bill, which has reached the report stage, following the detailed discussion in committee, prior to going to the Lords.

Among the changes brought about in the last month, Clause 9 has been the most controversial, allowing the government to remove a person’s citizenship without notifying them, if they consider it in the public interest.  The clause, proposed in July and updated in November, exempts the government from giving notice of a decision to deprive a person of citizenship if authorities do not have the subject’s contact details or if it is not “reasonably practical” to do so.  The clause states that notice would also not be given if such a move is “in the public interest”.  However, the Home Office has said those deprived of citizenship will still have the right to appeal.

A precedent was set in 2019, after Shamima Begum, who was born in London, was stripped of her UK citizenship due to her connections with the ISIL (ISIS).  Sajid Javid, home secretary at the time, argued that although Begum did not have a foreign passport, she would not be stateless because of her Bangladeshi ancestry.  However, Bangladesh, which she had never visited, said she had no claim to the South Asian nation.

Since 2006, the UK has had the power to strip dual nationals of their British citizenship.  The measures were introduced after the 2005 London bombings – four suicide bombings on July 7 that killed 52 people.  At that moment, British anti-terrorism laws changed, and collective security was trumped over protecting civil liberties and freedoms.

Under Tony Blair, who was then prime minister, 12 counterterrorism measures were outlined, also including the expansion of the controversial Prevent programme, which was quietly created in 2003. This required public officials working in schools, universities, hospitals and local councils to report people they found to be showing “radical” tendencies to the authorities.

The ability to deny people citizenship was increased in 2010 by then-Home Secretary Theresa May, who used the powers to strip 20 dual-national Britons who were believed to be fighting in Syria.  In 2014, May took this further, extending the measures to foreign-born British citizens without dual nationality, as long as they were eligible for foreign citizenship and would not be left stateless.  But the new clause – which means people may not be notified of their stripped citizenship – can also be applied before it becomes law, making an appeals process harder.

A report by the New Statesman found that almost six million people from ethnic minority backgrounds could be affected by the proposed clause.

The bill also aims to rule as inadmissible asylum claims made by undocumented people as well as criminalise them and anyone taking part in refugee rescue missions in the English Channel.  Moreover, border force staff will be granted immunity if people die in the Channel during “pushback” operations, a matter of concern among immigration lawyers who say the bill breaches international and domestic law.

According to The Guardian, in response to the new clause, the Home Office has said: “British citizenship is a privilege, not a right.  Deprivation of citizenship on conducive grounds is rightly reserved for those who pose a threat to the UK or whose conduct involves very high harm.  The nationality and borders bill will amend the law so citizenship can be deprived where it is not practicable to give notice, for example, if there is no way of communicating with the person.”

The bill is currently going through the House of Commons and will progress to the House of Lords by next year.

The situation with the points-based immigration system

The Government is struggling to manage the demands of its post-Brexit, points-based immigration system, new figures suggest.  Quarterly statistics published by UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) show that waiting times for immigration sponsorship approvals have increased dramatically since the start of 2021, when the UK’s new immigration system came into effect.

From 2018 to the start of 2021, on average, 78.5% of ‘tier 2’ sponsorship applications were processed within four weeks. In the first half of 2021, this figure sank to an average of 24.6%.  This has similarly been the case for ‘tier 5’ sponsorships, 79.7% of which were processed within four weeks from 2018 to the start of 2021.  Since that time, 23.6% have been processed within this time limit.

Tier 2 visas are granted to skilled workers seeking employment in the UK.  According to the Home Office, applicants “must be able to speak, read, write and understand English” in order to gain entry.  Tier 5 visas, meanwhile, are open to temporary workers – with visas granted for between six and 24 months. Both routes require an application fee of roughly £200, and a healthcare surcharge of some £600-a-year – unless the applicant is a health or social care worker.

The average time taken to process a visa application in the second quarter of 2021 was 48.35 days – compared to just 28 days in the second quarter of last year.  There are now 2,202 applications in the UKVI system that have taken longer to process than the average amount of time – compared to just 374 in the final quarter of 2020.

From 1 January 2021, the UK introduced a more stringent immigration policy that allows entry for those who have a job offer in a skilled sector that meets certain salary thresholds – as well as students and temporary workers in applicable industries.  In order for temporary and skilled workers to gain a visa, the UK demands that they are officially sponsored by their prospective employer.  This differs from the UK’s previous immigration system, during its membership of the EU, when European citizens could move freely to live, work, or study in the UK.

Unsurprisingly, the UK has subsequently seen a surge in sponsorship applications, which were previously only required for non-EU migrants.  An average of 1,346 applications were made in each quarter from the beginning of 2018 to the third quarter of 2020 – rising to 2,607 in the final quarter of 2020, 3,566 in the first quarter of the new year and 3,794 in the second.

However, this surge was entirely predictable. Home Secretary Priti Patel announced the points-based immigration system in February 2020, with Brexiters having supported the idea ever since the 2016 EU Referendum campaign.

According to employer solutions law firm Davidson Morris, Home Office staff have also been diverted “away from sponsorship applications to handle EU settlement scheme applications from EEA nationals” – the process through which EU residents have gained the temporary or permanent right to remain in the UK.

“One year on, our new system is making it easier for businesses to hire the skills and talent they need, while incentivising investment in our domestic workforce,” a Home Office spokesperson told Byline Times.  “Valid and complete applications for visas are processed within the published timescales despite a sustained rise in demand.”

However, the lagging performance of the UK’s immigration system risks exacerbating worker shortages that have plagued the country in recent months.  Amid food and fuel shortages, the UK has made 4,700 temporary visas available to HGV drivers, 5,500 visas for poultry workers, and 800 for pork butchers.  The Government also encouraged 300 EU fuel tanker drivers without a visa to enter the country – yet only nine people applied.

These schemes will not solve the fundamental issues with the UK’s new immigration regime – either in the short or the long-term.  Indeed, speaking to CNN, British Chambers of Commerce President Ruby McGregor-Smith likened the Government’s temporary visa schemes to “throwing a thimble of water on a bonfire

Immigration as a concern for voters

Following Robert Peston’s claim that immigration was top of voters’ concerns, YouGov asked adults in Great Britain, most recently on 22 November 2021, to pick up to three of the most important issues facing the country.  The top three responses were health (49%), the economy (40%) and the environment (35%).  Immigration and asylum were fourth with 34%.  (These figures are analysed to remove random fluctuations in the data due to sampling variability.  If this isn’t done immigration and asylum are even lower with 22%).

Ipsos MORI polled people between 5 and 11 November and found climate change was mentioned most as a concern (40%).  Coronavirus and pandemic diseases came second with 27% and Brexit issues and the NHS/healthcare were both third with 22%.  Immigration and immigrants were mentioned by 11%.

Safe Return of Asylum Seekers

While the Nationality and Borders bill moves on, for some reason a new bill has been tabled to help the government return asylum seekers to “safe countries” in an effort to reduce the number of people claiming asylum in the UK.   Introduced by Conservative MP Peter Bone, the Asylum Seekers (Return to Safe Countries) Bill has passed its second reading.

The Bill would “require asylum seekers who have arrived in the United Kingdom from a safe country to be immediately returned to that country”.  This could apply to those arriving directly from countries deemed “safe” by the UK or to asylum seekers arriving in the UK via a safe country such as France or Germany.  This is essentially an attempt to reinstate the Dublin 111

Accord of the European Union, which allowed member countries to return unregistered immigrants to that part of the EU where they first landed.  Post- Brexit, this obviously no longer applies, though the Home Office is trying to return asylum seekers to the Continent wherever it can.

Health issues for refugees

Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF), alongside other leading healthcare organisations, has written to the Home Secretary in the wake of last month’s tragic loss of life in the English Channel.  The letter outlines their collective opposition to the Nationality and Borders Bill due to its lasting and profound harm to the health and wellbeing of people in need of refugee protection.

Dear Secretary of State,

We write to you in the wake of last week’s tragic loss of life in the English Channel, as organisations representing medical professionals and patients, to raise concerns about the health implications of the Nationality and Borders Bill.

In its attempt to establish a two-tiered asylum system based on the way a refugee enters the UK, the Bill undermines established international protection rules and practices and breaks international law. The United Nations Refugee Agency has described these changes as “a recipe for mental and physical ill-health”.

If passed, the Bill will bring in sweeping changes to the asylum system, including establishing large-scale reception centres in the UK and offshore asylum processing sites, which will cause lasting and profound harm to the health and wellbeing of people in need of refugee protection.

Our concerns are based on a wealth of evidence from individuals held on Manus and Nauru Islands under the Australian Government’s offshore detention policy and our work supporting people in asylum accommodation across the UK.

We strongly oppose the Nationality and Borders Bill as it stands and urgently call on you to establish a kinder, fairer, and more effective approach to supporting refugees, regardless of how they arrive in the UK, including a community-based accommodation system that enables meaningful access to health services.

A group of medical organisations and health bodies wrote to you on 26 November 2020 expressing concern about the use of Ministry of Defence sites to house people seeking asylum.

The letter highlighted the sites’ unsuitability for this purpose due to the lack of access to adequate and appropriate healthcare services, public health risks resulting from a lack of compliance with COVID-19 regulations, and the risk of re-traumatisation triggered by accommodation in former military barracks.

Despite this warning, and Public Health England’s advice against using Napier Barracks because of the coronavirus pandemic, no action was taken.  Residents were left managing health needs alone and reports of suicidal ideation were frequent.

An inspection by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration found individuals “suffering from serious underlying physical and mental health conditions, including one case of active TB at Napier”, and there have been two avoidable and significant coronavirus outbreaks in the Napier site.

We are deeply concerned by plans to establish large-scale reception centres to accommodate up to 8,000 people, and that Napier Barracks is viewed by the government as a prototype for these  centres.

As medical organisations, our experience of supporting vulnerable individuals in Napier Barracks and Penally Camp, as well as medical evidence from Greece which operates similarly large reception centres, show this type of large-scale accommodation prevents people from accessing medical care and presents a real risk to public health.

This type of accommodation is also inappropriate for people seeking asylum, many of whom will have experienced torture, exploitation and abuse, and are at risk of severe psychological distress and re-traumatisation.

The Bill’s proposal for asylum seekers and refugees to be detained offshore indefinitely whilst their asylum claims are processed is deeply alarming from a health perspective.

Australia has implemented a policy of offshoring refugees and asylum seekers on Manus and Nauru Islands since 2012, resulting in severe and well documented harm to people’s physical and mental health whilst concealing their suffering from public scrutiny.

This must not be replicated by the UK. MSF’s mental health project on Nauru Island responded to shocking levels of mental illness among asylum seeker and refugee patients linked to the offshore processing policy.

Sixty percent of patients had suicidal thoughts and 30 percent actually attempted suicide, while 10 children and two adults were diagnosed with the rare, life-threatening condition Resignation Syndrome, which requires medical care to keep the individual alive.

The policy also perpetuated a system of violence, physical and sexual abuse of those detained and led to more than 1,200 people being medically evacuated from Nauru to Australia to receive medical care not available on the island. Many were evacuated for psychiatric reasons after years of distress on the island.

In light of these serious mental and physical health concerns, we are calling for the government to scrap the plans to establish offshore asylum processing and ensure that all asylum seekers who arrive in the UK remain in the country whilst their asylum claim is processed, by removing clause 28 from the Bill.

We also call on government to withdraw plans to introduce UK-based reception centres and make a full commitment to house people seeking asylum in the UK within our communities.

Yours sincerely,

12 signatures

Beyond Europe

Six months after it moved to formally terminate the programme, the Biden administration is restarting the Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as Remain in Mexico, a border policy that forces vulnerable migrants to wait in northern Mexico as their US asylum cases are assessed.  This project was instituted by President Trump, and the current administration say they are having to reinstitute it due to a federal court injunction obtained by the states of Texas and Missouri.  The American Civil Liberties Union have commented:

“The reimplementation of this illegal and cruel policy will inflict on thousands of additional people seeking asylum the same harms that were well documented under its previous implentation: horrific abuse, including torture, rape, and death; and the denial of any meaningful opportunity to obtain asylum.    

“Secretary Mayorkas himself recently acknowledged that MPP is inherently flawed and cannot be fixed, and that its human costs are substantial and unjustifiable.  Although the Biden administration may claim it has no choice but to restart MPP, there is no question that it has a choice to end Title 42, which causes many of the same harms, and yet it has chosen to continue and even double down on that cruel and unlawful policy that turns people away at the border under the guise of public health. It is imperative that that administration do everything within its power to bring both policies to a complete end.”   
 

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Nine problems with the asylum system that Priti Patel can’t blame on anyone else — Page Array – Free Movement


Priti Patel has Been Very Clear that the problems in the asylum system are other people’s fault (including me and my “activist lawyer” colleagues) and that her Package Of New Measures will sort them out. But what do the government’s own experts think? Well, yesterday the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration released a…

Nine problems with the asylum system that Priti Patel can’t blame on anyone else — Page Array – Free Movement

This is a republished post.

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Immigration talk in Southampton


Caroline Nokes MP speaks candidly to the Southampton Amnesty group

Immigration, refugees and asylum seekers are a toxic subject in the UK and the situation seems to be getting worse not better.  This week, the home secretary, Priti Patel announced fresh measures to address the ‘problem’ which many have argued are both unnecessary and unworkable.  Immigrants in all forms are seen as a problem despite the many studies showing that they are net benefit to the country.  Many aspects of our society would almost cease to function without their contributions: the NHS would have to scale down drastically; horticulture and agriculture would suffer, food preparation would almost come to a standstill. 

Other countries have problems that dwarf ours – Turkey, Jordan and Greece for example have millions between them.  The number of asylum cases has diminished since 2002, but the government, stoked up by a fairly relentless right wing media campaign of stories real and imagined, has acted in a relentless hostile fashion.  The Home Office has become a byword for inefficiency, harsh decisions and aggressive actions of which the Windrush scandal is just one example. 

The Southampton Amnesty group invited Caroline Nokes MP to speak and this is a note of her talk to them. 

Caroline Nokes MP left the Home Office, vowing never to speak of immigration again.  But after a year her anger at the direction immigration was taking drove her to take action which she set out in a recent article in the Independent Newspaper.  A number of AI members from the Romsey and Southampton Groups had read this article and as a result invited Caroline to a joint virtual meeting.  At the meeting on the 4th March, Caroline gave a frank exposition of her views of the Home Office’s current approach, a summary of which is outlined below.  This article has been read by Caroline and its accuracy confirmed.

Home Office’s Attitude/Approach to immigration

This is very dependent on the attitude/approach of the Home Secretary.  Caroline felt that when Sajid Javid and Amber Rudd had been Home Secretary they were determined to learn the lessons of Windrush and give the Home Office a more “human face”.  More recently, the HO appears not to have made progress on this initiative, and asylum claims in particular seen as “work in progress” not people.  She expressed her concerns about the lack of resources given to the asylum system and that staff were junior.

Determinations

Decisions about whether or not to grant refugee status take far too long.  The target is 6 months, but the reality is closer to several years.  The system does not work well and is poorly served by ineffective lawyers.  She had recently heard young applicants complain about the interpreters available to them, as the issue is not just about language but also “style”.  In Caroline’s view, the system at the moment is too black and white.  No account seems to be taken at this stage that it is possible further documentation may become available.  The only way to consider additional information is via appeals, which prolongs the process.  A system needs to be developed which takes into account the difficulty of getting all the documents together, the trauma that the asylum seeker may be going through and the need for keeping to a six-month limit as far as possible.

Right to work

In her view the right to work would not need to change if the determinations met the points raised above.  She felt that this would be preferable to allowing asylum seekers to work which would cause complications with the benefits system.

Accommodation:

She did not think ex-army barracks were a good option, but were better than the “pop-up” camp being proposed at Barton Stacey*.  The Barton Stacey proposal for 500 asylum seekers in cabins has shown a complete disregard for planning rules. There would be no facilities, all resources would have to brought in, including water, and waste would have to be removed by tankers.  All power would need to be provided by noisy generators.  There are no specific health facilities, it is close to a very busy dual carriageway and close to an army range with the sound of gun fire!  There has been no discussion with local experts such as the Southampton and Winchester Visitors Group.

A motivation for the HO proposing such camps appears to be about making an unattractive destination for asylum seekers.  However, Caroline pointed out that this would be unlikely to happen as there are three factors which makes the UK an attractive destination for asylum seekers i.e. the language, family ties and the fact that the UK still has a positive reputation internationally.

Future

Caroline was asked how she saw the future as far as this area was concerned.  She said she was concerned at the narrative around migration/asylum, which certainly in sections of the tabloid media contained a vein of racism.  For example, Nigel Farage had claimed recently that a boat full of immigrants had arrived in the UK all of them Covid 19 positive. This was not true!  It was clear Ministers believed the country was on their side when they talked tough about changing the asylum system.

She was very clear that she did not feel the Dubs amendment would pass if it was brought back.

The HO has promised to bring forward a new asylum bill.  The HO appears to have two main reasons why they want to do this.  Firstly they believe the current system is broken and in particular there are too many appeals.  Secondly, since we left the EU the Dublin agreement no longer applies to the UK.  Caroline believes it is indeed broken because determinations take far too long. 

What can be done to ensure a more humane asylum system

The first point Caroline made was that asylum applications in this country were very small approximately 40,000 per year compared to say Germany with upwards of 100,000 per annum.  We need to lobby our MPs write to local press and show that not everyone buys into the negative narrative.

Caroline referred to one positive move that was taking place in Westminster under the Chairmanship of the Bishop of Durham called RAMP.  It is a cross party project.  We must learn the lessons of Windrush and change the negative narrative.

*Barton Stacey is a village north of Winchester and not far from Andover in the UK. 

We are grateful to the Southampton Amnesty group for sending us this text.

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Refugee exhibition


‘I Welcome’ photos on display at the Methodist Church

The plight of refugees entered the news again this year with the attempts by them to cross the Channel in small boats. This prompted the home secretary Sajid Javid to declare that a ‘major incident’ had occurred and he received considerable favourable coverage from the tabloid press. About 221 attempted the crossing between the beginning of November 2018 and the end of December. This compares with the hundreds of thousands who have entered Italy and Greece. To compare the 221 attempts to cross since the beginning of November with the hundreds of thousands who have entered other European states and calling it a ‘crisis’ is absurd.

The Daily Express for example, under a headline ‘Migrant Crisis’ quotes a former home office chief as saying that ‘Britain faces a humanitarian crisis unless it sends back migrants’.

As Roy Greenslade discusses in the Guardian:

For the past couple of weeks, in a period we like to call the season of goodwill, Britain’s newspapers and broadcasters have been reporting on the arrival of desperate men and women on our shores as if they are criminals unworthy of charity or understanding

Guardian 7 January 2018

The Refugee Council regrets the action Sajid Javid took and his reported doubts that these were genuine asylum seekers and that they should be deterred from crossing to make it harder to claim asylum. In response to these comments, Dr Lisa Doyle, Director of Advocacy at the Refugee Council, said:

The comments made by the Home Secretary today are deeply concerning. The outcome of an asylum application cannot be pre-judged before it has been made and must be processed on its individual merit, irrespective of how that person reached the country. Let us not forget that we are talking about people who are in desperate need of protection, having fled countries with prolific human rights abuses. What is more, we are hearing time and again that the conditions in France do not make people feel safe, with migrant camps being razed from the ground and people experiencing violence from the authorities. It’s a shame that the Home Secretary seems to need reminding that seeking asylum is a right and the UK has an obligation to assess claims fairly and grant protection to those who need it.

Refugee Council 2 January 2018 [accessed 7 January]

Immigration, asylum seekers and refugees raise considerable passions in the country and it was a key issue behind the 2016 Referendum. It is likely that many people voted in favour of leaving the EU because they believed it would end immigration of all kinds into the country.

The Salisbury group has mounted a photographic exhibition in the Salisbury Methodist Church during January featuring award winning pictures of refugees in various locations around the world. There are around 40 million internally displaced people and 25.4 million refugees according to UNHCR. The images show some of the desperate situation many of these men, women and children live in.

Part of the exhibition at the Methodist Church

We are grateful to the church for letting us use their space for these photographs.

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Salisbury refugee arrested


UPDATE: 22 February

Reported in the Salisbury Journal that Reza in ‘in a really bad place’ physically and mentally.  See the Journal article.

 

A Salisbury refugee has been arrested and is under threat of deportation

A refugee who has been living in Salisbury for 2 years was back in the news this week following his arrest in Melksham.  He was scheduled to be deported back to Afghanistan, the second most dangerous country in the world according to the FCO.

Reza Magsoudi fled Afghanistan in 2004 when he was 13 and travelled alone to the UK.  Early in November 2017 he was summoned to Melksham police station for the routine procedure of declaring his whereabouts in the UK, whereupon he was arrested.  He was taken to Tinsley House in Gatwick from where he was due to be deported.

He was granted leave to remain in 2008 and has applied for asylum but for the most part without legal assistance.  His English is said to be poor.  There is now to be a judicial review.  A Change.org petition has achieved 73,000 signatures.

He has been supported during his stay in Salisbury by Derri Southwood who has had considerable difficulty in making contact since his incarceration in Gatwick.  BBC Wiltshire had several pieces on this topic on their morning show this week and a reporter has gained access to Tinsley House but was unable to tape an interview with him.

Issues

The case raises a number of issues concerning asylum policy in the UK and highlights the country’s poor record in offering a home to those fleeing war-torn countries.  The UK does however contribute a great deal of aid to those countries who have high levels of refugees but is reluctant to help those who come here.

Part of the reason is the myth that large numbers of people are ‘flooding’ into the country.  The facts do not support this myth.  Countries such as Turkey, Pakistan and Jordan have a much, much higher numbers in their countries out of a world wide population of around 14 million refugees.  By contrast, in quarter 2 of this year for example, there were 6,172 applications for asylum of which 65% were refused.  This sort of statistic is fairly constant quarter by quarter (Source: Refugee Council).  This is a tiny number of people in view of the world wide figure yet the impression created by some sections of the media is that we are somehow the principal port of call for refugees.

The UK no longer has a welcoming attitude to refugees and successive policies have sought to make it tougher and tougher to achieve leave to remain.  An analysis of statistics and policy by four newspapers (Guardian; Le monde; Der Spiegel and El Pais) found that:

The analysis found that Britain takes fewer refugees, offers less generous financial support, provides housing that is often substandard, does not give asylum seekers the right to work, has been known to punish those who volunteer and routinely forces people into destitution and even homelessness when they are granted refugee status due to bureaucratic delays.

This was worse than any other country except Italy.

What is often overlooked in these debates is that the reason why there is conflict and a country riven by war is partly the result of our colonial and imperial activities in the past.  Most obviously the Israeli and Palestinian conflict; the division of lands in the middle east after the fall of the Ottoman Empire following the Great War; the Yemen conflict today where we continue to sell arms to the Saudis causing enormous hardship to the people there, and our invasion of Libya which has led to instability, violence and also allowed people smugglers to prosper.  So we had a major historical impact and continue to do so by supplying arms which increases the level of conflict.

Looking at the below the line comments in the Salisbury Journal article, one gets a taste of the vitriol that the whole question of refugees generates.  Someone who calls him or herself ‘art91e’ says:

He has no right to be here, he serves no useful purpose, he’s illiterate after 13 years here, so he certainly did not do an apprenticeship … that is a lie!  Send him home asap.

The great majority of comments were sympathetic however.

Mr Glen, the Salisbury MP, has become involved and has promised to make contact with the minister’s office and to do what he can.  The problem – not unique to MPs like Mr Glen – is that the Home Office is carrying out government policy which has been supported by him.  It illustrates the problem of myths in the media being left unchallenged but which have a huge influence on how people think.  This drives policy and has created a harsh environment for asylum seekers.  They have become a problem best solved by keeping them out in the first place and then throwing them out if at all possible if they do make it here.

We await developments.

Don’t forget to visit our refugee photo exhibition in the Library which is running until the end of December.  Please sign or comment in the visitor’s book if you do go.  Follow us on Facebook and Twitter, Salisburyai.

We shall be card signing in the Library passage on Saturday morning 16th between 10 and noon.

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Asylum Monologues


Ice and Fire to perform in Salisbury

The performing group Ice and Fire are to perform in Salisbury at Sarum College on 18 September starting at 7:30.  The performance will consist of readings from testimonies of refugees, human rights lawyers and home office workers, to show how the system of asylum seeking and acquiring refugee status works in reality in the UK.  It forms part of Amnesty’s continuing campaign to highlight the plight of refugees and how they are treated here.

There is considerable hostility to refugees and asylum seekers with many stories in our tabloid newspapers of such people abusing the system.  People are led to believe that hoards are arriving here and living in hotels by the seaside and costing the country huge sums of money.  The reality is the UK has only 1% of the world’s refugees and has received around 3% of asylum claims made in the EU.

The event is FREE but there will be a parting collection.

A review by The Cambridge Student of an earlier performance.

If you live in the Salisbury area and are interested in joining us you would be very welcome.  If you can come to this event, several group members will be about so just make yourself known.  It is free to join the local group.  Details of other activities will be on this site and on Facebook and Twitter – salisburyai.

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