Tag: refugee

Refugee News


March 2024

As usual, we lead with Rwanda. The Lords have been inflicting a number of defeats on the government over the provisions of the Bill, and the “ping pong” between the two Houses will reach a climax next week, when we will know which, if any, amendments the government will accept. Further issues have arisen over the role of the civil service in the planned scheme, with the FDA union threatening legal action against the government in the event of a clash with the European Court.

The National Audit Office has calculated the cost of the first (total?) 300 deportees to Rwanda to be £541 million, at £1.8 million per person. Indeed, the cost to date is £20 million with no flights. Ian Dunt has calculated that the cost per asylum seeker generally in 2015/6 was £7062, whereas in 2022/3 it was £20921.

The latest wheeze, as revealed in The Times today (Wednesday) is simply to pay failed claimants £3000 for a  “voluntary return” – to Rwanda.

Figures released this month show that, as of 23 December 2023 the number of asylum seekers waiting for an initial decision was 128,000. The Government, of course, has claimed to have removed most of the legacy backlog, so most of these are new.

The sacking of the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration has resulted in the sudden release of the plethora of reports he wrote, which had not previously been published. They mostly concern the implementation of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and are generally critical of the Home Office’s performance. It is unlikely that a replacement for Mr Neal will be found before the end of this parliament.

Refusal rates for asylum seekers went up in the last quarter of 2023, with a  third of applications refused. This is unusual, as most applications end up being accepted.

The rules on Ukrainian refugees’ visas changed last week (with 4 hours notice of implementation) – The Family Scheme was closed though the Homes for Ukraine scheme is extended, but will not be processed until 2025.

This week the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatovic, criticised the Rwanda scheme along with certain French actions as acting above the law. She was concerned that two large European nations were giving a bad lead to the rest.

A small boat arrival, Ibrahima Bah, was sentenced this month to 9 ½ years in jail for “facilitating illegal entry, gross negligence and manslaughter “ following the deaths of fellow passengers. He is the first shipwreck survivor in the UK to face such charges and was not a people smuggler, but a refugee left in charge of the boat. The court concluded his age was 20, but he claimed to be 17.

Andrew Hemming

The Salisbury Group was established 50 years ago this year
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Refugee report


Refugees News Summary 

February 2024

The egregious Rwanda Bill continues its course through the House of Lords. Their Lordships defeated the Government on one vote, to say that the treaty with Rwanda should not be ratified until the protections set out in it have been fully implemented. The Committee stage begins on Monday 12th February. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has commented that the Government’s plans are a “fake response” to migration issues.

The small boat numbers in January were higher than last year at 1335 – this was no doubt due to milder weather.

Ukraine

The visas offered to Ukrainian exiles following the invasion will run out next month, leaving large numbers to their own devices in seeking accommodation. On a related topic, a consultation has begun to reform the allocation of social housing; it is proposed that there be a “UK connection test”, only allowing allocations to those who have been lawfully resident here for 10 years. The increase in pressure on housing for migrants continues to ratchet up.

The question has been asked “Can criminals be denied refugee status?” The answer appears to be “Yes, but the crime has to be serious for this to apply.”

The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration is looking into the Immigration Enforcement Competent Authority (sic), which decides claims of human trafficking.

Open Democracy are claiming that vulnerable people including torture victims are being housed on Bibby Stockholm in a potential breach of government guidelines.

Recommended reading: Hein de Haas: How Migration Really Works (Viking, 2024)

Recommended viewing: The Visual Politics of Refugeehood | Gresham College

By Nishat Awan

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Refugee report: January


Latest report on this politically charged problem

January 2024

Refugees and in particular, those arriving via small boats across the Channel, continue to cause considerable concern among the political classes and in the media. Overtaken in the past few days by the Post Office scandal, the matter will burst back into view next week when the Rwanda bill comes back to the Commons.

The total number of “small boats” arrivals in 2023 was 29,437 which was 36% lower than the figure for 2022. Bad weather in the latter part of the year has been a factor. Border Force expect the numbers to rise again in 2024. 20% of the arrivals were from Afghanistan.

On claims, of the 40,000 arrivals between July 2022 and May 2023, 90% applied for asylum. The PM’s claim to have removed the legacy of pre-2022 cases is questionable. The Office for Statistics Regulation is investigating.

The Times reports that Home Office officials can’t clear the rolling asylum backlog, because more than 50,000 claims are for people who are in the U.K. but barred from permanent settlement under new laws passed last year. The paper calls it “indefinite limbo.”

The statistics summary states that of “the 112,138 initial asylum decisions made between January and 28 December 2023, 35,119 were non-substantive decisions”. This includes withdrawals, and it seems reasonable to conclude that the vast majority of those 35,119 decisions were withdrawals given that the statistics to the end of September 2023 showed that 18,709 applications had been withdrawn since June 2022, most of these in 2023. It has been clear since last year that the government was using this as a tool to artificially reduce the number of cases.

This means that over 31% of ‘decisions’ that were made in 2023 were probably withdrawals. These are people who are still here and a large proportion of them are likely to be refugees. All that has been achieved by removing them from the asylum system is an increase in the likelihood of them being subject to exploitation, as people who are left outside the system are far more vulnerable to this.

A report in the i (paywall) shows what has been happening with the withdrawal of asylum claims,  Apparently those decision makers who met targets received gift vouchers and those who didn’t were subjected to performance management. In the meantime, those on the receiving end include people who do not speak English as well as those who were living in Home Office accommodation but have been accused of absconding from it.

In Parliament, the Safety of Rwanda Bill returns to its final debate stage next Tuesday and Wednesday (16th and 17th January), when there will be a large number of amendments, the majority of which will fail. The bill will be considered by a committee of the whole house, meaning all MPs can contribute to the committee stage debates which are normally limited to members of a bill committee, and these are the debates where Tory right-wingers will try to toughen the bill. For example, they may try to remove the clause in the bill allowing individuals to appeal against deportation, or to include provisions saying ministers should ignore European court of human rights injunctions stopping deportations flights. Tory centrists may also try to amend the bill to tighten the requirement on ministers to obey the European convention on human rights.

To end on some good news, the Dorset Echo has a report that some of the asylum seekers on the Bibby Stockholm have started working with local charities, particularly those concerned with the homeless. Being prevented from working has left them with lots of spare time and many of them have experience of charitable work in their former lives.

Andrew Hemming

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Refugee report, December


Refugees and Rwanda continue to fill the headlines

December 2023

As the House of Commons debates the Government’s latest attempt to make their Rwanda project fly, this month’s emphasis has been very much on the small boats. On the progress of the Bill over the next few weeks, anything might happen. The government managed to get the second reading of their bill passed on 12th to clear the way for the plan to remove some people to Rwanda. 

As a topline figure, the number of arrivals by small boat this year has reached 29,000; this is about a third down on last year. It has been argued, however, that it’s the number of boats that is down, not people – they are using bigger boats. We have no confirmation of this.

The Government has changed the rules for asylum seekers/refugees following their processing; they now have 28 days to leave the temporary hostels they have been confined in and to find their own accommodation.  As a result the level of homelessness among this community has increased dramatically.  The Evening Standard claims that the numbers of homeless in the migrant community has increased 39% in a month (presumably this is a London figure).

The big increase in the number of claimant withdrawals has been exercising the legal profession.  These are migrants who have claimed refugee or asylum seeker status, but have not turned up for interview.  As a result, 17,000 claimants who have apparently withdrawn their claim are now unaccounted for, though presumably they are still in the UK (the Home Office has no knowledge of their whereabouts).  On a similar topic, of the 154 unaccompanied child asylum seekers who went missing earlier this year, 132 are still missing.

While the number of legacy cases is being reduced, new claims are still keeping the total high.  The Government’s aim of clearing the pre-June 2022 backlog has not yet been achieved (it’s believed to be still about 10,000, and these are among the most complicated cases).  Meanwhile, new applications have amounted to 90,000, leaving the total figure at around 109,000 (less than the peak).  It should be noted that Home Office staff turnover is very high and it may well be that the 17,000 alluded to above include names taken off the backlog to reduce the figures.  Also the Home Affairs Committee this week elicited the information that approval levels went down to 38% in Q2 and back up to 67% in Q3 – the reason is unclear.

Small boats population accounts for around 6.6% of the total

It is worth pointing out, as part of the argument, that the small boats population amounts to about 6.6% of the net immigration numbers for the year (the 700,000 excess of arrivals v departures) figure) and half that for the gross total (incomers only)

Another problem area has been the gap between a claimant being granted leave and receiving a Biometric Residence Permit – the Home Office claim not to know how long the average wait in limbo is.

The apparent suicide of an asylum seeker on the Bibby Stockholm has drawn attention to the cost of the barge, currently estimated at £22 million.  The number of boat people on board is not known, but is believed to be around 200 currently.

On the issue of potential refugees from Gaza, the request in October from various refugee organisations in the UK to the Government to come up with a scheme for taking numbers on, as was done with Ukraine, does not appear to have been acted upon as yet.

Finally, a survey by Labour List this week invited respondents to say how many arrivals had actually been removed to Rwanda.  The percentage saying, correctly, none was 48%.

Andrew Hemming

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Write for Rights


This Sunday, 10 December at the Cathedral

December 2023

Past event

Members of the Salisbury Group will be at the Cathedral cloisters from around 10 o’clock on Sunday for our annual Write for Rights and people in Salisbury are invited to come and sign. We must not forget that many people are in prison or at risk of execution often for no more than disagreeing with the powers that be in their country. They have committed no crime but have may said something disobliging or critical of a president, king or other leader and frequently without trial, can end up in prison for many years. Human Rights defenders, lawyers or journalists are all caught up in this activity.

United Kingdom

The situation in the UK is fast approaching a kind of crisis concerning the issue of deporting people to Rwanda. The government will be tabling a bill next week to disapply sections of the Human Rights Act to enable the deportation of immigrants to Rwanda. Previous plans were blocked by the Supreme Court because the human rights situation in Rwanda is unsatisfactory. Refugees sent there were at risk of refoulement that is being sent back to a country where they would be at risk of bad treatment of some kind. A plan last June to despatch a plane load from Boscombe Down, an airfield a mile or so from where this is being written, was halted by the European Court.

The issue of the ‘boat people’ has become a major issue for the government being one of the Prime Minister’s 5 objectives. Although only a small part of the overall level of immigration, it has assumed huge significance to the point where there might be a confidence vote next week if the bill is not passed. Ostensibly, it is partly due to anger around the gangs involved in organising the crossings. The hope is that if the Rwanda deportations can get underway, this will act as a disincentive to people wishing to cross the Channel. There are many who view this as wishful thinking.

Critics, including Conservative politicians, point out that the bill – even if it becomes law – will not prevent claimants appealing to Strasbourg thus delaying the deportation process until way beyond the likely date of the General Election. This is leading some politicians to demand that we leave the European Court as well.

A leading proponent of this is Danny Kruger the MP for Devizes in Wiltshire, who is co-founder of the ‘New Conservatives’ whose ten point plan is built around immigration matters.

The whole matter has reached almost absurd levels. The Supreme Court looked carefully at the evidence and concluded that Rwanda is not a safe country. Critics and journalists are frequently detained and tortured in detention. Opposition is effectively banned. There are disappearances. A new treaty has been signed between the UK and Rwanda a few days ago which claims to overcome these human rights problems identified by the Supreme Court and clear the way for deportations to take place.

It is almost an example of national hysteria combined with false promises coming home to roost. It was claimed that Brexit would enable the UK to regain its sovereignty a benefit of which was to stop boat crossings and reduce immigration generally. Yet recent figures show immigration at a record 745,000. The vast majority are here legitimately and are needed in a range of sectors such as health, horticulture and care homes. These organisations would find operating without them almost impossible. Yet hysteria has been ratcheted up by the media with its focus on the boat crossings. New proposals will prevent family members joining those already here which will cause great anguish in many, many cases.

We have now arrived at a situation where the government wished to disapply parts of the Human Rights Act and even contemplate departing from the European Convention to join Russia which was ejected in 2022. The statements around this matter by local MP Danny Kruger are to be regretted.

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Refugee report: November


Reports focus on destitution and the need for cooperation concerning asylum

November 2023

We are grateful to group member Andrew for his work in compiling this report on the current state of affairs with refugees and asylum seekers. A quiet month on the legislative front, but much noise from certain quarters. It was noted that the Home Secretary’s complaint against “tent-dwellers” included the aside “many of them from abroad”, with its implication of illegal immigrants joining in the supposed lifestyle choice. This was roundly condemned by a number of refugee charities, along with homelessness support groups. 

The Joseph Rowntree Trust have published a report on destitution in the UK. Among its findings was the fact that 28% of destitute households were migrants, and rates for that group were 35% higher than the national figure. Such households also tend to have more children. 

The Institute for Public Policy Research (a centrist think tank) has also published a report, “Charting New Waters”, on dealing with those crossing in small boats. Like the Safe Passage report mentioned last month it is concerned with developing safe routes, an organized Europe-wide system to share the responsibility, and a reform of the asylum processing system. The report does not give much detail, but reinforces the feeling that the government needs to engage with our neighbours in finding solutions to the issue. 

On that topic, the numbers of asylum seekers crossing the channel has been lower this month, mainly because of the weather 

We still await the High Court decision on the Rwanda plan, but the feeling is that the government is prepared to lose the case. This would, of course, put the European Court of Human Rights in the firing line, at least with the Home Secretary. The decision is expected in the first half of December. 

Many Afghans who were promised a safe passage to the UK after the Taliban takeover are still waiting; 3000 who have been promised asylum in the UK are in UK-funded hotels in Islamabad, but the Pakistan government is ejecting all Afghan refugees. There has been no government statement, as far as we know. 

The Home Office has rolled out a new “asylum decision-making prioritisation”. This is really a pushing ahead in trying to reduce the backlog of cases awaiting decision. The government has argued that the backlog has been reduced, but in fact the total has increased due to new cases, while the “legacy” cases from pre-2022 are indeed being reduced. 

Migration lawyers have noted with pleasure that the number of refusals of claims of trafficking by new arrivals has fallen, following a change in the regulations. 

The Home Office announced this week that the number of asylum seekers to be held on the barge Bibby Stockholm is to be reduced from 500 to 425, following a fire risk assessment. This would likely make the provision 10% more expensive than housing claimants in hotels. 

On the campaigning front, next year’s Refugee Week will be from 17th to 23rd June. The theme will be “Our Home.” 

AH

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Refugee summary


The October update on the current state of refugees into the UK
October 2023

The week’s big event has been the start of the Supreme Court’s review of the legality of the Rwanda deportation plan. They are expected to take 3 days to come to a conclusion, but this will not be made known for some weeks. Also, the Mayor of Portland’s planning permission protest against the Bibby Stockholm ship was heard this week (she lost) and the Home Office have reported that claimants will be sent back to the barge from 19th October. In passing, the Home Office is refusing to state the cost of the barge, as it would not be “in the public interest”.

The government’s Illegal Migration Act is facing a court challenge from the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC) on the ground that it breaches the Windsor Framework. The framework is the revised post-Brexit deal for Northern Ireland, which was agreed by the UK and EU earlier this year. It deals mostly with trade issues but also includes a human rights element. It commits the UK not to water down the human rights provisions that flow from the Good Friday Agreement.

Opening up the UN Refugee Convention to reform would cause the world to “go backwards” on refugee rights, a UN leader has said. Gillian Triggs, UN Assistant Secretary-General, told the One Young World Summit in Belfast that there is a “global environment of populist rhetoric” that is damaging to refugees. The 1951 UN Refugee Convention outlines a number of protections for refugees, including basic minimum standards, and asserts they should not be returned to a country where they face serious threats to their life or freedom.

Suella Braverman

In a trip to Washington DC last month, the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, said it should be questioned whether the application of the UN’s Refugee Convention is “fit for our modern age”.

Channel crossings

The mild Autumn has kept the small boats coming, the total people arriving for the year so far being just over 25,000. This is down by about 20% on last year, mostly because of the absence of arrivals from Albania. There have been two major reports this month: Safe Passage has been looking at safe routes for prospective refugees and the Refugee Council have looked at the data on arrivals, and discuss the impact of the new Illegal Migration Act. The Refugee Council’s analysis of new Home Office statistics shows that three in every four of the people who have crossed the channel so far this year would be recognised as refugees if the UK Government processed their asylum applications. This is higher than the Refugee’s Council previous analysis of those who made the journey in 2022, which found it was almost two-thirds. The statistics also show that:

More than half (54 per cent) of those who have made the perilous crossing come from just five countries – Afghanistan, Iran, Eritrea, Syria and Sudan.

With the exception of Albanians, the number of people crossing the channel is higher in 2023 compared to 2022.

Analysis based on the data shows that once the Illegal Migration Act 2023 comes into force:

 • Each year, over 27,000 refugees who cross the channel will be denied status in the UK.

 • As few as 3.5 per cent of those people arriving by small boat, 1,297 people, will be removed from the UK to their own country.

 • 35,409 people who arrive in the UK by small boat could be left in limbo each year, having had their asylum claim deemed permanently inadmissible but not having been removed.

• Even with a safe third country agreement in place with Rwanda which allows for up to 10,000 people to be removed there annually at least 25,409 people will be left in a state of permanent limbo each year.

(The Illegal Migration Act The Illegal Migration Act became law on 20 July. The main elements of the Act include the creation of a duty for the Home Secretary to arrange for the removal of anyone who arrives irregularly into the UK – including, but not limited to, those who arrive by small boat. Anyone who is covered by the duty to remove will also have any asylum application or relevant human rights claim deemed automatically inadmissible. )

The Safe Passage report concentrates on devising a better system of dealing with new arrivals. It recommends developing safe routes, not least to end the control of the smugglers, an organized Europe-wide system to share the responsibility, and a recommitment to the UN-based regulations under international law.

The Migration Advisory Committee has recommended that the shortage occupation list is abolished and that people in the asylum system with permission to work are allowed to work in any role. These are some of the recommendations in the full review of the shortage occupation list, published this week.

With thanks to group member Andrew for the work in producing this report.

AH

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Detention centre report published


Enquiry into the the shocking treatment of immigrants at Brook House published

September 2023

In September 2017, BBC Panorama broadcast a programme, Undercover: Britain’s Immigration Secrets, into the shocking treatment of detainees at the Brook House detention centre near Gatwick in Sussex. It followed months of undercover filming to expose a wide range of wrongdoing at the centre. Those who watched the programme were treated to examples of what the report refers to as ‘the use of racist, abusive and derogatory language by some of the staff towards those in their care, the effects of illicit drugs and the use of force by staff on on physically and mentally unwell people’. An enquiry was commissioned in November 2019 and it was published today (19 September 2023) in three volumes.

It showed one custody officer place his hands around the neck of a detained person and say “you fucking piece of shit, because I’m going to put you to fucking sleep” (para 14). Using force to restrain detained people who were physically or mentally ill was common (43).

Conditions at the centre were extremely poor. It was run at the time by G4S and then by Serco both given contracts the report explains, based largely on price with little regard to quality aspects. Misgivings about the tenders were not put into practice (19). The Senior Management Teams were poor and largely invisible to junior staff.

Although conditions were poor to begin with, and the proximity to Gatwick added noise to the problems, the Home Office carried on adding numbers of inmates thus sometimes increasing to three the number of occupants in the cells. The cells had no privacy concerning toileting (25).

The report opens by saying that it was a matter of ‘out of sight, out of mind’. The combination of hostile attitudes to immigrants and refugees, the use of contractors who were unequal to the job, Home Office failures and seemingly no sign of inspections or visits from outsiders to see what was going on, combined to create a toxic mix of arrogance, cruelty and gratuitously bad treatment of people many of whom had suffered trauma and in some cases torture. Indeed, it is reported today that Suella Braverman, the current Home Secretary, stopped inspections taking place at all. Detainees were isolated from the outside world. Language barriers made things worse. Basic freedoms were curtailed the report said. This took place here in Britain.

Priti Patel was the Home Secretary during this time and in her many speeches and interviews she has made no secret of her hostile attitude to refugees and immigrants. She talked up the crisis and played a part in creating an atmosphere of disdain for those arriving, increasingly at the time, in small boats. One of her proposals for example was to install wave machines to prevent boat people from landing on our shores. That Britain took a far smaller proportion of refugees than many other nations was seldom mentioned.

It is sometimes easy in situations such as this to focus on the front line individuals behaving badly and one thinks of other undercover programmes in care homes and institutions where people with disabilities are living and where bullying and other failures have been exposed. They are the visible end result but their behaviour is in turn a result of failings further up the food chain by people less visible. It is the politicians who set the tone and agree the funding or more usually, the cuts to funding. It is the system which prefers outside contractors employed largely on who will do the cheapest job, who have weak management systems and whose main interest is turning in a profit. It is the media which perpetuates myths of ‘invasions’ and that immigrants are not really refugees but ‘economic migrants’ or even coming here to enjoy our bounteous benefit system. The combined effects of this hostility and disinformation was that someone poorly trained on the front line of an overcrowded detention centre feels it is acceptable to treat vulnerable people in the way they did.

Immigration, and in particular those crossing the Channel in small boats, is a political hot potato at present. The temperature is only going to rise as the election date gets nearer with attempts to ‘weaponise’ the issue for political advantage. We should all be aware however, that it is people we are dealing with in centres such as this and the majority are genuine migrants from war or persecution. A majority win their appeals.

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Refugee report


Many of the boat people are from Afghanistan

August 2023

The tragic events in the English Channel this week have served to draw attention to the fact that most of the asylum seekers affected by the disaster were from Afghanistan. This might invite the question: “But I thought that Afghans were the one group for whom official arrangements to come here had been made?” Indeed, there are two official processes by which Afghans can come to this country to escape persecution. One is the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy, designed to help those who had been involved with the UK administration pre-Taliban, and several thousand have arrived through this route. Asylum seekers arriving now may have worked with the British and been left behind or not, but clearly most feel threatened by any connection they may have had with the old regime. The Afghan Citizen Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) was designed for such cases.

So how has the ACRS been performing? A new report by the Refugee Council gives a gloomy assessment. The plan was to take 5,000 refugees in the first year and 20,000 in total. So far, 54 Afghans have arrived under ACRS; many are waiting in Pakistan for arrangements to be made to bring them over. Accommodation in the UK is not available however and, as the report notes, those 9,000 Afghans currently being accommodated in hotels here will be ejected at the end of the month to find their own places or become homeless.

Afghans arriving via the Channel will be sent back

Hence the large number of Afghans arriving on small boats. In the last year 8,429 have come by this route, of whom 96 have been given leave to stay. Of course, under the new Illegal Migration Act, none will be given that right and will in theory be returned to Afghanistan or a third country like Rwanda.

The report goes on to note that no method has been established to help reunite the families of asylum seekers with those who are here, despite assurances  from the government.

The Guardian has published an article by the Council’s chief executive, Enver Solomon, which gives more detail.

UPDATE: Shortly after posting this, the BBC Radio 4 programme ‘World at One’ devoted a lengthy package to this item.

AH

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Refugee report: July


Refugee report with an update on the current state of play with legislation

July 2023

The Illegal Migration Bill continues its dizzying route to completion, despite 20 defeats in the House of Lords. The Commons has rejected all the amendments, and the Bill will return one more time to the Lords and, presumably, back to the Commons next week before the recess in a process called ‘ping pong’. Despite the enormous interest in this subject and its high political salience, it was reported that fewer than 40 MPs turned up for the debate and only 20 or so stayed to the end.

We are grateful for group member Andrew for this report.

The latest situation update:

All of the Lords’ amendments were overturned by the Commons, but several had some support from the Conservative benches (Tim Lough-ton complained that they had not had enough time to mull over the government’s changes). The Home Office offered several concessions on Monday evening, The bill’s provisions will no longer apply retrospectively to anyone deemed to have arrived illegally from March 7 (10,000 people will escape the legislation’s measures, according to the Daily Mail) … the detention of unaccompanied children will be limited to eight days (significantly longer than the 24 hours backed by peers) … and the detention of pregnant women will be limited to 72 hours (extendable to seven days by ministers). Other issues still in play from the Lords debates include:

• Removing unaccompanied children from within the scope of the Bill
• Allowing anyone not removed within 6 months to re-enter our asylum system and have their claims heard
• Ensuring Local Authorities maintain care of unaccompanied children and that children are protected during the age assessment process
• Ensuring LGBT+ people are not removed to countries where they risk persecution, and that victims of trafficking are not included within scope of the Bill (as sought by Theresa May). These will presumably come up again in the next Lords session.

Elsewhere

The highest number of small boat arrivals on a single day this year occurred last week at 686. The total for the year to last weekend was 12,119, slightly down on last year.

UNHCR report says the worldwide figure for refugees is now 29.4 million excluding Palestine. 76% in low/middle income countries 70% in a neighbouring country. 339,300 refugees returned home and only 114,300 refugees were resettled out of camps last year. UNHCR estimates that 1.5 million people globally are in need of resettlement because they are in a protracted refugee situation, meaning they had been refugees for longer than five years. For each refugee that was returned or resettled in 2022, there were 16 new refugees.

Free Movement have picked up on a story that the Home Office is planning to reintroduce the concept of “reasonable force” to remove families with children. Watch this space.

Small boats

The government does not know how much its new small boats bill will cost or if it will achieve its core aim of deterring Channel crossings, an official assessment has found. Documents published over three months after the Illegal Migration Bill was presented to parliament estimated that it will cost £169,000 to deport each asylum seeker – but it is unclear how many will be removed and what “third countries” will receive them. The only existing deal is with Rwanda and the Home Office refused to publish the actual payments agreed, citing “commercial sensitivities” as a Court of Appeal ruling on the scheme looms.
A report from the Migrant and Refugee Children’s Unit argues that Albania is not a “safe country”, as the Government maintains.

Controversial plans to house asylum seekers on a barge to reduce reliance on expensive hotels will save less than £10 a person a day, according to a report. The report, Bibby Stockholm – At What Cost? from the NGOs Reclaim The Seas and One Life To Live, provides the first detailed estimated costings of the Bibby Stockholm, the barge the Home Of-fice is planning to use in Dorset to accommodate asylum seekers.

On statistics, in correspondence between the head of the UK Statistics Authority, Sir Robert Chote and Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick, Chote commented: “concerns have been raised with us about your statement in the House of Commons on 20 March that :“Today, a majority of the cases being considered for modern slavery are people who are coming into the country – for example, on small boats. We are seeing flagrant abuse, which is making it impossible for us to deal appropriately with the genuine victims, to the point that 71% of foreign national offenders in the detained estate, whom we are trying to remove from the country, are claiming to be modern slaves.”

Minister accused of using the wrong statistics

“The Home Office advised us that the quoted figure comes from a recent report about modern slavery referrals for people detained for return after arriving in the UK in small boats and that your statement was intended to refer to the proportion of foreign national offenders (FNOs) that are referred to the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) as potential victims of modern slavery. The report explains that while an increasing proportion of all those in detention after arriving by small boat are referred to the NRM up from 52% in 2020 to 73% in 2021 (and subsequently falling to 65% between January and September 2022), the proportion among foreign national offenders is much lower (at around 20% between January and September 2022)”. This argument came up again in the Commons when Theresa May claimed Jenrick was using the wrong statistics.

Beyond Europe, it seems that the UN estimates that more than 31 mil-lion Africans live outside the country of their birth, mostly within the continent (only a quarter head for Europe). AlJazeera is running a se-ries of articles on this subject.

The BBC’s More or Less programme presented a special episode on immigration, featuring Colin Yeo as well as several other experts, which is recommended.


Migrant Help runs a guidance and advice helpline to assist asylum seekers in the UK as they move through the process. The charity is not part of the Home Office but is the advice by The Independent, a Migrant Help adviser said: “I am afraid Migrant Help are not contracted to respond to MPs correspondence and have forwarded the attached to the MP correspondence team. Our call handlers will reach out to the service user to see if there is any further support they can provide.
I would like to clarify that not responding to MP enquiries is not a Migrant Help policy but a directive given to us by the Home Office as part of our work under the advice, issue reporting and eligibility (AIRE) contract. I have expressed con-cerns regarding this process

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