Scandal of Refugee Families Separated by UK Red Tape
Refugees waiting to be reunited with their families in Britain have been subjected to rape and are living in hiding under totalitarian regimes as they wait to be brought to safety, as a “life-threatening” backlog grows. Figures obtained by The Independent show more than 11,000 people who are currently waiting for relocation are stranded abroad while being failed by one of the government’s only “safe and legal routes” to the UK.
The majority are women and children, in countries including Syria, Afghanistan and Iran. In all the cases, one of their close family members has already been granted protection in the UK and has the right to bring their partners and children to join them. One Sudanese refugee told The Independent he has been waiting for almost a year for a visa for his wife and son, who are stranded amid a raging conflict that has already claimed his nephew’s life. In another shocking incident, one girl was “followed home from school and raped” by Iranian security forces while waiting for the Home Office to process her visa. Meanwhile, hundreds of women remain trapped under the brutal Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
Read More: Suella Braverman, Independent, https://tinyurl.com/4baby7p4
Massive New Immigration Fee Increases - Very Bad Social Policy
Alienation Not Integration: The government announced on Thursday 13th July, massive increases in immigration fees and the immigration health surcharge. Charging workers and students a lot to enter is fine; charging them a lot once they are here is not. Charging families is always wrong. The fees charged in the United Kingdom are already far, far higher than comparable European countries and the United States.
The normal rate for the immigration health surcharge will increase from £624 to £1,035 per year. This will be paid by workers entering for a period of six months or more and the family members of migrants and British citizens alike. The discounted rate for students, children and youth mobility visa holders will be increased from £470 to £776 per year. The minister announcing the measure explicitly stated that this increase “would fund the pay rise for doctors” that was announced earlier.
Immigration and nationality fees will be increased as well. Work and visit visas will rise by 15%. Student visas, certificates of sponsorship, settlement, citizenship, entry clearance and leave to remain applications by “at least 20%”.
Read More: Colin Yeo, ‘We Wanted Worers’, https://tinyurl.com/4kjm8579
Ten Reasons to Bin the ‘Illegal Migration Bill’
1. It Abolishes the Right to Seek Asylum.
2. Authoritarian, Unlimited Powers To Detain
3. All humans Have Human Rights, right?
4. It will be Racialised
5. It Creates a Generational Subclass.
6. It is Delusional Posturing
7. Excludes Refugee Children From Safeguarding
8. Removing Access to Justice
9. Detention Industrial Complex
10. There is Another Way
Bail for Immigration Detainees, https://tinyurl.com/4x7uk7t5
|
What Safe and Legal Routes are Available for Refugees to Come to the UK?
The mantra of “safe and legal routes” is regularly repeated by the government when justifying increasingly draconian legislation in an attempt to prevent refugees from travelling to the UK under their own steam. The argument is that refugees should use these safe and legal routes instead of arriving in small boats or the back of lorries to claim asylum.
In this article we look at what safe and legal routes are available, how they are accessed, and the grant of leave and entitlements of those who are successful. We have also taken a look at asylum applications made over the same period of time, so that the impact of these bespoke routes on arrivals can be considered.
Unless indicated otherwise, figures come from the government statistics for the year ending March 2023. We have focussed on the period 2020 to the end of March 2023, as it is during this period that most of the bespoke schemes that are currently open were set up.
Read More: Freemovement, https://tinyurl.com/mr252tjm
Watching Asylum Seekers Being Jailed. Here’s What I Learnt
Judge Simon James begins his sentencing remarks at Canterbury Crown Court to a room empty of any defendants. Instead, the young person to whom the remarks are addressed is visible only on a small TV screen hanging in the corner. He’s actually in a prison elsewhere in Kent, slumped in a chair in a small room, connected to the court via a video link.
The young person is from Sudan. He is being prosecuted for a crime that did not exist a year ago: arriving in the UK “without a valid entry clearance”. He has admitted to boarding a small boat in France and crossing the English Channel into UK waters in order to be brought to shore and claim asylum. (He was initially accused of piloting the boat he travelled in, but this charge was dropped due to lack of evidence.)
The Nationality and Borders Act, introduced in 2021 by then-home secretary Priti Patel, passed through Parliament last year. It amended section 24 of the 1971 Immigration Act, closing a loophole in the original law: it no longer matters that this young person intended to claim asylum upon arrival.
Read More: Freemovement, https://tinyurl.com/5f6cebj4
Theresa May: Government Migration Laws Will ‘Consign More People to Slavery’
Former Prime Minister Theresa May has slammed the government’s migration policies, warning that they will ‘consign more people to slavery’. Her comments came as MPs debated the government’s Illegal Migration Bill for three and a half hours in the Commons yesterday, after several amendments by the House of Lords were overturned, including a Lords amendment which required the Illegal Migration Bill to follow international conventions.
Speaking in the Commons, May said: “We all want to stop the boats … but this bill is not just written to stop the boats, it covers all illegal migration and its unwritten subtext is the stop-certain-victims’-claims-of-slavery bill.” May pointed to amendment 56 from the Lords, which sought to ensure victims would not be detained and removed from the UK if they had been modern slaves, and urged the government to support it.
She said: “I know that ministers have said this bill will enable more perpetrators to be stopped, but on modern slavery I genuinely believe it will do the opposite. It will enable more slave drivers to operate and make money out of human misery, it will consign more people to slavery. No doubt about it, I think if Lords Amendment 56 is overthrown that will be the impact.”
Read more: Basit Mahmood, Left Foot Forward, https://tinyurl.com/4w6wj6vy
|