Modern Slavery in Social Care Surging Since Visa Rules Eased
Slavery is surging in social care since ministers relaxed immigration rules to fill thousands of vacancies, with a growing wave of exploitation leading to workers being ripped off or living in squalor. Unpublished figures show at least 800 people working in care homes or people’s residences were charted as potential victims last year, more than 10 times the number recorded before the government’s visa scheme.
Some workers have reported sleeping in cold, cramped rooms or only receiving a fraction of their pay. Others have said they paid exorbitant fees to agents for visa costs worth only a fraction of the price.
The mounting scale of abuse across the UK has been described by campaigners and care groups as “shocking”, “outrageous” and “utterly shameful” – with calls for councils and the NHS to carry out tighter checks on private care firms employing migrant workers.
It comes as the government-appointed independent anti-slavery commissioner, Eleanor Lyons, said she is “deeply concerned about the risk of exploitation and modern slavery for workers in the adult social care sector, particularly those from overseas who have come to the UK on short-term visas”.
Read more: Robert Booth , Guardian, https://shorturl.at/dsDOU
Asylum-Seeker/Unaccompanied Minor Left With no Accommodation Vio Article 3
In Chamber judgment in the case of O.R. v. Greece (application no. 24650/19) the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been: a violation of Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) of the European Convention on Human Rights
The case concerned O.R.’s living conditions in Greece from November 2018 to May 2019. The applicant – an unaccompanied minor and asylum-seeker at the relevant time – alleged that he had remained homeless for nearly six months, without access to basic essentials and without an officially designated legal guardian. The Court found that throughout the period in question the Greek authorities had left O.R. to fend for himself in an environment that was entirely unsuitable for minors – whether in terms of security, accommodation, hygiene or access to food and care, or in terms of the measures taken to provide for him more generally – and in unacceptably precarious circumstances, given his status as an asylum-seeker and unaccompanied minor. O.R. had therefore found himself in an inhuman and degrading situation that had been in breach of Article 3 of the Convention.
Germany: 100,000 Protest Against Proposed Deportations
More than 100,000 people turned out across Germany on Saturday 20th January, in protest against the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party, which sparked an outcry after it emerged that the party’s members discussed mass deportation plans at a meeting of extremists. In Frankfurt, about 35,000 people joined a call under the banner “Defend democracy – Frankfurt against the AfD”, marching in the financial heart of Germany. A similar number, some carrying posters like “Nazis out”, turned up in the northern city of Hanover.
Protests were also held in cities including Braunschweig, Erfurt and Kassel and many smaller towns, mirroring mobilisation every day over the past week. In all, demonstrations have been called in about 100 locations across Germany from Friday through the weekend, including in Berlin on Sunday. Politicians, churches and Bundesliga coaches have all urged people to stand up against the AfD.
Read more: Guardian, https://shorturl.at/ityzZ
House of Lords Vote to Delay Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda Treaty
Rwanda offshore immigration treaty kicked into the ‘Long Grass’:
The House of Lords has voted 214-171 to delay prime minister Rishi Sunak’s flagship UK-Rwanda immigration treaty, with the major setback likely to enrage right-wing Conservatives and put Sunak’s administration on the back foot again.
Mondays votes centred on delay motions from Labour peer Lord Goldsmith, chairman of the chamber’s International Agreements Committee, which presented a report identifying ten sets of issues where “significant additional legal and practical steps are needed in order to implement the protections the treaty is designed to provide. We are not saying the treaty should never be ratified but we are saying that Parliament should have the opportunity to scrutinise the treaty and its implementing measures in full before it makes a judgement about Rwanda is safe.”
The UK’s upper lawmaking chamber joins a list of other institutions in the British constitution who have thrown doubt on the viability and safety of No 10’s immigration plan – the Court of Appeal in April last year, then the Supreme Court in November.
Read more; House Of Lords, 22/01/2024, https://shorturl.at/jBIUX
66% Rise in Immigration Health Surcharge Comes Into Force 6th February 2024
The 66% increase in the Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS) that was announced by the Government in July of last year will be implemented on 6th February 2024. The Immigration (Health Charge) (Amendment) Order 2024 was approved by Parliament on Tuesday and was published in the early hours of this morning.
The surcharge will be increased from £624 to £1,035 per person per year for adults and from £470 to £776 per person per year for children under 18, students and their dependants, and applicants for the Youth Mobility Scheme.
Asylum Support Increase for Pregnant Women Very Young Children Now in Force
On 13 December 2023 the Home Office announced that the rates of additional payments made to pregnant asylum seekers and children under 4 years old under Regulation 10A of the Asylum Support Regulations 2000 would be increased in line with the Department of Health and Social Care’s ‘Healthy Start’ scheme. The increase was brought into effect, 15 January 2024.
This announcement marks the first increase in the rate of additional payments since 2003 and follows a string of challenges to the rate of asylum support in light of the rate of
Read more: Freemovement, https://shorturl.at/iNO04
Two British organisations set up to help the Palestinian people have had their bank accounts abruptly closed without explanation, the Guardian has learned. Neither is proscribed by the government, and both claim that their targeting is political.
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1,300 Asylum-Seeking Children Wrongly Assessed Treated as Adults by HO
A new report published yesterday by the Refugee Council details how hundreds of refugee and asylum-seeking children are being wrongly assessed as adults upon their arrival in the UK. As the report explains, the Home Office operates a policy whereby immigration officials at the UK border can decide the age of new arrivals based on 'physical appearance and demeanour'.
The report adds: "Multiple children have provided accounts that make clear that not only is the Home Office operating a deeply problematic policy, but it is also adopting practices outside of this policy. Organisations' direct work with children has highlighted that upon arrival individuals are asked to point to their age on a piece of paper. Those who point to seventeen or under are segregated and subjected to further scrutiny. These children are then, based on a brief glance by an immigration officer, separated into three groups."
Read more: EIN, https://shorturl.at/klDI3
Tens of Thousands Protest in France Against Proposed Anti-Immigration Laws
75,000 people took part across the country, with 16,000 protesters turning out in Paris. The General Confederation of Labour (CGT) union put the number of protesters nationwide at 150,000. The timing of the protests was critical, coming four days before the Constitutional Council decides on Thursday whether all articles in the law — passed in December — conform with the French Constitution.
The bill strengthens France’s ability to deport foreigners considered undesirable and makes it tougher for foreigners to take advantage of social welfare, among other measures.
Source: France 24, https://rb.gy/7x4pch
‘Inhumane’ Home Office Denying Visas to Children of Migrant Health Workers
The Home Office is systematically barring young children from joining their mothers in Britain despite extensive proof the women are their primary caregivers, an Observer investigation has revealed. Under an opaque policy condemned as discriminatory and “inhumane”, the government has refused dozens of visas for children of migrant single mothers, many of whom came to work in the NHS or social care, saying there are “no compelling reasons” to grant them.
The women left their children – some as young as two – in the temporary care of relatives or friends while they moved to Britain from countries including Zimbabwe, Zambia, Kenya, South Africa and India. Before leaving, they say, they had been reassured by their employers that their children would be able to follow, in line with current immigration rules permitting healthcare workers to bring close family members. But when they applied for the children’s visas, the applications were rejected.
Read more: Shanti Das, Observer, https://shorturl.at/oruE2
Duty to Safeguard Children in Need and Their Families Section 17 Children Act 1989
Section 17 of the Children Act 1989 imposes a general duty on local authorities to safeguard and promote the welfare of “children in need” in their area.
To fulfil this duty section 17 gives local authorities the power to provide support, including accommodation and financial subsistence to families with “children in need”, even if they have no recourse to public funds. Many migrant children live in families subject to this condition. The power under section 17 can in some circumstances require a local authority to support a family as a whole and to promote the upbringing of the child within the family unit (section 17(1)(b)).
Physical presence in the local authority’s area is all that is needed to trigger the section 17 duty. The family should approach the local authority with which the child has the greatest connection.
Read more: Freemovement, https://shorturl.at/pqLX5
Stop the Boats has Failed - An Impossible Pledge Brings Predictable Disaster
It is now just over a year since Rishi Sunak unveiled “Stop the Boats” as one of the five pledges he asked voters to judge his government against. Aside from the obvious goal of, well, stopping the boats carrying irregular migrants across the Channel, this pledge had several political goals. It was designed to restore public confidence in the Conservatives’ handling of immigration, rebuild the party’s lead over Labour in a traditional area of strength, rebuild Boris Johnson’s “Get Brexit Done” coalition by recovering support from disaffected, migration sceptical Leave voters, see off competition for those voters from Nigel Farage and ReformUK and shift the spotlight onto an issue of greater Tory strength ahead of the general election. “Stop the boats” has failed to achieve any of these goals.
The Boats Have Not Stopped - “Stop the Boats” has failed in the most basic sense - the often repeated pledge is very clear: the boats will stop. The boats haven’t stopped.¹ While the government can chalk up some wins in this area - a deal with the Albanian government has drastically curtailed the number of Albanians in small boats; further deals have been done to beef up policing on French beaches; and overall numbers in 2023 are substantially lower than in 2022 - these don’t meet the pledge plastered on the lectern every time Rishi Sunak speaks to the country on the issue. “Stop the Boats.” Not “slow down the boats”. Not “less boats from one specific small country in the Balkans”. Not “get boat flow levels down to where they were two years ago”.
If your slogan is “stop the boats” you will be judged on whether the boats have stopped. Have the boats stopped? No, they have not. Will the boats stop? No, they will not. Is there anything the government can realistically do which will make the boats stop before polling day? No, there is not.
Public confidence Has Not been Restored - As the great American political researcher V O Key faCously said Voters arBn’t fools”. If the centre piece of your immigration policy is a promise to “Stop the boats” and then you then fail to stop the boats, you can’t be surprised if voters judge you harshly. Thus it has proved.
There has been no improvement in the government’s approval ratings on immigration since “Stop the Boats” launched - quite the opposite. The public gave the outgoing Johnson government a quite dismal rating of -56 on immigration in IPSOS-MORI’s polling from July 2022. By July 2023, after six months of “Stop the Boats” that rating had fallen further to -64. And last month, after a full year of “Stop the Boats”, the score had touched a new low of -69. The share of voters who now say the government is doing a good job on immigration is now just ten per cent. That’s about as low as approval ratings can go.
Read more: Rob Ford, Swingometer, https://shorturl.at/nCQT2
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