Continuing Conflicts That Create Refugees - February 2022
Deteriorated Situations: Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Benin, Sri Lanka, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Conflict Risk Alerts: Cameroon, Somalia ,Sudan, Ukraine
Somalia’s months-long electoral crisis escalated after President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed “Farmajo” suspended Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble, raising the risk of renewed violence. In Sudan, Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok’s resignation leaves the military in full control of the transition. The Republika Srpska National Assembly passed a controversial resolution in a step toward secession, raising tensions in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In Sri Lanka, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa suspended parliament for one month amid growing frictions within the ruling coalition and deepening economic hardship. A series of jihadist attacks targeted Benin for the first time in years.
CrisisWatch a tool designed to help decision-makers prevent deadly violence by keeping them up-to-date with developments in over 70 conflicts and crises, identifying trends and alerting them to risks of escalation and opportunities to advance peace.
Source; Crisi Watch, https://rb.gy/uerrfx
Government Definition of Migrants and Refugees
Refugee status is granted when an individual has a well-founded fear of persecution under the Refugee Convention. Those who are not in need of protection are required to leave the UK or apply for leave to remain on another basis.
Paragraph 334 of the Immigration Rules sets out the circumstances in which an asylum applicant will be granted Refugee Status in the UK. 334(ii) confirms that an individual must be a refugee as defined in regulation 2 of The Refugee or Person in Need of International Protection (Qualification) Regulations 2006.
The 2006 Regulations refer to individuals who fall within Article 1(A) of the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees done at Geneva on 28 July 1951 and the New York Protocol of 31 January 1967 and to whom regulation 7 (Exclusion) does not apply.
The Nationality and Borders Bill is aiming to make the definition of a refugee even clearer, improving the consistency of decisions across all decision makers (including the Courts).
The conditions of refugee leave which a person will be granted if they qualify for refugee status under the Immigration Rules is broadly five years’ limited leave, access to the labour market and welfare support, and a route to apply for settlement after five years.
The term migrant is not routinely used in legislation – it is more common to refer to “a person subject to immigration control”. The Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002A does include a definition of a migrant for the purposes of section 59(3)(a) being “a person who leaves the country where he lives hoping to settle in another country (whether or not he is a refugee within the meaning of any international Convention)”. However, that definition is used in a specific context and not more broadly in terms of legislation.
In practical terms, an individual subject to immigration control requires specific permission to stay in the UK and will usually be subject to conditions attached to that permission. These conditions vary depending on the type of leave for which an individual applies.
Response to Lords Written Question: https://rb.gy/389wmj
When Can the Home Secretary Take Your Citizenship Away?
One of the Home Secretary’s more startling powers is to take people’s British citizenship away where they acquired it by fraud or it is “conducive to the public good”. In the latter case, losing citizenship often amounts to exile in the interests of national security: the tactic is to wait until the person is abroad before making the deprivation order. Under the Nationality and Borders Bill, the person need not be told about the order at all.
The Home Office tells us that this power is used “sparingly”. Between 2010 and 2018, “only around 19 people a year were deprived of their citizenship on ‘conducive to the public good’ grounds”. Whether that is rare or routine depends on your point of view, but the average conceals an upward trend in recent years (insofar as figures are available). Fighting cases in the SIAC national security court is — “like wrestling with a shadow” — and the role of judges in policing one of the state’s most draconian powers.
?Stripping people of British citizenship without telling them is definitely illegal – for now
Read more: Freemovement, https://rb.gy/omfctx
|
Home Office Admits Unlawful Secret Policy to Seize all Channel Migrants’ Phones
The Home Office has admitted exercising an unlawful and secret policy of seizing mobile phones from all migrants crossing the Channel. Lawyers representing Priti Patel, the home secretary, made the admission at the High Court on Thursday, 27th January 2022, while fighting legal action brought by three asylum seekers. The men, from Iraq and Iran, were all arrested on arrival in the UK despite committing no crime, and were stripped of their possessions. British authorities kept their mobile phones for several months, leaving them unable to contact their loved ones, as one of the men feared his wife and seven-year-old daughter had been killed. The claimants are asking the High Court to make declarations of “serious illegality”, award damages and require the Home Office to alert everyone affected by the unlawful policy.
Their lawyers estimate that hundreds or thousands of mobile phones may have been unlawfully seized dating back to 2018. The Home Office denied the policy existed in initial correspondence with the claimants' lawyers, and apologised for failing a “duty of candour”. Alan Payne QC, representing the Home Office, told the High Court: “The home secretary is accepting that the seizure policies were unlawful, were not in accordance with the law for the purpose of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and it did not provide a lawful basis for the processing of data.”
Read more: Lizzie Dearden, Indpendent, https://rb.gy/r98wuf
Uncertainty for Zambrano Carers Following Court of Appeal Ruling
The Court of Appeal has dismissed the government’s appeal against last year’s decision that the EU Settlement Scheme rules on Zambrano carers are unlawful. But the judgment in Akinsanya v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWCA Civ 37 leaves the situation for these carers — non-EU parents of British citizen children — uncertain.
The court held the Home Secretary had misunderstood domestic law but did not rule that there had been any breach of EU law. While the Home Secretary is now required to rewrite the Immigration Rules with regard to Zambrano carers, it remains to be seen whether she will do so in a way that will provide a route to settlement under the Scheme for those with existing permission to stay in the UK.
Read more: Freemovement, https://rb.gy/fnvhmn
Staying on After Study: a Whistle-Stop Tour of the UK Graduate Visa Rules
The Graduate immigration route is for international students who have completed a degree or other higher educational qualification in the UK. It allows people who previously had a Student visa to:
1) work in the UK after their degree/qualification is completed
2) in a job at any skill level or salary, for a period of two years (or three years following a PhD/doctorate)
There is no requirement to have a sponsor in order to apply under this route. In addition, dependants are permitted. The application costs £700 plus the NHS surcharge.
It is not possible to extend a Graduate visa. Applications will be rejected as invalid if the person previously had permission to stay under the Graduate route (or the old Doctorate Extension Scheme).
Would-be Graduates must be in the UK when they apply and should not leave the Common Travel Area whilst their application is pending.
Importantly, the Graduate route does not lead to settlement.
Read more: Freemovement, https://rb.gy/xxkuu2
When Can the Home Secretary Take Your Citizenship Away?
One of the Home Secretary’s more startling powers is to take people’s British citizenship away where they acquired it by fraud or it is “conducive to the public good”. In the latter case, losing citizenship often amounts to exile in the interests of national security: the tactic is to wait until the person is abroad before making the deprivation order. Under the Nationality and Borders Bill, the person need not be told about the order at all.
The Home Office tells us that this power is used “sparingly”. Between 2010 and 2018, “only around 19 people a year were deprived of their citizenship on ‘conducive to the public good’ grounds”. Whether that is rare or routine depends on your point of view, but the average conceals an upward trend in recent years (insofar as figures are available). Fighting cases in the SIAC national security court is — “like wrestling with a shadow” — and the role of judges in policing one of the state’s most draconian powers.
Stripping people of British citizenship without telling them is definitely illegal – for now
Read more: Freemovement, https://rb.gy/omfctx |