Afghan Families in Yorkshire issued With Eviction Letters From Suella Braverman
This will be the fourth time that some of the families have been forced to move home, sometimes leaving jobs and schools, since being airlifted out of Kabul to the UK in August 2021. They were invited to the UK under Operation Pitting because at least one family member worked closely with the British authorities and it was believed that their lives would be at risk if they remained in Afghanistan.
The letters were delivered after the UK government announced in March that it would move all 24,500 Afghans out of temporary bridging accommodation or hotels this year and said they must accept the first offer of accommodation from the Home Office.
The letters said: “For the avoidance of doubt, if possession is not delivered upon by the notice date, you will be a trespasser and the secretary of state for the home department shall be at liberty to evict you from the property.”
Read more: Rajeev Syal, Guardian, https://tinyurl.com/3a4k8dr6
New Guidance on Deprivation of British Citizenship
New and accessible guidance has been released by the Home Office on the deprivation of British citizenship under section 40 of the British Nationality Act 1981, detailing the approach caseworkers should take when deciding such cases, replacing previous Deprivation and nullity guidance.
The guidance covers instances where an individual may be deprived of their British citizenship if the Secretary of State is satisfied that it would be conducive to the public good and they would not become stateless as a result (section 40(2)). Or that the person acquired citizenship through registration or naturalisation that was obtained by means of fraud, false representation or concealment of material facts (section 40(3) and section 40(6)).
Under section 40(4), a decision to deprive someone of their citizenship n the basis that it would be conducive to the public good cannot be made if the Secretary of State is satisfied that it would leave the individual stateless. However section 40(4A), introduced by the Immigration Act 2014, provides that a decision to deprive someone of their citizenship where it would leave them stateless can be made if they have “conducted themselves in a manner seriously prejudicial to the vital interests of the UK and if there are reasonable grounds for believing that the person is able to become a national of another country or territory”.
Read more: Freemovement, https://tinyurl.com/murbruj9
Ten Reasons to Bin the Illegal Migration Bill
The outrageous and dystopian Illegal Migration Bill is at the House of Lords stage. If enacted, the damaging repercussions will be generational. That is why we are giving the Lord's 10 reasons to #BinTheBill.
1. It Abolishes the Right to Seek Asylum
This Bill is incompatible with the Refugee Convention and will effectively abolish the right to seek to asylum in the UK. The UN’s refugee agency (the UNHCR) has warned that the UK pulling back from its responsibilities could lead to a “domino effect” leading towards a collapse of the entire system of international protection. People fleeing war, climate disaster, and atrocities, including people with ties and family in the UK, will not be able to claim asylum under this Bill.
The government claims it wants to stop illegal entry, but the truth is the only way to keep people safe is to protect the right to make life-saving journeys across borders and provide safe, accessible and legal routes to people seeking asylum. In the words of Warsan Shire, ‘No one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land.’
2. Authoritarian, Unlimited Powers to Detain
Under this Bill, there are no limits to who can be detained and removed from the UK, and it could lead to a potential 1000% increase in the number of people locked up under immigration powers across the UK. This includes children who are here alone, pregnant people, victims & survivors of slavery, trafficking, torture, and war, and people fleeing climate disasters. People will be detained no matter how vulnerable they are.
It will give Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, the power to act with impunity. Braverman wants to change the law to be able to detain people ‘wherever she sees fit.’ Some disturbing plans which have been reported include detaining people in internment camps, shipping containers, ships, camps, aircraft hangers, and disused military bases. Detention causes irreparable harm to people, families and communities, and if this Bill is enacted, no challenges can be made if the Home Secretary acts irrationally or unreasonably. The totalitarian, dystopian future is here now.
3. All Humans Have Human Rights, Right?
Laws in the UK require compatibility with the Human Rights Act and the European Convention on Human Rights. However, this Bill has written into it an exception that the Human Rights Act does not apply. This means people impacted by this Bill will not be able to challenge government decisions that may violate their Human Rights, creating a sub-class of people excluded from Human Rights protections.
This is an insidious and staggering blow to the idea of universal Human Rights. People that the government deem as deserving a safe route to asylum, for example Ukrainian refugees, will be entitled to support and Human Rights while people forced to arrive via irregular means will not be able to claim asylum, remain with families, work, or receive health care or benefits.
Additionally, survivors of modern slavery and human trafficking will be unable to get support or protection from those exploiting and harming them. This Bill is a trafficker’s dream. Human Rights are meant to apply to all humans. But the Government wants to make the UK a country where Human Rights apply to some people and not to others.
4. It Will be Racialised
The Illegal Migration Bill, like the Nationality & Borders Act, is part and parcel to the Hostile Environment policy. This is an official government policy, implemented since 2012, which aims to make life, literally, unbearable for people seeking asylum.
In their own Equality Impact Assessment, the Home Office admits that their measures disproportionally impact Black people and people of colour. Immigration law is already excluded from equality legislation, and decades of racist rhetoric and policy is likely to result in a racialised enforcement of the Bill, for people with and without British citizenship. The Windrush scandal, with its devasting outcome for Black communities, has exposed the shaky hands of government decision-making.
All people deserve safety. Schemes like the one which supported Ukrainian refugees were rightly introduced, however, when asked about asylum seekers from Sudan, Braverman responded that it was a different situation. We wonder why…
5. It Creates A Generational Subclass
It gets worse. If this Bill is enacted, not only will people who arrive to the UK never have the right to asylum, citizenship or protection from traffickers: their children even if born and/or raised in the UK, will also never have those rights. Children may also be subject to detention & removal with their families.
In addition, if a child arrives in the UK alone, they will be subject to detention and removal once they turn 18. This is cruel and the generational harm is unprecedented.
6. It is Delusional Posturing
The Bill is a delusional posturing exercise by those who seek political gain by exploiting the most vulnerable members of our society. It fundamentally misunderstands how and why people claim asylum and evidence overwhelmingly suggests it will fail on its own terms. Timing the bill to coincide with the local elections, suggests a wider political game to distract, deceive and divide, rather than address actual crises such as the cost of living.
This Bill will make the scandals of recent years, such as the holding of people in unsanitary conditions at Manston IRC, lawful and commonplace while removing the legal channels we have used to hold the government account.
7. Excludes Refugee Children From Safeguarding
Yes, you read that correctly. This Bill will carve out a group of children considered less worthy of protection than other children and will put the Home Secretary - who recently lost 200 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children - in charge of their wellbeing.
The Bill allows for the indefinite detention of children and for their forced removal from the UK back to dangerous situations. This Bill disregards the fundamental human rights of child refugees, dispossessing them of appropriate healthcare, education, and protection from trafficking and exploitation. It undermines the integrity of our society and of policymakers who would never impose such cruelty on their own children.
8. Removing Access to Justice
This Bill empowers the Home Office at the expense of people facing detention and deportation. It removes the right to apply for bail for the first 28 days of detention, regardless of whether the decision to detain is lawful or justified. It also limits appeal rights, making it almost impossible for people to legally challenge Home Office decisions. This is a blatant attempt to speed up deportation and reduce compensation payments by removing safeguards and processes that protect people from unlawful decisions.
The Bill prevents the courts from assessing if the Secretary of State is acting lawfully or even rationally when she decides to detain a person. It removes judicial oversight and instead gives the Home Office the power to work without having to answer to the courts, leaving the irrational decision-making of the Home Office and their numerous procedural failings unchallenged.
9. Detention Industrial Complex
Despite being the only country in Europe without a time limit on detention, the UK has one of the largest immigration detention complexes in the region. Contractors such as Serco, Mitie and G4S make millions in profit from indefinitely locking people up. While people detained work for £1 an hour, saving companies an estimated £3,000,000 a year in maintenance costs.
Despite fraud investigations and scandal after scandal where staff at detention centres have abused those in their care, the contractors continue to pass due diligence tests and win contracts. It is these private companies and their shareholders, including generous Conservative party donors, that stand to benefit from the 1000% increase in detention that could result from this Bill.
Facilities will need to be built and filled with people, a process which will traumatise thousands, devour much-needed public funds and reproduce centuries of colonial and racial injustice. Instead of focusing on the cost of living, the housing crisis and the NHS, the government is planning to open detention centres in Campsfield and Haslar, costing the taxpayer £399 million.
10. There is Another Way
The UK has a moral obligation to provide sanctuary for those who are forced to flee their homes and seek refuge. It is imperative that those seeking asylum are given the opportunity to heal and rebuild their lives with their family and community.
People migrate for diverse reasons, some of which are due to historical injustices and legacies of colonialism caused by the UK which are yet to be redressed.
Instead of pursuing division and hatred, we can create a society that reflects the fundamental values of human rights, dignity and compassion where everyone has safe and quality health care, housing and education and can live free and full lives.
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CoA Confirms Refusal of Habeas Corpus for British Citizens in Syrian Camp
The appeal of C3 and C4, two British women who travelled to Syria to join the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant who were subsequently detained in a camp in northern Syria, has been dismissed. The case is C3 & Anor v Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Affairs.
Since the collapse of ISIL in 2016-17, C3 and C4 have been detained Camp Roj in northern Syria. Conditions in the camp are dire. You can read more about the background to the case, the conditions in the camp, and why the Divisional Court originally refused the applications for habeas corpus here.
C3 and C4 were previously deprived of their British citizenship. This was overturned by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission because the decisions would have rendered them stateless.
C3 and C4 brought their applications for a writ of habeas corpus on the basis that the Secretary of State could secure their release from detention, including making requests to those in charge of administration in the camp (AANES), and organising emergency travel and documentation.
?Read more: Freemovement, https://tinyurl.com/ys3s3t4f
UK Youth Mobility Visa
The Youth Mobility Scheme is one of the friendlier parts of the Immigration Rules. The route is designed to enable people aged 18-30 to live and work in the UK and is relatively straightforward to apply for, at least compared with other options for economic migration. Crucially, there is no requirement to have an employer to sponsor the visa or even for the applicant to necessarily intend to work in the UK, which makes it much more flexible than other routes.
The big drawback to the Youth Mobility visa is that it is only available to citizens of a select list of 11 countries (plus British overseas territories). The other requirements for this visa are in Appendix Youth Mobility Scheme to the Immigration Rules and there is also some guidance on the scheme for Home Office staff.
The rules for Indian citizens, who were added to the scheme for the first time in 2022 and have been able to submit applications from early 2023, are more restrictive than for other nationalities.
Read more: Freemovement, https://tinyurl.com/3am78df9
Civil Society Solidarity Statement on the “Illegal Migration Bill”
As a coalition of 176 civil society organisations representing the human rights, migrant, refugee, asylum, anti-slavery and trafficking, children’s, violence against women and girls, LGBTQI+, disability rights, health, LGBTQI+, housing, racial justice, criminal justice, arts, international development, environment, democracy, pan-equality, faith, access to justice, and other sectors, we call on Parliamentarians to urge the Government to immediately withdraw the ‘Illegal Migration Bill’.
We all deserve to live safe from harm and to be treated with compassion, dignity, and respect. But this shockingly cruel and inhumane Bill turns our country’s back on people fleeing war and persecution, blocking them from protection, support, or justice at a time they need it most.
The Bill is effectively a ban on asylum, extinguishing the right to seek refugee protection in the United Kingdom. It will put people seeking safety and a better life at risk of irreversible harm, with life and death consequences.
This Bill attacks the very core of human rights, which is the fundamental belief that we all have human rights regardless of who we are or where we are from. Instead, it separates people into categories of ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ of human rights. In stripping the most basic rights from people seeking safety and a better life, the Bill dismantles human rights protections for all of us.
Read more: https://tinyurl.com/6b54z97k
US President Biden’s Deadly “Asylum Ban”
There are already a record number of migrants dying at the US southern border – and it’s about to get worse. President Joe Biden’s new “asylum ban” will not only lead to more deaths, it will also enrich criminal cartels and force more refugees back to the dangers they were trying to escape.
The new, awful policy is replacing the old awful policy of the Trump administration, which was based on an obscure, 75-year-old public health law known as “Title 42” to drive no-questions-asked expulsions at the border. A federal judge said the use of Title 42 was causing “irreparable harm” to asylum seekers and was unlawful.
Biden’s team fought hard to keep Trump’s policy going, but the end of the public health emergency spelled the end of authorities being able to rely on Title 42. The end of Title 42 has sparked increased interest among asylum seekers and migrants trying to head to the US. And, as night follows day, fear-mongering TV news channels in the US are manufacturing panic in suburban living rooms with dehumanizing images of desperate people and apocalyptic messages about “hordes” and “floods.”
Let’s Get Back to Basics. These are People. and They Have Rights
We all have the right to apply for asylum abroad. This does NOT mean we all have a right to live in any country we want, whenever we want. It means that, when we’re facing danger back home, we have the right to ask for asylum in another country and have our case heard fairly by the appropriate authorities. But the Biden administration – again recycling Trump-era tricks – is pushing asylum seekers to get an appointment through the US border agency’s cellphone app, “CBP One,” which is nearly impossible. Appointments are extremely limited and usually book up within minutes.
Day after day, asylum seekers try to get a spot through the app. It can take months. Meanwhile, they’re waiting in dangerous conditions inside Mexico at the border, where asylum seekers have experienced kidnapping, rape, extortion, and other abuses by organized crime and Mexican officials. And if you try crossing without an appointment, Biden’s policy is to immediately send you back to Mexico, to those known dangers – which is actually illegal, by the way – and bar you from entering the US for five years.
Perhaps the worst part of all this is, the Biden administration had more than two years to prepare for this moment and the end of “Title 42.” Biden could have followed through on his campaign promises to develop more humane solutions. But No: Instead, they dithered and simply recycled one abusive Trump policy after another, creating a new “asylum ban” and leaving desperate people to pay the price.
Source: Human Rights Watch, https://tinyurl.com/yamvz53y
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