First Quarter of 2023 Deadliest for Migrants in Six Years

Geneva/Berlin – The International Organization for Migration (IOM)’s Missing Migrants Project documented 441 migrant deaths in the Central Mediterranean in the first quarter of 2023, the highest on record since 2017.

The increasing loss of life on the world’s most dangerous maritime crossing comes amidst reports of delays in State-led rescue responses and hindrance to the operations of NGO search and rescue (SaR) vessels in the central Mediterranean.

“The persisting humanitarian crisis in the central Mediterranean is intolerable,” said IOM Director General, António Vitorino. “With more than 20,000 deaths recorded on this route since 2014, I fear that these deaths have been normalized. States must respond. Delays and gaps in State-led SAR are costing human lives.”

Delays in State-led rescues on the Central Mediterranean route were a factor in at least six incidents this year leading to the deaths of at least 127 people. The complete absence of response to a seventh case claimed the lives of at least 73 migrants.

Recently, NGO-led SAR efforts have been markedly diminished.

Read more: Relief Web, https://tinyurl.com/bdfba2ju

United Nations - UK Must Protect Unaccompanied Children Seeking Asylum

UN Geneva (11 April 2023) – The United Kingdom must ensure the protection of all children seeking asylum without discrimination and put an end to the practice of placing unaccompanied children in hotels, UN experts* said today. “We are deeply concerned at reports that unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are going missing and are at high risk of being trafficked within the UK,” the UN experts said. They expressed alarm at the current policy and practice of housing unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in temporary hotel accommodations instead of under the responsibility of local authorities. The current policy of placing unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in hotels places them outside of the UK child protection system and is discriminatory,” the expert said, adding that failures and gaps in child protection heighten risks of trafficking.

They stressed the urgent need to trace the missing children, and to provide human rights compliant reception conditions and protection for unaccompanied children seeking asylum – without discrimination on grounds of nationality, migration status, race, ethnicity and/or gender. “The UK Government appears to be failing to abide by its core obligations under international human rights law to ensure the best interests of the child, without discrimination, and to prevent trafficking of children,” the experts said. They noted reports that 4,600 unaccompanied children have been housed in six hotels since June 2021, and that 440 of these children had disappeared and 220 remained unaccounted for as of 23 January 2023, the majority of whom were Albanian nationals.

“The practice has allegedly developed in a climate of increasing hostility towards victims of trafficking and contemporary forms of slavery, refugees, asylum seekers and migrants,” the experts said. Some Members of Parliament have reportedly been critical of victims of trafficking seeking protection under the Modern Slavery Act and the National Referral Mechanism, undermining the State's obligation to protect victims and to prevent trafficking and contemporary forms of slavery.

The experts have been in contact with the UK Government regarding these concerns.

UN 11,04.2023, tinyurl.com/n5dw99tb

Banks to Prevent People From Operating Current Accounts if Disqualified Due to Immigration Status

The Home Office announced on Thursday ahead of the Easter weekend that data sharing between the Home Office and UK banks and building societies has now been restarted.

The measure is intended to prevent migrants without legal status in the UK from opening and operating current accounts. Under the arrangement, the Home Office will provide data to financial institutions about people who are known to be in the UK unlawfully or who have absconded from immigration control.

In a press release, the Home Office said: "The new measures do not impose any requirements on banks to check customer's documents. Instead, the Home Office will share details of disqualified persons via an anti-fraud organisation, and banks and building societies will then check their personal current account holders against those details. … Bank account closures will only occur where the Home Office has made a further check to ensure that the customer is still in the UK without permission to stay."

Read more: EIN, https://rb.gy/vktgk

Home Office Admits no Evidence to Support Key Claim on Small Boat Crossings

As home secretary in 2021, Priti Patel told parliament that “70% of individuals on small boats are single men who are effectively economic migrants”. In December last year, with the number of boat arrivals continuing to increase, her successor, Suella Braverman, backed the assertion, saying to MPs: “There is considerable evidence that people are coming here as economic migrants, illegally.”

Human rights groups say such claims help create a false narrative that individuals arriving by boat are not genuine asylum seekers so are less deserving of sympathy.

However, when asked via a Freedom of Information request for evidence to support Patel’s claim, the Home Office admitted it had none. Its response – dated 20 March 2023, a year after the request was sent – states: “We have carried out a thorough search and we have established that the Home Office does not hold the information requested.” But the former home secretary’s statement appears not to have been corrected.

Sophie McCann, migration advocacy officer at charity MSF UK, said: “The government has failed to provide any evidence to support claims that the majority of those trying to reach the UK are so-called economic migrants. These kinds of statements are deployed to demonise and dehumanise people seeking safety here, stirring up divisions, with real and dangerous consequences. We know that many people who reach the UK are fleeing war, persecution and other hardships… and lots have survived violence, torture, and trafficking.”,

Read more: Mark Townsend, Observer, https://rb.gy/3xxnp

Banks to Prevent People From Operating Current Accounts if Disqualified Due to Immigration Status

The Home Office announced on Thursday ahead of the Easter weekend that data sharing between the Home Office and UK banks and building societies has now been restarted.

The measure is intended to prevent migrants without legal status in the UK from opening and operating current accounts. Under the arrangement, the Home Office will provide data to financial institutions about people who are known to be in the UK unlawfully or who have absconded from immigration control.

In a press release, the Home Office said: "The new measures do not impose any requirements on banks to check customer's documents. Instead, the Home Office will share details of disqualified persons via an anti-fraud organisation, and banks and building societies will then check their personal current account holders against those details. … Bank account closures will only occur where the Home Office has made a further check to ensure that the customer is still in the UK without permission to stay."

Read more: EIN, https://rb.gy/vktgk

Two Ways to Address the Asylum Backlog and Improve Access to Justice

The government is right that the asylum backlog needs to be urgently addressed, but the Illegal Migration Bill will not tackle the backlog in any meaningful sense and could cause devastating harm to the rights of some of the most persecuted people in the world and the international refugee system. There are two key ways to address the asylum backlog and promote access to justice: by increasing the productivity of Home Office asylum decision-makers; and by simplifying and prioritising some of the procedures involved in asylum processing.

On 31 December 2022, 132,182 main applicants were awaiting an initial decision on their asylum application. That figure rises to 160,919 if we also include the dependents of these main applicants. Of the latter group, 68% have been waiting for more than six months. There is a wealth of evidence that highlights the detrimental effects of waiting on asylum seekers’ mental health and the ways that waiting can sustain the marginality of undocumented migrants.

Read more; Freemovement, https://rb.gy/uf1km

Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022 Ouster Clause Found Effective

The High Court has upheld the effectiveness of the ouster clause in the Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022, which ousts the jurisdiction of the courts in Upper Tribunal permission to appeal decisions except in very limited circumstances. The decision is R (Oceana) v Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) [2023] EWHC 791 (Admin).

The eventual ouster clause, preventing judicial reviews except in very limited circumstances, contained in section 2 of the Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022, came into force on 14 July 2022. It inserted section 11A into the Tribunal, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007. Section 11A(2) provides that a decision of the Upper Tribunal to refuse permission to appeal “is final, and not liable to be questioned or set aside in any other court”. One of the limited exceptions is section 11A(4)(c)(ii), which states that section 11A(2) does not apply where the upper tribunal is acting or has acted “in such a procedurally defective way as amounts to a fundamental breach of the principles of natural justice” (“the natural justice exception”).

Read more; Freemovement, https://rb.gy/u7fcq