Teargas used against demonstrators on Lesbos and Chios who want migrants moved to the mainland
Clashes have broken out on the Greek islands of Lesbos and Chios, where residents tried to prevent the arrival of riot police and excavating machines to be used to build new migrant detention camps.
Police fired teargas to disperse the crowds that gathered early on Tuesday to try to prevent officers from disembarking from government-chartered ferries.
Continue reading...Home affairs adviser accused of untruthfulness as Tamil family waits on court to decide if youngest daughter can apply for asylum
The Tamil asylum seeker family from Biloela may have to wait another three months for a decision on whether their youngest Australian-born daughter can have her asylum application assessed, after a court hearing in which a home affairs adviser was accused of untruthfulness.
Tamil asylum seekers Priya and Nades and their Australian-born daughters Kopika and Tharunicaa have been detained on Christmas Island since late last year awaiting the hearing on the processing of a visa application for Tharunicaa.
Continue reading...After six years of economic crisis in their neighboring country, Brazilian officials say more and more unaccompanied minors are arriving
Jesús Pérez was 16 when he crossed into Brazil in June, fleeing a life of hunger on the streets of his disintegrating homeland.
In Pacaraima, the Brazilian border town that is the main entry point for fleeing Venezuelans, he told social workers he hoped for a fresh start.
Continue reading...It is a place where worlds converge, a vast melting pot of different peoples, all in search of a better life. Yet the US-Mexico border is also, increasingly, a focal point for human suffering
Milson, from Honduras, sits with his 14-year-old daughter, Loany, on the reedy riverbank beside the bridge connecting Matamoros, in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, with downtown Brownsville, Texas, across the Rio Grande.
On the far reach – a few yards but another world away – is a vast tent (officially a “soft-sided facility”) erected to cope with the sheer numbers seeking asylum in the US. In a few weeks’ time, on the date stipulated on their “notice to appear” document, the people staying here will have their “credible fear interview” by video link.
Continue reading...Police say one migrant was charged $22,000 before being taken to China, France and then the UK
Police in Vietnam have charged seven people in connection with the deaths of 39 migrants whose bodies were discovered in the back of a lorry in the UK in 2019, authorities said late on Thursday.
The victims, who included two 15-year-old boys, were mostly from two provinces in north-central Vietnam, where poor job prospects, encouragement by authorities, smuggling gangs and environmental issues have fuelled migration.
Continue reading...Government plans to take ‘full control’ of borders a disaster for economy and jobs, say industry leaders and Labour
Britain is to close its borders to unskilled workers and those who can’t speak English as part of a fundamental overhaul of immigration laws that will end the era of cheap EU labour in factories, warehouses, hotels and restaurants.
Unveiling its Australian-style points system on Wednesday, the government will say it is grasping a unique opportunity to take “full control” of British borders “for the first time in decades” and eliminate the “distortion” caused by EU freedom of movement.
Continue reading...Operation to come into force as mission to save migrants and refugees from sea is wound down
The EU has agreed to deploy warships to stop the flow of weapons into Libya, as the bloc wound down a military mission that had once rescued migrants and refugees from drowning in the Mediterranean.
Josep Borrell, the EU’s chief diplomat, announced that 27 foreign ministers had agreed to launch a new operation with naval ships, planes and satellites in order to enforce the UN arms embargo on Libya.
Continue reading...Since the start of the year, Greece’s reception system for migrants has imploded. A spike of arrivals over the past few months, caused by Turkey’s police operations removing refugees and asylum seekers from its western coastal cities and sending them back to the regions where they were registered, has pushed the existing accommodation to its limits.
Between September 2019 and January 2020, the Greek government transferred 14,750 people from the islands to the mainland, as 36,000 new arrivals crossed the Aegean to Greece from Turkey. While the system is unable to absorb any more people, efforts to establish additional camps in the mainland and new detention centres on the islands have met strong resistance from local communities.
Continue reading...Treatment of refugees and asylum seekers ‘cruel, inhuman or degrading’, but does not warrant prosecution, ICC office says
Australia’s offshore detention regime is a “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment” and unlawful under international law, the international criminal court’s prosecutor has said.
But the office of the prosecutor has stopped short of deciding to prosecute the Australian government, saying that while the imprisonment of refugees and asylum seekers formed the basis of a crime against humanity, the violations did not rise to the level to warrant further investigation.
Continue reading...When he was interior minister, Salvini prevented 177 migrants from disembarking in Italy
Italy’s senate has formally authorised a criminal case against Matteo Salvini, the far-right leader accused of kidnap last year when, as interior minister, he prevented 177 migrants from disembarking from a coast guard ship.
Last December, the Italian court of ministers in Catania, Sicily, ruled that Salvini should be tried for allegedly depriving the asylum seekers on board the Gregoretti coast guard ship of their liberty by refusing to allow them to leave.
Continue reading...Dangerous conditions fail to deter record number of people from attempting to enter UK
The approach of Storm Ciara has not deterred 102 people from trying to cross the Channel on Friday.
Five inflatable boats carrying migrants who said they were from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Syria were picked up by Border Force, the Home Office said.
Continue reading...Government calls in further reinforcements after teargas fired during island protests
Greece has rushed in extra squads of riot police to Lesbos amid warnings of potentially explosive tensions on the island following clashes between security forces and thousands of migrants and refugees.
As hundreds of mainly Afghan asylum seekers converged on Mytilene, the local capital, on Tuesday to protest against conditions in the island’s vastly overcrowded camp, the government ordered in the reinforcements.
Continue reading...Letter calls for full inquests into deaths of 39 people in a refrigerated lorry last year
Families of the 39 Vietnamese migrants whose bodies were discovered in a refrigerated lorry in Essex last year and campaigners in the UK are calling for inquests to be held into the deaths.
While criminal proceedings related to the tragic deaths continue, there has been no indication whether there will be any wider investigation into the circumstances surrounding the incident.
Continue reading...Minister says barrier would send message to smugglers that ‘rules of the game have changed’
The Greek government has defended plans to erect a floating barrier in the Mediterranean to deter thousands of people determined to reach Europe from making the sea journey from Turkey.
Dismissing criticism, the country’s minister for migration and asylum, Notis Mitarakis, said the proposed barrier in the Aegean Sea would send a strong message to people smugglers that the “rules of the game had changed”.
Continue reading...Large numbers of easily exploited temporary migrants could have a ‘corrosive’ effect, says Kristina Keneally
Australia’s reliance on temporary migration is creating a new economic underclass that risks having a “corrosive” effect on the nation’s society, Labor’s shadow home affairs minister, Kristina Keneally, says.
In a major speech to the Curtin institute on Thursday night, Keneally will step up Labor’s attack on the government for its reliance on temporary migration, saying current trends could see as many as 3 million people – or 12% of the population – living in Australia on a temporary basis.
Continue reading...Europol detains alleged members of group responsible for trafficking 10,000 migrants into Britain
Authorities in France and the Netherlands have arrested more than 20 suspected members of a people-smuggling gang responsible for transporting as many as 10,000 migrants from France into Britain, the European police agency has said.
The network is believed to have made about €70m (£59m) from its human trafficking operations, which used refrigerated lorries to smuggle Afghan, Iranian, Iraqi-Kurdish and Syrian migrants into the UK.
Continue reading...Latino writers say Jeanine Cummins’ novel uses stereotypes and exploits the suffering of Mexican immigrants
American Dirt, the third novel by Jeanine Cummins, begins with a group of assassins opening fire on a quinceañera cookout. We watch Lydia’s entire family get killed, one by one. Only Lydia and her eight-year-old survive.
The scene is one of many depictions of graphic violence in American Dirt and it has sparked an intense conversation about “pity porn” and writing about the Mexican immigrant experience.
Continue reading...Originally intended to hold 3,000 people, 19,000 now live at the Moria refugee camp – with no electricity, scant water and, for many, no shelter at all. Journalist Harriet Grant and photographer Giorgos Moutafis met some of those attempting to cope with life there
Above a hill on the north shore of Lesbos, volunteers watch the sea and the twinkling lights of Turkey day and night with binoculars. The coastguard hurry to respond when they see a boat approaching, trying to arrive in time to stop children falling in the icy cold water as they clamber onto rocks and beaches.
On the morning of 11 January, a group of migrants from Afghanistan make it ashore without being spotted and walk to an olive grove where they light a fire and call for help.
Continue reading...Move in effect dashes migrants’ plans to travel together in a ‘caravan’ to the United States
Guatemalan police accompanied by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have swept up hundreds of migrants, returning them to the Honduran border and in effect dashing their plans to travel together in a “caravan” to the United States.
Other, smaller groups traveled on in dribs and drabs in a movement involving several thousand people but very different from previous caravans.
Continue reading...Circumstances of deaths raise concerns about pressure on gathering and departure facilities
The fatal shooting of two Eritrean men in Libya has raised concerns about overcrowding in UN facilities for refugees there.
The pair were reportedly killed in Tripoli last Thursday, days after the UN refugee agency had pressed them to leave a so-called gathering and departure facility (GDF).
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