Category Archives: Immigration and asylum

UK asylum seeker deal leaves Rwanda hostel residents homeless

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Survivors of Rwandan genocide were told to vacate hostel two days after Priti Patel signed £120m deal

Former residents of a hostel in Rwanda who were forced to leave under a controversial deal to house asylum seekers flown from the UK say they have been left homeless and destitute while the property remains unused.

The men, all of whom are survivors of the Rwandan genocide, had lived in Hope Hostel in Kigali for up to eight years. But they were told to vacate two days after Priti Patel, the British home secretary, signed a £120m agreement to send refugees arriving in the UK by small boats to the east African country.

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Truss and Sunak face Tory hustings after both say Covid lockdown went too far – as it happened

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Latest updates: Tory leadership frontrunner reacts to Sunak comments, saying school closures went too far; pair meet Tory members in Norwich

Lee Cain, who was director of communications in Downing Street during the early phase of the Covid crisis, says Rishi Sunak’s comments about the lockdown policy (see 9.22am and 9.47am) are “simply wrong”.

But Sunak is not saying lockdown should not have happened, as Cain suggests. He is just saying that it was implemented too rigidly, and perhaps for too long, and that more consideration should have been given to the downsides.

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Rise in Albanian asylum seekers may be down to criminal gangs

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Albanian gangs controlling UK drugs trade offer minibus trip and Channel crossing for £4,000 on TikTok

Official data released on Thursday has confirmed suspicions that Albanians are now a prominent national group among the asylum seekers travelling across the Channel.

But the Home Office and refugee charities are still trying to explain why there has been a recent surge in demand.

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Home Office planning new deportation flight to Rwanda

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Some asylum seekers have received letters saying government intends to remove them, the Guardian has learned

The Home Office is planning a new deportation flight to Rwanda, the Guardian has learned.

Some newly arrived asylum seekers in hotels have received letters from the department telling them their asylum claims are deemed inadmissible for consideration in the UK.

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Tory leadership hustings – Birmingham: Liz Truss confirms she will allow new grammar schools – as it happened

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This live blog is now closed. You can read our latest story on the leadership contest here:

The cross-party Commons Treasury committee has expressed concerns about reports that Liz Truss, the frontrunner in the Tory leadership contest, may hold an emergency budget in September without asking the Office for Budget Responsibility to update its fiscal and economic forecast.

The OBR usually publishes a new forecast alongside a budget, and it provides an independent assessment of what impact the budget measures will have. The system was put in place by George Osborne to discourage the Treasury from making dubious claims about what its tax and spending announcements might be able to achieve.

OBR forecasts provide transparency and reassurance to the markets on the health of the nation’s finances. As a committee, we expect the Treasury to be supporting and enabling the OBR to publish an independent forecast at the time of any significant fiscal event, especially where, unlike other recent fiscal interventions, this might include significant permanent tax cuts.

Whether such an event is actually called a budget or not is immaterial. The reassurance of independent forecasting is vital in these economically turbulent times. To bring in significant tax cuts without a forecast would be ill advised. It is effectively ‘flying blind’.

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France to blame for refugees risking Channel crossings, say NGOs

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Hostile policies encourage asylum seekers to try dangerous routes to England, say French support groups

Organisations supporting refugees in northern France have blamed the French government for the high number of people risking their lives to cross the Channel in small boats.

So far this year more than 20,000 people have crossed with UK Border Force union officials predicting that the number could reach 60,000 by the end of the year.

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Foreign Office official raised ‘stark’ criticisms of Rwanda plan, court hears

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Guardian, BBC and Times seek release of documents about policy of sending asylum seekers abroad

A Foreign Office official raised concerns about plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, citing state surveillance, arbitrary detention, torture and killings by the country’s government, the high court has heard.

The court has been asked to consider an application by the foreign secretary to keep parts of certain government documents secret for fear the contents could damage international relations and threaten national security.

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UK treatment of Afghan refugees ‘continues to be source of shame’

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MoD sources accuse other parts of Whitehall of failing to do enough to help Afghans who worked with British forces

Two RAF flights carrying as many as 500 Afghans who worked with British forces and their relatives are landing in the UK each month from Pakistan but there is deep frustration within the Ministry of Defence about how the rest of government is struggling to accommodate arrivals.

It comes as the Taliban and western allies mark the first anniversary of Nato’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.

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‘A hotel is not home’: Afghan families still wait for a place of their own in UK

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Families who fled Taliban rule say they are grateful for the help they have received but long for a home where they can settle

The west London hotel where Fawzia Amini, a senior Afghan judge, her husband and their four daughters have lived for the last nine months has comfortable sofas in the foyer, a restaurant serving tasty meals on the first floor, and friendly reception staff – but it isn’t home.

After the turmoil and danger of fleeing their spacious home in Kabul when the Taliban seized control of the Afghan capital, the family say that while they are grateful for everything the UK government has done for them, they long to be in a place of their own where they can cook their own food, work, study, and entertain relatives and friends.

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Number of EU citizens moving to UK plunges post-Brexit – report

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Data shows just 43,000 EU citizens received visas for work, family, study or other purposes in 2021

The number of EU citizens moving to the UK has plunged since Brexit closed the doors to low-paid workers, according to a report.

The dramatic decline in migration from the EU has hit hospitality and support services hard. But the Migration Observatory (MO) at the University of Oxford and ReWage, a group of independent experts, have said that while Brexit “exacerbated” chronic labour shortages in Britain, it was not the only cause.

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Revealed: Indonesian workers on UK farm ‘at risk of debt bondage’

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As farms look further afield for labour, investigation finds Kent pickers saying they struggle to pay fees charged by unlicensed brokers

Indonesian labourers picking berries on a farm that supplies Marks & Spencer, Waitrose, Sainsbury’s and Tesco say they have been saddled with debts of up to £5,000 by unlicensed foreign brokers to work in Britain for a single season.

Pickers at the farm in Kent were initially given zero-hours contracts, and at least one was paid less than £300 a week after the cost of using a caravan was deducted, according to payslips and other documents seen as part of a Guardian investigation.

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‘My family need my support to eat’: how Indonesians came to work on a Kent farm

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Drawn to the prospect of a job abroad, people such as Banyu signed up to a language course. From there, their debts to brokers grew

Sitting in a caravan in the hot Kent countryside, Banyu’s face is etched with worry. It is July and he is less than a month into a job picking fruit at Clock House farm near Maidstone, which supplies strawberries, raspberries and other soft fruit to leading supermarket chains.

He says he arrived from Indonesia this summer £5,000 in debt to an unlicensed broker in Bali, handing over the deeds to his family home as surety. He only has a six-month visa for the picking season and is scared that the work is not as lucrative as he hoped.

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Channel smugglers drop prices and cram more people on to boats

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Increased number of people arriving in UK in more overcrowded vessels shows Rwanda plan not working, say campaigners

People-smugglers have dropped their prices and are cramming more people than ever before into already overloaded, flimsy boats, the Guardian has learned.

This week 696 asylum seekers crossed the Channel from France to the UK in one day, the Ministry of Defence said.

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Home Office contractor gives children hotel food containing worms

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Family accommodated in a Midlands hotel were sick after eating meal provided by Serco

Children at a Home Office hotel unwittingly ate worms that were in food provided to them by government contractors, the Guardian has learned.

A four-year-old boy, not realising that his meal of fish and chips contained worms, began vomiting soon after he started to eat it. Paramedics were called and the boy was taken to hospital.

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Foreign Office admits multiple errors in UK’s exit from Afghanistan

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Officials say they can not provide hope of resettlement for Afghans who worked for UK civilian schemes

The UK Foreign Office has admitted a catalogue of errors over its handling of Britain’s exit from Afghanistan, but has shut the door on many Afghans who helped the UK prior to the Taliban takeover last August, saying it will not provide false hope that they will be given the chance to come to the UK.

Foreign Office officials say it is difficult to judge whether Afghans who worked on UK-funded civilian schemes, such as the British Council, are truly in danger from the Taliban, saying the evidence is that the threat primarily applies to those who provided security support to the UK.

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Calls for Ukrainians living on cruise ship in Scotland to be quickly rehoused

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MS Victoria is temporary solution to host refugees but there are concerns about small rooms and seasickness

Ukrainian refugees staying on a cruise ship docked in Edinburgh must be moved to more suitable accommodation within days, welfare groups have said, as those onboard already report concerns about small rooms and feeling seasick.

The first arrivals of mainly women and children displaced by the war in Ukraine boarded the MS Victoria passenger ship earlier this week. Chartered by the Scottish government, it is expected to host up to 1,700 people and is a temporary solution to a growing accommodation crisis, which earlier this month prompted the government to pause its Ukrainian refugee sponsorship scheme for three months.

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Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss accused of cruelty over Rwanda-style deal promises

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Amnesty International leads criticism of immigration plans announced by Tory leadership candidates

Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have been accused of “cruelty and immorality” for promising more Rwanda-style deals to remove asylum seekers from the UK, as charities claimed the pair were pandering to party members’ hardline views.

Amnesty International led criticism of immigration plans announced over the weekend by the Tory leadership candidates, saying the “dreadful” pledges would come at “great human and financial cost”.

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Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss serve up ‘red meat’ policies to tempt Tory members

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Analysis: Leadership contenders compete on hardline approach to Rwanda immigration policy in appeal to the right of the party

It’s not just barbecues that red meat is being tossed on to in the sweltering summer temperatures.

As the Tory leadership contest hots up, a platter of hardline policies is being offered to party members by Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, in a bid to whet appetites and boost support in the race to become Britain’s prime minister.

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Rishi Sunak says as PM he would cap number of refugees UK accepts

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Tory leadership candidate’s pledge follows favourite Liz Truss’s claim she would extend Rwanda scheme

Rishi Sunak, who is battling with Liz Truss to win the backing of the Conservative grassroots in his attempt to replace Boris Johnson, has announced plans for an annual cap on the number of refugees the UK accepts.

The former chancellor, who trails Truss by 24%, according to a YouGov poll of Conservative members earlier this week, will on Sunday promise to tackle illegal migration and regain control of the UK’s borders if he becomes the next Conservative leader and prime minister.

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UK officials raised concerns over Rwanda policy, documents show

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Charity says disclosures in legal case paint picture of home secretary desperate to push policy through

The Home Office pushed through its policy of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda despite repeated concerns from UK government officials, it has emerged from documents submitted to a high court hearing.

The government disclosed the documents, which raise numerous concerns about the Rwanda plans, ahead of a full hearing later this year into the lawfulness of the policy.

On 10 February 2021, the UK high commissioner to Rwanda said the UK should not do a deal with Rwanda because the African country had been accused of recruiting refugees to conduct armed operations in neighbouring countries.

On 18 February 2021, Rwanda was identified as one of 14 countries assessed as presenting substantial issues in relation to asylum systems and human rights. Rwanda received an amber/red rating from the government owing to significant human rights concerns.

A Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office memo dated 20 May 2021 urged No 10 not to get involved with the Rwanda deal owing to significant human rights concerns.

An internal memo criticised the “limited evidence about whether these proposals will be a sufficient deterrent for those seeking to enter the UK illegally”.

A detailed internal memo that appears to be dated 12 April 2022, the day before a memorandum of understanding was signed between UK and Rwanda, stated that the “fraud risk is very high” in the deal because UK was paying so much money upfront to Rwanda.

A document from the day the memorandum was signed stated that the first group of asylum seekers due to be flown to Rwanda could “test” Rwanda’s refugee determination processes.

When the UK government conducted an independent assessment of Rwanda’s human rights record, the Home Office showed it to Rwanda to comment on the final draft and allowed officials to suggest amendments.

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