Category Archives: Immigration and asylum

‘Office for talent’ to be set up for scientists who want to work in UK

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Unit based in No 10 will help researchers navigate post-Brexit immigration system

Downing Street is to set up a cross-departmental unit called the “office for talent” as a way to help leading scientists, researchers and others live and work in the UK in the post-Brexit immigration system.

The plan, which the Liberal Democrats said was simply trying to make up the damage caused by Brexit, is intended to “ensure excellent customer service across the immigration system”, a government announcement said.

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Former England boxer Kelvin Bilal Fawaz wins 16-year battle to stay in UK

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Exclusive: Fawaz, who was trafficked to the UK from Nigeria as a child, won his Home Office appeal last week

The former England boxer Kelvin Bilal Fawaz has won his 16-year legal battle to live and work in the UK after the Home Office granted him leave to remain for 30 months.

Fawaz, who has represented England six times and was once an amateur champion, has been struggling to establish his adult nationality and immigration status after being trafficked from Nigeria to the UK as a child and kept in domestic servitude.

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Thousands of potential trafficking victims ‘not given vital support’

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Less than fifth of those identified by Home Office as likely modern slavery victims are referred for legal and housing advice – study

Thousands of people identified as potential victims of trafficking in the UK have not been referred for support despite government pledges to help them, according to a new study.

Many victims of trafficking are hidden and unable to access support because they are under the control of those who are exploiting them. But victims who do come into contact with the authorities such as the police, Home Office or Gangmaster and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA) which investigates reports of worker exploitation and human trafficking, should be referred for safe housing and legal advice.

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Windrush lawyer Jacqueline McKenzie: ‘The Home Office is treating people with contempt’

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The lawyer representing 200 victims of the Windrush scandal says systemic racism is at the root of the problem

For the past three months, Jacqueline McKenzie says her front room has been covered with Windrush compensation files. Since lockdown, she has stopped going to the offices of the law firm she co-founded in 2010 and has been working from home. But her study is too small to accommodate the huge amount of paperwork that goes with the 200 separate claims she is filing on behalf of people affected by the Home Office citizenship scandal, during which thousands of people were wrongly classified as illegal immigrants because they could not prove they were British citizens.

“I think they are treating people with contempt,” she says. She is frustrated at the slow progress towards paying compensation to people who lost their jobs or their homes, were denied healthcare or the right to travel, or who were, in extreme cases, detained and deported. Part of the problem, she says, lies with the structure of the scheme, which requires claimants to gather large amounts of documentary proof of the losses they have incurred as a result of being miscategorised as unlawful residents (a problem that often arose because those affected were unable to gather the large amounts of documentary proof required to show that they had been living legally in the UK since the 1960s).

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Windrush scandal: cross-government group aims to tackle ‘terrible’ treatment

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Home Office says it will launch ad campaign to ensure people are aware of support available

A cross-government working group has been launched in an attempt to address the challenges faced by the Windrush generation, two years after the then prime minister, Theresa May, promised to right the wrongs faced by those mistakenly classified as illegal immigrants by the Home Office.

Duwayne Brooks, a campaigner and friend of the murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, has agreed to join the group, in recognition of the “terrible” treatment faced by the Windrush generation. He said he was “looking forward to working with the home secretary to ensure all those affected come forward to claim the compensation they deserve and get the support they need to move on”.

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Home Office ‘uses racial bias’ when detaining immigrants

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Pressure group claims disproportionate number of black people held for longer periods to ‘reduce black and brown migration to UK’

Black people are detained significantly longer than white people inside the UK’s immigration detention system, prompting fresh claims of “institutional racism”.

Although the Home Office does not record ethnicity data for detainees, analysis of nationalities of those recently held within the immigration detention estate found that citizens from countries with predominantly black and brown populations are held for substantially longer periods than those from predominantly white countries.

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Windrush scandal survivors deliver petition to No 10

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Call to speed up compensation for people wrongly detained and deported by government

Survivors of the Windrush scandal have delivered a petition to Downing Street signed by 130,000 people calling on the government to speed up compensation payments and implement all the recommendations in the Windrush Lessons Learned review.

Paulette Wilson and Anthony Bryan – who were wrongly held in immigration detention centres and threatened with deportation to Jamaica, a country they both left as children in the 1960s and had not visited in more than 50 years – handed the petition to police officers at the gates of Downing Street on Friday.

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Boris Johnson’s racism inquiry: have previous ones changed anything?

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The PM’s commission will be the latest in a line of initiatives examining race inequalities

Boris Johnson has announced a “cross-governmental commission” into racial disparities in education, health and criminal justice. It is the latest of a series of reports into ethnic injustices over recent years.

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Hong Kong activists urge UK to spell out extended visa offer

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NGO demands more details on Boris Johnson’s ‘vague and imprecise’ commitment

Hong Kong democracy campaigners are pressing the Foreign Office to spell out how Boris Johnson’s “vague and imprecise commitment” will give a path to British citizenship to millions of residents.

It came as Johnson wrote to seven former UK foreign secretaries saying he is trying to build a global groundswell of opposition to Chinese plans to impose a new security law in Hong Kong.

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Councils ask for UK to lift bars on emergency help for migrants

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Call to suspend ‘NRPF’ hostile environment measure that stops some people accessing public funds

Local authorities have called on the government to suspend the controversial “no recourse to public funds” immigration status for the duration of the coronavirus pandemic, to prevent thousands from falling into destitution and homelessness.

High numbers of people who have this status attached to their visas have been approaching councils for emergency assistance during the pandemic. Many are struggling to survive during the exceptional circumstances of lockdown, with no safety net, according to the Local Government Association (LGA), which represents councils in England and Wales.

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Refugee on hunger strike over age dispute with Home Office

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Bristol man sees official record of his age as five years older than he says as theft of his identity

A young man who was given permission to stay in the UK after fleeing Gaza has been on hunger strike for more than 90 days in protest at what he sees as the “theft” of his true identity on his official records.

The man, who has learning disabilities and post-traumatic stress disorder, says he was wrongly assessed as being five years older than he is when he arrived in the UK. He regards his date of birth as a crucial part of his identity and a vital link to his late parents.

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UK says it will extend Hongkongers’ visa rights if China pursues security laws

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Foreign secretary Dominic Raab threatens to change status of British national (overseas) passport holders

The UK will extend visa rights for as many as 300,000 Hong Kong British national (overseas) passport holders if China continues down the path of imposing repressive security laws on the former British colony, the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, has said.

The move, which appears in outline to stop short of giving the BN(O)s a right of abode, is a response to growing Conservative backbench pressure on the Foreign Office to do more to help Hong Kong citizens fearful that China is about to extinguish their independence and political freedoms.

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Lockdown gives asylum seekers reprieve and hope for change in policy

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After Covid 19 pauses threat of detention and deportation, campaigners call for rethink on UK immigration

As Britain takes its first small steps out of lockdown, there is one group of people quietly wishing that it wouldn’t.

For many asylum seekers, the two-month hiatus has meant reprieve. Freed from detention centres, liberated from the threat of imminent deportation and no longer obliged to report to the Home Office, many have welcomed the relief. And all this at a time when the general population have learned something of what it is like to live with severe curbs on civil liberties.

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Business groups brand UK’s quarantine plan for arrivals ‘isolationist’

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All incomers – including British citizens – must disclose where they will be staying, Priti Patel says

Business groups have accused the government of pursuing an “isolationist” policy after the home secretary, Priti Patel, confirmed that arrivals in the UK will have to quarantine themselves for a fortnight or face a £1,000 fine.

From 8 June, almost everyone arriving at ports and airports, including UK citizens, will be required to travel directly to an address they provide to the authorities, where they must then self-isolate for a fortnight. The French interior ministry expressed its “regret” that it would not be exempt from the quarantine plan, after assurances this month that the country would be.

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Priti Patel announces 14-day quarantine for travellers to UK – video

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From 8 June people arriving in the UK will have to tell the authorities where they will be staying and face spot checks to ensure they self-isolate for 14 days, the home secretary, Priti Patel, has confirmed. Anyone failing to comply could face a fine of £1,000


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UK quarantine plan: what will it mean for travellers?

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Major shift in border policy will require people arriving in UK to self-isolate for 14 days

The government has unveiled a major shift in border policy to be introduced next month in a bid to prevent a second wave of Covid-19 in the UK.

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Court rules bar set too high for NHS surcharge and visa fee waivers

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Tribunal says if migrants can prove they cannot pay fees then they should not have to do so

A court ruling has given hope to thousands of migrants, including health and care workers, that they will no longer have to pay visa and NHS surcharge fees if they cannot afford them.

An immigration court found that the Home Office was applying too harsh a test on whether people should be forced to pay.

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Northern Ireland-born British and Irish win EU citizenship rights

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UK government makes change to immigration law after Derry woman’s residency case

All British and Irish citizens born in Northern Ireland will be be treated as EU citizens for immigration purposes, the government has announced after a landmark court case involving a Derry woman over the residency rights of her US-born husband.

The move is a major victory for Emma de Souza ending a three-year battle to be recognised by the Home Office as Irish, a right enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement (GFA).

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Refugee families reunited in UK after rescue flight from Greece

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Vulnerable people from Greek refugee camps reunited with close family at Heathrow

Some 47 highly vulnerable migrants have arrived in the UK on an “unprecedented” family reunion flight from Greece.

British refugees travelled to Heathrow to greet nephews, brothers, husbands and wives after Monday’s flight brought people from Syria, Somalia and Afghanistan to join close family in the UK. The reunion was the result of two months of intense lobbying by the campaign group Safe Passage and the British peer Alf Dubs.

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‘Finally, at last’: vulnerable migrants to leave Greece for UK

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Group including teenagers Walid and Mustafa will be reunited with relatives after grim odyssey

Until last week, Walid and Mustafa had never met. Owing to their disparate backgrounds, they might not have had anything in common, bar their age: both turned 18 this year.

But the fresh-faced, bright-eyed teenagers have been brought together by a common desire to escape danger in their respective homelands – Syria and Somalia – and rebuild lives shattered by war.

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