Category Archives: Immigration and asylum

Professor hits out at Home Office after 100 border stops in 7 years

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David Baker says attempts to get explanation about airport questioning have failed

A university professor has hit out at the Home Office after being stopped around 100 times in seven years at airports despite having no criminal record.

Professor David Baker, a specialist in neuro-immunology at London’s Queen Mary University, who has carried out pioneering work into treatments for conditions like multiple sclerosis, travels frequently for his work was once stopped three times in a single week by Border Force officials at airports.

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Home Office fees are trapping asylum seekers | Letters

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The government is making a huge profit out of people seeking a place of safety, writes Barbara Forbes

Your article about the iniquitous and exorbitant fees charged by the Home Office for renewal of leave to remain gives a clear account of the situation (Report, 31 July, theguardian.com). I am, however, disappointed that you did not mention that many people who have applied for asylum are also caught up in this, having had their asylum claim rejected and been granted discretionary leave to remain instead. So after suffering hardship, persecution and possibly torture in their own countries, having made the difficult decision to leave their homeland, and having struggled for years through the UK asylum system with the humiliations and frustrations that entails, they too are now caught in the DLR trap. As you mention, the fees are calculated per person, including for even the tiniest children. The government is making a huge profit out of people who have come to this country seeking a place of safety. Guardian readers might wish to join asylum and refugee support groups up and down the country who are campaigning on this issue.
Barbara Forbes
Birmingham

• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com

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Windrush scandal continues as Chagos Islanders are pressed to ‘go back’

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British passport holders say they are routinely pressed by council officers to leave the UK

British passport holders from the Chagos Islands are being systematically targeted in a “shameful” attempt to have them removed from the UK, the Observer can reveal.

The revelations expose a fresh dimension of the UK’s hostile environment, showing that the strategy also persecutes passport-holding British citizens of colour.

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African lives are measured in fighting UK visa rejections | Nesrine Malik

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The Home Office’s hostile handling of visiting African professionals doesn’t bode well for Global Britain

An African passport is the most egalitarian of documents, in that if you have one then class, employment status and professional invitations from the country you are visiting all count for nothing. From university professors to unskilled labourers, anyone holding a passport issued by a country in Africa will be treated the same by UK border officers. They will also show no compassion for or recognition of the need for people to be reunited with family or to see friends.

In fact it’s not too far-fetched to say an African passport is a no-travel document. Even countries within Africa are miserly with each other. I am a veteran visa applicant, and I can tell you there is no respite. A European visa is as prohibitively hard to secure as one to a neighbouring African country. My Sudanese passport meant that I had to become an Olympian visa-applier in order to visit, study and settle in the UK. You can’t slouch with a passport from a country on a terror watchlist.

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The Syrian refugees changing the UK’s food scene

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Mohamad Rahimeh found a talent for cooking in the Calais refugee camp. Now he has a viable business in London

When Mohamad Rahimeh arrived in the Calais refugee camp that was nicknamed “the Jungle”, cooking was the last thing on his mind. He was a political scientist from Syria with a journey from hell behind him. Food was just a means to an end.

But when a close friend fell sick, he rustled up a meal of eggs. A hidden talent was uncovered.

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Johnson pledges to make all immigrants learn English

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Tory leadership contender says English is not first language in ‘too many parts of our country’

Boris Johnson has said there are “too many parts of our country” where English is not spoken as a first language and that he would require all immigrants to Britain to learn English.

At a hustings event for the Conservative leadership race in Darlington on Friday, the former mayor of London praised the capital’s diversity but suggested some communities were not doing enough to integrate into society.

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Home Office to rewrite controversial advice on trafficked Nigerian women

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Claim that victims could return to Africa ‘wealthy and held in high regard’ sparked outrage

The Home Office is to rewrite guidance on handling asylum claims for women trafficked into the UK from Nigeria after it emerged the advice claimed victims could return to the African country “wealthy from prostitution” and “held in high regard”.

The comments were found in an official policy and information note on the trafficking of women from Nigeria, which is used by Home Office decision-makers dealing with protection and human rights claims.

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Summer Rolls review – fascinating tale of Vietnamese family in Essex

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Park theatre, London
A mother’s fierce love lies at the heart of Tuyen Do’s nuanced portrait of a family forging a new life in the UK

A light Vietnamese dish served at a family’s restaurant? Or a sneaky spliff rolled by their unruly daughter? Double meanings lie at the heart of the intriguing Summer Rolls by Tuyen Do. It’s an intimate domestic drama, sketched with compassion and steely honesty, about a family who have left war-torn Vietnam and are struggling to forge a shared future in the safety (or is that boredom?) of Essex.

The shifting dynamics – as slippery as the language that young Mai’s parents struggle to adopt – are fascinating to observe. At the centre of the home (coolly lit by Jessica Hung Han Yun) is the mother, otherwise unnamed and played with a brittle ferocity by Linh-Dan Pham. She is the family’s fulcrum: the one who sets the tone (tense), who holds together the family sewing business (fragile), who later runs the restaurant (success!) and who still, when desperately ill, commands the family with a blazing love that is both frightening and comforting.

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A refugee’s story

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There are no mass graves in Britain, but there are other ways people can vanish.

By Jonathan Wittenberg

I looked online and immediately found the title of Jean Paul’s book (Jean Paul is not his real name). It was exactly as the judge who eventually granted him asylum had noted: anyone who wanted to check Jean Paul’s political record in his native country had only to Google his name. The book is a study of democracy and its failings in Africa. Jean Paul has also published scholarly papers on the nature of language.

I met Jean Paul for the first time at the British Library, an institution devoted to the preservation of words, voices, testimony and knowledge. He told me about his experiences of flight and refuge, focusing on what he saw and heard while held in indefinite detention here in the UK. “You’ve no voice when you’re inside there,” he said.

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UK accused of profiteering on Syrians’ child citizenship fees

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Research shows government could make more than £5m by charging vulnerable children

The UK government could profit by more than £5m by charging children who have fled war-torn Syria to apply for British citizenship, according to research.

The revelation, based on the Home Office’s own data, has sparked accusations that the government is profiteering from vulnerable children and making a windfall profit by driving vulnerable families into debt.

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Cold, alone and scared: teenage refugee tells of Channel crossing

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A teenager from Afghanistan who survived the ‘dark, cold and dangerous’ journey talks about her ordeal – and hopes for the future

Most people were still asleep on Christmas Day when Ameena landed in England. She remembers stumbling onto the Kent beach in total darkness, retching with sea sickness.

“When I arrived I was vomiting everywhere,” the teenager told the Observer during the first media interview with an unaccompanied child refugee who has entered the UK by boat.

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Refugee jailed for smuggling injured niece into UK reunited with family

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Home Office releases Najat Ibrahim Ismail, an Iraqi Kurd who faced deportation three times

A man who brought his baby niece to the UK from a French refugee camp after she sustained serious burns has been released from detention and reunited with his family.

Najat Ibrahim Ismail, 32, an Iraqi Kurd, faced three attempts by the Home Office to put him on a plane to Iraq in recent weeks. He is married to a British woman, Emma Ismail, and has three young British children, including a 10-year-old son who has autism.

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English test students may have been wrongly accused, says watchdog

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Home Office ‘did not have the expertise’ to check data used to accuse students of cheating

A government watchdog has criticised the Home Office for failing to protect students wrongly accused of cheating in an English language test that they were required to sit as part of a visa application process.

About 2,500 students have been forcibly removed from the UK after being accused of cheating in the exam and a further 7,200 left the country after being warned that they faced detention and removal if they stayed. Many have protested their innocence; 12,500 appeals have been heard in UK courts, and so far 3,600 people have won their appeals.

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Pakistani campaigner says he could be killed if UK deports him

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Azeem Wazir left Pakistan in 2015 over involvement in protest against blasphemy laws

A Christian man who has been living in Bristol for four years says he is at risk of being killed if he is deported to Pakistan after protesting against the country’s draconian blasphemy laws.

Azeem Wazir is being held in Colnbrook immigration removal centre near London, and may be deported as soon as Friday following his arrest last week.

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More than 600,000 EU citizens apply for UK settled status

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Home Office figures revealed as immigration inspector calls for scheme to be improved

More than 600,000 EU citizens have already applied to stay in the UK post-Brexit, Home Office figures reveal.

But the settled status scheme for EU citizens seeking to remain has room for improvement, the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration (ICIBI) in the UK has said.

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Britons most positive in Europe on benefits of immigration

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Findings contradict assumption UK is more hostile than European neighbours

British people are more persuaded of the benefits of immigration than any other major European nation, according to a global survey, which has also found that almost half of Britons think immigrants are either positive or neutral for the country.

The YouGov–Cambridge Globalism survey found that 28% of Britons believed the benefits of immigration outweighed the costs, compared with 24% in Germany, 21% in France and 19% in Denmark. A further 20% of British people believed the costs and benefits were about equal, while 16% were not sure.

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There is no mass public revolt against globalisation | Joel Rogers de Waal

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Survey of 23 countries has found surprisingly moderate attitudes on subjects such as immigration

Ever since the financial crisis swept through dozens of countries a decade ago, “globalisation” has become a dirty word – a creed of amoral liberalism under siege from the forces of populist public opinion.

So it might come as a surprise that a new survey of opinions in 23 of the world’s biggest countries uncovers a much more nuanced attitude towards the economic and social phenomenon that has shaped the world over the past 30 years.

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Home Office investigated over English test cheating claims

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National Audit Office acts as MPs warn scandal could be ‘bigger than Windrush’

A government watchdog has launched an investigation into the Home Office’s decision to accuse about 34,000 international students of cheating in English language tests, and will scrutinise the thinking behind the subsequent cancellation or curtailment of their visas.

More than 1,000 students have been removed from the UK as a result of the accusation and hundreds have spent time in detention, but large numbers of students say they were wrongly accused. Over 300 cases are pending in the court of appeal as hundreds attempt to clear their names. MPs have warned that this immigration scandal could be “bigger than Windrush”.

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UK-born baby of parents with right to remain given six-month tourist stamp

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Father Charles Kriel and mother Katharina Viken were returning to UK from holiday in Florida

A baby born in the UK to two parents who have indefinite leave to remain in Britain has been denied the right to live in the country in what a human rights lawyer has described as a potentially unlawful move.

Dr Charles Kriel, a US national and special adviser to a parliamentary select committee, said he was returning to the UK from a holiday in Florida with his fiancee, Katharina Viken, and their baby daughter was denied entry. The child was eventually given a six-month tourist stamp to enter the country.

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Bureaucratic glitch: UK suspends visa enrolment for American citizens

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Americans applying for work, study or settlement visas have been turned away because of a ‘technical issue’, Home Office says

Biometric enrolment for American citizens seeking to move to the UK has been suspended for more than two weeks because the British government missed a payment to the Department of Homeland Security, according to sources familiar with the bureaucratic glitch.

Americans applying for work, study or settlement visas have been turned away from application support centres in the US which take the necessary fingerprints and photographs because of the suspension in service. Foreign nationals applying from the US were also affected.

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