In today’s newsletter: After months of wrangling, Parliament passed the government’s controversial plan to tackle small boats
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Continue reading...Category Archives: Immigration and asylum
UK passes bill to send asylum seekers to Rwanda
Lawyers prepare for legal battles on behalf of individual asylum seekers challenging removal to east Africa
Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda deportation bill will become law after peers eventually backed down on amending it, opening the way for legal battles over the potential removal of dozens of people seeking asylum.
After a marathon battle of “ping pong” over the key legislation between the Commons and the Lords, the bill finally passed when opposition and crossbench peers gave way on Monday night.
Continue reading...Rwanda bill clears parliament after peers abandon final battle over safety amendment – as it happened
Bill could become law this week as end of parliamentary ping-pong in sight
Q: Do you think you will be able to implement this without leaving the European convention of human rights?
Sunak says he thinks he can implement this without leaving the ECHR.
If it ever comes to a choice between our national security, securing our borders, and membership of a foreign court, I’m, of course, always going to prioritise our national security.
Continue reading...Refugee who left UK for holiday in 2008 stranded in east Africa for 16 years
Saleh Ahmed Handule Ali, now 33, had indefinite leave to remain in UK, but Home Office failed to keep a record
A refugee who left the UK on holiday as a teenager in 2008 has been stranded in east Africa for the last 16 years in a case that senior judges have described as “extraordinary”.
Saleh Ahmed Handule Ali, now 33, arrived in the UK at the age of nine in April 2000 with his mother and two younger siblings from Somalia. They came to join Ali’s father, who had been granted refugee status by the UK government. The family were also recognised as refugees by the Home Office and Ali was given a travel document in 2004 under the refugee convention, which was valid for 10 years.
Continue reading...Rwanda bill: what does the latest delay mean?
Flights have been pushed back to summer after the House of Lords spoke out for Afghans and refugees – here’s what to expect over the coming weeks
Rishi Sunak’s plan to fly people seeking asylum to Rwanda this spring appears to have been put back to the summer after House of Lords insisted on changes to the scheme.
On Thursday the prime minister’s spokesperson said the Lords were responsible for any delay after attaching unwanted amendments to the deportation bill.
Continue reading...Rwanda bill further delayed after Lords again votes for changes
Legislation to go back to Commons after peers stand up for rights of Afghans and scrutiny of refugees’ treatment
The parliamentary battle over Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda deportation bill will spill into next week after the Lords refused to budge over the rights of Afghans and scrutiny of the treatment of refugees in east Africa.
The move prompted an immediate backlash from the home secretary, James Cleverly, who blamed Labour for blocking the bill and being “terrified” that the Rwanda plan would stop asylum seekers from travelling to the UK in small boats.
Continue reading...Further delay to Rwanda bill’s passage as Lords vote through amendments – as it happened
Move follows vote in Commons where MPs voted down four amendments inserted by Lords yesterday
Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.
PMQs is starting soon.
Continue reading...Sunak considering exemptions to Rwanda bill for some Afghans
Lords also press ministers to allow independent Rwanda monitoring as deportation bill returns to Commons
Rishi Sunak’s government is considering concessions on the Rwanda deportation bill to allow exemptions for Afghans who served alongside UK forces, parliamentary sources say.
Ministers are also being pressed to give ground to an amendment to the legislation so that the east African country could be ruled unsafe by a monitoring committee.
Continue reading...Rwanda bill delayed for at least a day after Lords pass amendments
Legislation to return to the Commons with changes that would ensure conformity with UK and other law and protect claimants
The Rwanda deportation bill has been delayed for at least one more day after the House of Lords voted for amendments that would ensure that it adheres to international and key domestic laws.
The plan to spend £541m to send 300 people seeking asylum to east Africa was sent back to the House of Commons after peers voted several times to add protections for claimants to the bill.
Continue reading...MPs vote to give smoking ban bill second reading – as it happened
Rishi Sunak’s authority suffers blow as several Conservatives vote against bill, which clears first Commons hurdle with 383 votes to 67
At 12.30pm a transport minister will respond to an urgent question in the Commons tabled by Labour on job losses in the rail industry. That means the debate on the smoking ban will will not start until about 1.15pm.
Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, is one of the Britons speaking at the National Conservatism conference in Brussels starting today. The conference, which features hardline rightwingers from around the world committed to the NatCons’ ‘faith, flag and family’ brand of conservatism, is going ahead despite two venues refusing to host them at relatively short notice.
The current UK government doesn’t have the political will to take on the ECHR and hasn’t laid the ground work for doing so.
And so it’s no surprise that recent noises in this direction are easily dismissed as inauthentic.
Any attempt to include a plan for ECHR withdrawal in a losing Conservative election manifesto risks setting the cause back a generation.
Continue reading...Sunak says ‘all sides should show restraint’ after Iranian attack on Israel – as it happened
British PM says he will speak to Netanyahu to express solidarity and discuss how further escalation can be avoided
UK general election opinion poll tracker: Labour leading as election looms
David Cameron ruled out trying to become PM again in an interview this morning. (See 9.30am.) But Liz Truss has not done so. In an interview with LBC’s Iain Dale, being broadcast tonight, she did not entirely dismiss the possibility. This is from LBC’s Henry Riley.
Truss is giving interviews to publicise her memoir which is out this week. According to extracts sent out in advance, she also confirmed in her LBC interview that she wanted to see Donald Trump win the US presidential election. She said:
I don’t think [Joe] Biden has been particularly supportive to the United Kingdom. I think he’s often on the side of the EU. And I certainly think I would like to see a new president in the White House …
The thing I would say about Donald Trump is, because I served as secretary of state under both Trump and Biden, and Trump’s policies were actually very effective. If you look at his economic policies, and I met his regulatory czar, I travelled around the United States looking at what he’d done. He cut regulation, he cut taxes, he liberated the US energy supply. And this is why the US has had significantly higher economic growth than Britain.
Continue reading...Delays by Home Office risk return of vulnerable Afghan families to Taliban
Families of those who helped British forces could be deported from Pakistan despite promise to resettle them in UK
Afghan families who helped UK forces and then fled to neighbouring Pakistan are in danger of being deported back to the Taliban due to Home Office delays in bringing them to the UK.
In the chaotic evacuation period in the Afghan capital, Kabul, in August 2021 some family members eligible for resettlement in the UK became separated from the rest of their families. Some boarded flights while others were unable to due to crushes at the airport and instead fled over the border to Pakistan.
Continue reading...Number of asylum seekers left homeless after Home Office eviction soars
Exclusive: Data reveals 239% rise among those evicted from assigned accommodation, including hotels, in two years
There has been a 239% increase in homelessness among asylum seekers evicted from Home Office accommodation including hotels in two years, according to a report.
Data analysed by the Refugee Council found that 12,630 households in England faced homelessness after eviction from asylum accommodation in the two years to the end of September 2023.
Continue reading...Sunak welcomes Kagame to No 10 as Rwanda scheme hits fresh snags
Meeting to discuss PM’s key policy overshadowed by reports of lack of housing for deportees or airline to remove them from UK
Rishi Sunak has welcomed the Rwandan president to Downing Street amid signs that ministers are struggling to find an airline or housing in Kigali to carry out their flagship deportation plan.
The meeting on Tuesday was overshadowed by the former home secretary Suella Braverman’s criticism of fallen expectations over the policy, which aims to forcibly send people seeking asylum 4,000 miles to central Africa.
Continue reading...Albanians willing to be repatriated detained for weeks in UK, watchdog finds
HM chief inspector of prisons says detainees held unnecessarily despite volunteering for fast-track deportation
Albanians volunteering to be repatriated under a fast-track deportation deal are being detained unnecessarily for several weeks at taxpayers’ expense, the prisons watchdog has found.
HM chief inspector of prisons also found that staff did not know about the vulnerabilities of detainees held in deportation centres before being removed to Tirana, and some were not being given privacy while using the lavatory.
Continue reading...Elite cyclist to lead London race while living in asylum hotel
Trhas Tesfay, who fled war in Ethiopia, says she suffers hunger headaches as she cannot eat Home Office hotel meals
One of Ethiopia’s elite female cyclists will be pedalling at the front of one of London’s biggest bike races next month while living in an asylum seeker hotel on less than £10 a week.
Trhas Teklehaimanot Tesfay, 22, rode a bicycle for the first time when she was 13 years old. She has achieved success in a range of competitions such as the African Continental Championships and the national championships of Ethiopia.
Continue reading...Rishi Sunak insists he did not keep green card to move back to US
Prime minister says he held on to his US residency until 2021 only because he had not got around to revoking it
Rishi Sunak has insisted he does not want to move to the US and that he kept his green card for years only because returning it was “not something I got round to”.
The prime minister said he had “acted in accordance with all the rules” when in possession of a US green card, which he gave up only in 2021, while he was chancellor.
Continue reading...Call for Ukraine-style visa scheme for Palestinians in Gaza with family in UK
Charities and law firms sign letter to home secretary saying existing immigration routes are not working
A letter signed by almost 60 charities, law firms and organisations will be sent to the home secretary calling for the creation of a Ukraine-style visa scheme for Palestinians trapped in Gaza who have family in the UK.
The letter, signed by the Refugee Council, Care4Calais and the Helen Bamber Foundation, says “existing immigration routes are insufficient and not working” and describes how a Gaza family scheme would “enable Palestinians in Gaza to reunite with their immediate and extended family members in the UK”.
Continue reading...Windrush victim says Home Office ‘waiting for us to die off’ before paying compensation
Five years after payment scheme launched, a former soldier says delays mean plan should be run independently
A former soldier who was a victim of the Windrush scandal has said he fears the government is “waiting for us to die off” before it pays compensation.
Conroy Downie, 67, and his daughter Katie Wilson-Downie have helped advise thousands of people affected by the Windrush scandal and have called for the compensation scheme to be run independently instead of by the Home Office.
Continue reading...Labour has 99% chance of forming next government, says elections expert – UK politics live
Prof Sir John Curtice, the psephologist and lead election analyst for the BBC, said the chances of a Tory revival were small
In the House of Lords peers have just started debating the second reading of the leasehold and freehold reform bill. The bill has already passed through the Commons.
Normally, at this stage of the process, the content of a government bill is all but finalised. But, as No 10 admitted on Monday, the government has still not decided how far it will go in terms of cutting ground rents for existing leaseholders.
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