Expert calls for Home Office to lose powers but councils say they are struggling to cope
The UK’s independent anti-slavery commissioner has called for decision-making on child trafficking cases to be taken away from the Home Office.
Sara Thornton told the Independent that local authorities should take over the powers because they are better placed to provide subsequent support for the child.
Continue reading...When Dr Nazia Hussein spent six months researching class and gender identity in Bangladesh for her PhD at Warwick University in 2009, she had no idea that, a decade later, the Home Office would use this to refuse her application for permanent residency.
Hussein, a Bangladeshi expert on gender, race and religion, now a lecturer at the University of Bristol, was “absolutely shocked” when her application for indefinite leave to remain (ILR) was rejected last year on the grounds that she had spent too many days out of the country during the 10-year application period. This was despite the fact she had submitted clear evidence that her PhD research constituted essential fieldwork and an unavoidable and legitimate absence.
Continue reading...Lawyers say suspected victims of trafficking have not received ‘adequate access to justice’
The Home Office is planning to deport vulnerable asylum seekers and suspected victims of trafficking on a new charter flight on Thursday, the Guardian has learned.
The flight will be going to Switzerland, Germany and Austria under Dublin Convention legislation, EU rules which require asylum seekers to claim asylum in the first safe EU country they arrive in and not move from one to another.
Continue reading...High court judge intervenes to prevent victim of county lines sex exploitation being made street homeless after refusal to find her safe housing
A young and highly vulnerable British sex trafficking victim was re-trafficked by county lines drug gangs on multiple occasions after the Home Office repeatedly refused to fulfil its legal obligation to provide her with safe accommodation.
A high court judge was forced to intervene to compel the Home Office to house the woman, who was about to become street homeless.
Continue reading...Chevon Brown was sent to country where he has no close relatives after committing a driving offence
When Chevon Brown was 21 he was convicted of dangerous driving and spent seven months in prison. He admits he was speeding at over 100 miles an hour in an uninsured car and acknowledges he behaved irresponsibly, but feels the consequences have been wholly disproportionate.
As a result of that conviction he was deported to Jamaica a year ago, a country he left as a teenager and where he has no close relatives. He has been separated from his father and three younger brothers in Oxford, and is struggling to readjust to life without his family.
Continue reading...I am saddened and appalled to hear of the British government’s refusal to allow Shamima Begum the right to return to Britain, the country of her birth. This decision is shameful and politically motivated (Begum loses first stage of fight to be British citizen, 8 February). The home secretary, Priti Patel, declared in advance of the recent Special Immigration Appeals Commission judgment that Shamima would never be allowed back into the UK.
The land where she was born and bred radicalised her and ultimately failed her. Lest we forget, Shamima left the UK when she was 15, after she had been extensively groomed under the noses of the very authorities tasked to protect her.
Continue reading...Up to 50 people are due to be forcibly returned to Jamaica on a flight leaving this week
Dozens of Jamaicans in the UK are mounting last-minute legal challenges to try to halt their deportation on a Home Office charter flight scheduled for Tuesday.
Up to 50 people are due to be put on the flight, which is only the second the Home Office has chartered to Jamaica since the Windrush scandal broke. A group legal action and a flurry of individual legal actions are under way.
Continue reading...Legal action from Rights Watch (UK) comes amid spate of terror attacks in London
The government’s failure to appoint an independent reviewer of its Prevent strategy and assess the controversial de-radicalisation programme’s effectiveness is to be challenged in court.
The decision by Rights Watch (UK) to initiate legal action against the Home Office comes amid terror attacks in London that raise questions about whether young men can be successfully directed away from terrorist violence.
Continue reading...A few weeks ago, an old friend posted something on Facebook that stopped me in my tracks. He’s a GP, married to a teacher he met decades ago at university, with three children. They’re the sort of energetic, adventurous, public-spirited family who pitch in wherever help is needed and make me feel vaguely embarrassed about my own civic shortcomings. I have never known him be anything but laid-back, and although he’s originally Dutch, in theory he should have nothing to fear from Brexit: he has settled status, confirming the right to live and work here with his English wife and family after 31 January, just as before. But now he’s fearful. What if, the next time he needs to renew his passport for a family holiday, the computer says no? How can he be sure his life won’t unravel in some faceless official’s hands?
‘The despair is truly palpable now, and in some cases goes as far as suicidal thoughts'
Continue reading...Despite take-up by 2.7 million, alarm over numbers granted weaker pre-settled status
An estimated 900,000 EU citizens in the UK have yet to apply for settled status, which most will need to remain in the country long-term after Brexit.
The data comes a day after the European parliament raised concerns that EU citizens risked discrimination after Brexit in seeking housing and employment.
Continue reading...Whistleblower granted refugee status after hard-won campaign against deportation
A torture survivor from Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is celebrating after a Home Office U-turn allowed him to stay in the UK.
Otis Bolamu, 39, who lives in Swansea, was detained just before Christmas in 2018. The Home Office had planned to deport him to DRC on Christmas Day that year.
Continue reading...Campaigners criticise decision not to reveal data in algorithm that filters UK visa applications
Campaign groups have criticised the Home Office after it refused to release details of which countries are deemed a “risk” in an algorithm that filters UK visa applications.
Campaigners for immigrants’ rights were sent a fully redacted list of nations in different categories of “risk”, which were entirely blacked out, on a Home Office response to their legal challenge over the artificial intelligence programme.
Continue reading...FoI reveals Home Office details on applications of EU citizens to stay in UK post-Brexit
Nine in 10 appeals brought by EU citizens who have challenged Home Office decisions about their right to stay in the UK post-Brexit have been successful, new data has revealed.
The Public Law Project (PLP), which obtained the figures, said the findings raised “a number of red flags” for EU citizens “seeking to make the UK their home”.
Continue reading...Essex police refuse to confirm statuses of those who respond will not be given to Home Office
Essex police have refused to confirm they will not share data with the Home Office on the immigration status of anyone responding to recent public appeals for information on the deaths of 39 people in a lorry.
The force last week urged those who may have information to come forward “without fear”.
Continue reading...Bumi Thomas, whose sister got citizenship, wins appeal against removal from UK
Two Windrush sisters who describe themselves as inseparable are celebrating after a judge ruled that one of them should not be sent back to Nigeria.
Bumi Thomas, 36, was at risk of removal from the UK and at one point was given 14 days to leave, while her sister Kemi, 38, was not because of their different dates of birth.
Continue reading...UNHCR says children arriving in UK whose age is disputed likely to be denied services
Age disputes are having a “devastating impact” on unaccompanied and separated refugee or asylum seeker children arriving in the UK, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has warned.
Evidence from an assessment conducted by the UNHCR found disputes over a refugee or asylum seeker’s age impeded and delayed access to services and environments that can assist integration.
Continue reading...Attendees at ‘immigration surgeries’ at churches and centres told it won’t involve enforcement
The Home Office is using information gathered in “immigration surgeries” at charities and places of worship to deport vulnerable homeless people who are told that attending will help them get financial support, the Guardian has learned.
Interviews and internal emails revealed the Salvation Army, Sikh gurdwaras and a Chinese community support centre are among the bodies allowing Home Office teams in London to run sessions in spaces that are intended to be safe havens for homeless people.
Continue reading...Increase comes despite clampdown on scheme after Skripal novichok poisoning
The number of wealthy foreigners investing at least £2m in the UK in exchange for a “golden visa” has risen to a five-year high, despite a clampdown on the scheme in the aftermath of the Skripal novichok poisoning attack.
The Home Office granted 255 people tier-1 investor visas in the first half of 2019, allowing them to live and work in the UK for five years. This was the most in a six-month period since 2014, according to the department’s data.
Continue reading...Visa system for researchers is hostile and costly and risks jamming a pipeline of talent, universities warn
After eight years researching music history at Glasgow University, Elizabeth Ford hoped her request for a visa extension would sail through this summer. Instead, the Home Office gave the American academic two weeks to pack up her life and leave the country.
Ford has held a research fellowship at Edinburgh University – which, like Glasgow is in the elite Russell Group – and is due to begin a new research fellowship at Oxford University. But this is in jeopardy after a letter from the Home Office in July, which said that her leave to remain, granted a year before, was erroneous, and that she must leave within two weeks.
Continue reading...A Muslim online lifestyle platform targeting British teenagers is covertly funded by the Home Office’s counter-extremism programme, the Observer has learned.
The revelation about funding of the project has led to a row between its owners, a former Muslim employee and its Muslim audience.
Continue reading...