Category Archives: Home Office

Deadly experiment? UK asylum sites criticised for ‘horrific’ level of despair

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Critics of the government’s mass housing plan say it won’t save public money and at worst put asylum seekers at risk of suicide

Twice in January, ambulances rushed to the former RAF airbase at Wethersfield in a remote part of Essex, now the Home Office’s biggest mass asylum accommodation site, to attend to suicide attempts. On each occasion, an asylum seeker was admitted to hospital. Both survived.

Acts of self-harm have been common since part of the 325-hectare (800-acre) site, which first opened in 1944, started to be used to house refugees in July 2023.

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Three female MPs given bodyguards after concerns over safety

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Politicians from Conservative and Labour parties get close protection and chauffeur-driven vehicles

Three female MPs have been given bodyguards and chauffeur-driven cars after concerns about their safety, it was reported. Representatives of the Conservative and Labour parties had their security upgraded after a risk assessment, according to the Sunday Times.

The MPs, who have not been named, have been given close protection by private companies and chauffeur-driven vehicles. “Many MPs are petrified by the abuse they are facing,” a senior security source told the newspaper.

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Home Office accused of cover-up over ‘golden visas’ for super-rich Russians

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Government refused to publish review of system that allowed Russians now sanctioned due to Ukraine war to live in Britain

The government has been accused of a cover-up for refusing to publish a review of the so-called golden visa scheme that allowed wealthy investors, including at least 10 sanctioned Russian oligarchs, to take up residency in the UK.

The Tier 1 visa scheme, whereby super-rich individuals could buy the right to live in the UK by investing in British-registered companies, was closed in February 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, amid concerns that the system was being abused.

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Prosecutors target smuggled people who were forced to pilot small boats

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Campaigners say Ibrahima Bah should be treated as a victim of trafficking after he was forced to steer a boat. Instead he faces at least six years in jail

Ibrahima Bah will spend at least the next six years and three months in custody. He will do so for manslaughter, and for smuggling dozens of people into the UK on a perilous small-boat journey across the Channel during which at least four died.

In the words of the migration minister Michael Tomlinson, it was “right that he has been brought to justice” because Bah “put dozens of lives in extreme danger by taking charge of a perilous and illegal small boat crossing”.

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English test scandal: students wrongly accused of cheating launch legal action

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Overseas students seek compensation from Home Office for unlawful detention and loss of earnings after it cancelled visas

A group of overseas students who were wrongly accused of cheating in the English language tests they were required to take to renew their study visas have launched legal proceedings against the Home Office, seeking compensation for unlawful detention and loss of earnings.

The government has made payments in at least two cases, but lawyers have expressed frustration at the department’s refusal to agree a standard settlement scheme for wrongly accused students, which they believe would speed up the process of securing justice.

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‘I felt like a criminal’: the ruinous effect of the Home Office’s cheating claims

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Sajjad Sohag seeks compensation for false accusation that led to imprisonment and loss of earnings

The morning after Sajjad Sohag returned from his honeymoon, he and his wife were woken by the sound of immigration enforcement officers breaking down the front door of the building in London where they were renting a studio flat.

It was about 6.30am, and he was still half-asleep when officers used a battering ram to force open the door of his first-floor flat. They checked a piece of paper with his photograph on it and said “target identified” when they confirmed it was him. An officer told him he was being detained because he had cheated in an English exam.

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Family of man found dead on Bibby Stockholm calls for independent inquiry

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‘Closed quasi-detention conditions’ mean death of Leonard Farruku should be examined, lawyers say

The family of Leonard Farruku is calling for an independent inquiry into his death on the Bibby Stockholm barge, the Guardian has learned.

The Albanian asylum seeker, 27, was found dead on the barge, moored in Portland, Dorset, on 12 December last year, after a suspected suicide.

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UK home secretary apologises over unlawful detention of Bahraini activist

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Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei receives compensation from government after being stopped at Gatwick

The home secretary, James Cleverly, has apologised and arranged for compensation to be paid to a human rights activist after officials unlawfully detained him at Gatwick airport on his return to the UK from a UN meeting in Switzerland.

Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, a prominent Bahraini human rights activist and advocacy director of the London-based NGO Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, is a torture survivor who was granted asylum in the UK in 2012 after he fled persecution at the hands of Bahraini authorities.

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Italian man removed from UK despite post-Brexit Home Office certificate

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Massimiliano Melargo, who was stopped at airport, has permission to enter and leave UK while awaiting settlement decision

An Italian man has been removed from the UK despite holding a Home Office certificate explicitly stating he has a right to travel in and out of the country while officials process his application to live and work in the country post-Brexit.

Massimiliano Melargo, 27, told how he was detained overnight, separated from his Ukrainian partner, and put on the first plane to Venice by Border Force officials in a step lawyers say contravenes the withdrawal agreement between the EU and the UK.

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Council of Europe calls on UK not to process asylum claims in Rwanda

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People may be exposed to abuses such as torture and degrading treatment in Rwanda, says watchdog

Europe’s leading anti-torture watchdog has called on the government to process asylum claims in the UK rather than sending people to Rwanda because of the risk they may be exposed to human rights abuses there.

In a report published on Thursday, the Council of Europe’s committee for the prevention of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment raises a litany of concerns after an 11-day visit to the UK in March and April last year.

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Masked protesters could soon face arrest, says Home Office

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Rights groups say proposed police powers for England and Wales are pandering to ‘culture war nonsense’

Protesters who wear masks could face arrest, up to a month in jail and a £1,000 fine under proposed measures that human rights campaigners claim are pandering to “culture war nonsense”.

Police in England and Wales will be given the power to arrest people if they are wearing face coverings at specific demonstrations, the Home Office has said.

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Asylum seekers evacuated from hotel near Heathrow after power failure

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More than 500 people forced to leave site, with some unsure of where to spend the night

There were chaotic scenes on Sunday night as the Home Office carried out a mass evacuation of one of the largest hotels used to accommodate asylum seekers after a failure of the power and water supply.

The hotel near Heathrow airport accommodates more than 500 asylum seekers – a mix of single adults, families, children and babies. The Guardian was sent video footage of adults and children walking around the darkened reception area asking what was happening.

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Dublin not expecting EU objections to new trade rules for Northern Ireland – UK politics live

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Irish foreign minister says he does ‘not anticipate any particular difficulties in respect of the EU side’

Back at the home affairs committee James Daly (Con) asks why so few police investigations end up in people being charged.

James Cleverly, the home secretary, says the Crown Prosecution Service is independent. He wants to make sure investigations are as professional as possible.

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More than 30,000 UK asylum seekers on bail under Rwanda deportation threat

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Home Office reveals 33,085 will not have claims examined while government tries to remove them

More than 30,000 asylum seekers are on bail and under the threat of deportation from the UK to Rwanda, the Home Office has disclosed, as James Cleverly insisted that the total backlog of 94,000 cases should instead be referred to as a queue.

A senior official has admitted for the first time that 33,085 people who arrived in the UK by irregular means such as small boats will not have their asylum claims examined while the government attempts to remove them from the UK.

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British police and security services to help protect Paris Olympics

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France and UK also agree to deploy more drones and sea barriers to stop small boats crossing Channel

UK security experts will help France to protect the Paris Olympics in a sign of closer cooperation, the Home Office has said.

Both governments also plan to deploy more drones and sea barriers to prevent small boats carrying asylum seekers from crossing the Channel.

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Indonesian fruit picker landed in debt bondage challenges Home Office

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Exclusive: Test case likely against UK’s seasonal worker scheme as charity alleges breach of right to be protected from labour exploitation

When Ismael found himself sleeping rough at York station in the late October cold he struggled to understand how an opportunity to pick berries 7,000 miles from his home had so quickly ended there.

He had left Indonesia less than four months earlier, in July 2022. He was 18 and ready for six months of hard work on a British farm to save for a science degree. “I thought the UK was the best place to work because I could save up a little money and help my parents,” he said.

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Home Office U-turns on policy to restrict help for trafficking victims

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Rights groups hail change to Braverman policy that denied support to people with criminal convictions

The Home Office has performed a U-turn on a policy to deprive some modern slavery victims of protection from traffickers.

Human rights campaigners and lawyers representing trafficking victims have welcomed the government’s change of heart, which they say reinstates vital protections to vulnerable people.

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Border Force hires private vessels for Channel patrols after new fleet delayed

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Contracts, which will cost £36m a year, tendered following news that existing boats will be replaced four years later than planned

The Home Office has had to procure private boats at the cost of £36m a year to help Border Force patrol the Channel for small boats, owing to a delay in plans to replace the current fleet.

Replacing the fleet of five cutters and six coastal patrol vessels, some of which are 20 years old, will now not begin until March 2026, four years later than planned.

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Home Office hires hangar for staff to practise Rwanda deportations

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Officials will be taught how to carry out deportations, including how to handle people who physically resist

The Home Office has hired an aircraft hangar and aeroplane body to train security staff on how to deport people, as the UK government increases the number of people it forcibly removes each year.

Officials confirmed on Friday the department had increased its capacity to train officials to carry out deportations, including how to handle people who physically resist. Details of the expansion of the programme were first reported by the Times.

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Home Office U-turns on rights of EU citizens who were in UK pre-Brexit

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‘Lack of awareness’ of EU settled status scheme restored as reasonable grounds for late applications by permanent residence card holders

The Home Office has made a significant U-turn on the rights of EU citizens who were in the UK before Brexit.

It is going to reverse a rule it made in August that barred those who mistakenly applied for permanent residency cards after the referendum to make a late application for EU settled status if they were unaware of the specially created immigration scheme.

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