As the tendering process for £4 billion worth of contracts over ten years gets under way, asylum campaigner John Grayson examines the market for asylum seekers’ housing in the UK. G4S dumps toddler with rare cancer in dirty asylum house with rats in the yard. Can G4S be trusted to be given part of the new
This year six men have died in immigration detention centres — the deadliest year since the IRR began recording deaths in immigration detention. The most recent death occurred, on 19 November, when 27-year-old Arim Bakar, an Iraqi man was found dead at the Prison Service-run Morton Hall, where two others have died this year. Detainees at
‘We are the Lions Mr Manager’ is a small but perfectly formed play which tells the story of the Grunwick strike. A two-hander, it tells a digested version of the Grunwick saga, a major moment in labour history which seems to have faded in the collective memory. The work of the Grunwick 40 campaign over
The IRR’s Sophia Siddiqui reports on a recent demonstration at Yarl’s Wood. The demonstrations outside Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre are a palpable and direct act of solidarity. Standing facing the detention centre, separated by a prison-like metal fence, barbed wire and security cameras, you can see, wave, and interact with the women inside who
A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. Asylum and migration 27 October: Agnes Callamard, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary, and Arbitrary Executions, presents a new report to the UN General Assembly on ‘Unlawful Death of Refugees and Migrants’, download it here. (Der Spiegel, 28
Asylum campaigner John Grayson examines the appalling conditions in privately contracted housing for asylum seekers in south yorkshire. Ann was showing me round her G4S terraced house, on the inner ring road in Doncaster, on a Sunday afternoon in late October. A few days earlier, Ann had been to the local advice ‘drop-in centre’ for
A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. Asylum and migration 20 October: A pregnant asylum seeker living in ‘dangerous housing’ provided by G4S in Doncaster pleads to be moved. (Open Democracy, 20 October 2017) 20 October: The Home Office publishes: Grenfell Tower immigration cases (guidance
Finally, an official report on deaths in police custody which places the experience and perspective of the bereaved families at its heart. In 2015, the IRR published Dying for Justice, the result of an examination of over 500 cases of BAME deaths in custody which had led to only five prosecutions and not a single
A fortnightly resource for anti-racist and social justice campaigns, highlighting key events in the UK and Europe. Asylum and migration 5 October: The Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI) calls for evidence on how the Home Office ensures it acts in the ‘best interests’ of unaccompanied asylum seeking children. (ICIBI press release, 5 October 2017)
In the second of a series, campaigner John Grayson examines the asylum markets for private companies involved in providing services under the Direct Provision (DP) system for asylum seekers in Ireland. Who benefits from the system of direct provision? Who benefits from placing so many obstacles in people’s lives and imposing limits on the potential
