The Children’s Society has recently published a report on levels of destitution and poverty among asylum-seeking and migrant youth. An alarming rise in the number of destitute children seeking support through children’s centres in the UK has prompted research on the abhorrent conditions faced by young asylum-seekers and migrants. The report, ‘I don’t feel human’:
Whitening community cohesion?
A controversial report from a cohesion think-tank suggests it is time the white working class was given a hearing. From Roger Hewitt’s justification of the racism of white youths in the 1990s as territorial struggle, to a study of London’s East End a few years ago describing hostility towards Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) communities
Platform for prejudice
A recent TV programme on the English Defence League (EDL), created around an extremely problematic and dangerous framework, has won new recruits to the EDL. The EDL is boasting about its new recruits since Channel 4 aired Proud and Prejudiced on Monday 27 February, a documentary based on the shadowing for one year of Luton-based
A lost opportunity for survival: the death of Reece Staples
A solicitor at Harrison Bundey in Leeds explains how, had police officers taken a young black man, who had swallowed packets of drugs, straight to hospital, he might still be alive. On 20 February 2012, an inquest jury returned a verdict of misadventure on Reece Staples, who was 19 when he died in police custody
Community wrecker of the year award
Tony Ball, leader of Basildon council, was nominated for two very different awards for his role in the eviction of Travellers from Dale Farm. The eviction of hundreds of the Dale Farm Travellers last October was a mass, state-sanctioned programme of enforced homelessness. More than eighty families were forced from a piece of land which
Secret justice = injustice
Frances Webber assesses proposals in the coalition’s Justice and Security green paper to extend secret evidence regimes to any civil proceedings. ‘I can still recall my deep feeling of shame when I heard the appellant ask the judge the question: why are you sending me to prison? To which the judge replied: I cannot tell
Response to G4S: 900 asylum seekers face eviction in Yorkshire
Academics take issue with G4S’ defence of its treatment of asylum seekers. Two weeks ago on IRR News, we published a letter from Yorshire academics protesting that a contract for housing asylum seekers had been awarded to G4S. The company responded to its critics (pdf file, 1.1mb). And in reponse to this, the group have
New helpline for undocumented migrants
The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) has announced the launch of an advice line for undocumented migrants in London. The free advice line is aimed at irregular migrants, which includes migrants who have overstayed their visas, those whose asylum applications have been refused and those cases where refugee status has been revoked.[1]
Racism and the use of force during deportations
The parliamentary Home Affairs Committee has recently published a report on rules governing enforced removal from the UK. Concerns surrounding the treatment of people being removed by the UK Border Agency (UKBA) [and its contractors] have been growing in light of recent events. In particular, the death of Jimmy Mubenga in October 2010 during a
No Borders activists arrested after west London blockade
Eleven No Borders activists have been charged with public order offences following an action to stop a charter flight to Ghana earlier this week. On Valentines’ evening a group of over forty No Borders activists carried out a blockade of Colnbrook and Harmondsworth detention centres in west London. The aim of the action was an