Domestic violence victims will be forced to stay with violent partners, lawyers say. As from 21 April, people who came to Britain to join British or settled migrant partners and seek settlement with them after the two-year probationary period, or have been forced to leave them through domestic violence, must have a clean criminal record
Theme: Education
Captive phone market at Tinsley House
Detainees at Tinsley House, near Gatwick, are having their mobile phones confiscated on arrival, and are being forced to rely on a network which allows monitoring – and costs them more for essential calls. Immigration detainees are highly dependent on their mobile phones for contact with the outside world, including their legal representatives, family members
Residence rights removal overturned
The Court of Appeal has upheld the right of a Tunisian refugee to appeal in the UK against cancellation of his residence rights. We have become used to dodgy manoeuvres on the part of the Home Office and the UK Border Agency (UKBA) in their war on asylum seekers, terror suspects and other ‘undesirables’. Campaigns
Does Barnardo’s legitimise child detention?
The children’s charity’s decision to work with the UK Border Agency (UKBA) in its planned short-term family detention facility has caused alarm among campaigners. On 9 March, Barnardo’s announced that it had agreed with the UKBA to provide staff at the proposed new immigration holding centre for up to nine families at Pease Pottage, Crawley
The secret world of immigration bail hearings uncovered
A new report by the Campaign to Close Campsfield on immigration bail hearings is a thorough piece of research but makes for very depressing reading. The report, Immigration bail hearings: a travesty of justice? Observations from the public gallery, was written and researched by the Bail Observation project of the Campaign to Close Campsfield, a
Torture survivors let down
An audit of UK Border Agency (UKBA) officials’ responses to medical reports concerning vulnerable detainees, including torture survivors, demonstrates a frightening lack of care. The UKBA report, Detention Centre Rule 35 Audit, ‘seeks’, in its own words, ‘to address the perception among some NGOs that the UK Border Agency fails to comply with … policy
No Borders oppose new deportation centre
No Borders London and Brighton have begun campaigning against the Home Office’s proposed ‘pre-departure accommodation’ centre for families and children in Pease Pottage, Sussex. The campaign is calling on ‘anyone concerned with the ongoing detention of children’ to contact the Mid Sussex District Central Area Planning Committee and/or all fifty-four Mid Sussex district councillors to
Call for inquiry into deaths of Russian asylum seekers
The Glasgow-based Positive Action in Housing (PAIH) is asking people to sign a petition calling for a fatal accident inquiry (FAI) into the apparent suicides of three Russian asylum seekers in March 2010. A year after the deaths, the group has also formally written to the Lord Advocate (in Scotland), for a second time, requesting
Dirty dealing with Qaddafi
We should not forget, argues a leading human rights lawyer, how ready the UK was to use Qaddafi’s offices when it came to keeping African migrants and asylum seekers from reaching our shores. When we listen to our leaders’ vigorous condemnations of the human rights abuses and lack of democracy of Qaddafi’s and other authoritarian
Young People Seeking Safety Week to be held across the UK
Young People Seeking Safety (YPSS) is organising a week long nationwide event for the purpose of raising awareness about the hardships met by unaccompanied young people seeking asylum in the UK. YPSS Week will take place between 28 March and 3 April 2011 where community groups will host events and exhibit music, film, and photography