Month: June 2021

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The woman who escaped slavery in the UK – and fights to free others

Spotlight On: Meet Ana from FDWA-UK- Filipino Domestic Workers Association: UK: she says:

‘This group is a volunteer-run, grassroots organisation of migrant domestic workers already in the UK which aims to support, uphold and campaign for the rights, welfare and dignity of migrant domestic workers. Behind the closed doors of big houses in London, there are domestic servants, slaves in fact- people whose human rights have been taken. The Guardian article below well-explains why the organisation is desperately needed by a particular group of very vulnerable domestic workers.

‘Unfortunately, the hostile environment that is the UK immigration system does not recognise risk where it exists, and many rescued domestic slaves are not accepted as people who at risk of trafficking, or modern slavery. They end up being undocumented in UK, without legitimate access to food, housing or healthcare, and for example, subjected to the ravages of covid. That is why we have joine4d the StatusNow4All campaign. These people need Indefinite Leave to Remain so that they feel they can safely make themselves known to the Home Office without fear of deportation.’

Continue reading “The woman who escaped slavery in the UK – and fights to free others”
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Increasing vulnerability

24 June 2021: Freemovement: High Court strikes down pandemic protections for refused asylum seekers

The High Court has overturned a tribunal judgment that had instructed the Home Office to house refused asylum seekers until lockdown restrictions end. The decision in R (Secretary of State for the Home Department) v First-tier Tribunal (Social Entitlement Chamber) [2021] EWHC 1690 (Admin) is said to affect at least 1,000 people.

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Man ‘stripped of identity’ after family holiday to the UK became 13-year ordeal through immigration system

A child of 13 spends the next `13 years in uncertainty about his status in UK – how can this be OK … it cannot

2021 June 28: Leicester Mercury: Man ‘stripped of identity’ after family holiday to the UK became 13-year ordeal through immigration system

The privileged and happy life he knew back home was ‘taken away from him in a matter of seconds’ […]

“Our intention was always to go back to Pakistan, ” he said. “We had no plans to stay here and claim asylum.

“It was all spontaneous because of the drastic changes that happened in Pakistan.”

His dad made a number of “political commitments” in Pakistan which led to the family receiving threats and meant they could not return.

Read more here: https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/man-stripped-identity-after-family-5561337

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Why do we call for StatusNow4All: In The Spotlight: Coventry Asylum and Refugee Action Group (CARAG)

CARAG is a grassroots organisation made up of asylum seekers, refugees and migrants going through the UK asylum and Immigration system. 

“CARAG signed up for the #StatusNow4All campaign because the Hostile Environment is killing our members. We just want the suffering to end NOW” said CARAG chair Loraine Masiya Mponela.

CARAG and Maokwo (another SNN signatory) made this film for #RefugeeWeek2021: Watch it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PE-rRoMFYpM
Catch up with latests episodes of CARAG podcast #StillWeRise here https://www.carag.co.uk/podcastFollow T, F and Insta: @caragcoventryW:  https://www.carag.co.uk

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FAMILIES who have loved ones living with an insecure immigration status face “extreme and wide-ranging harm,” with children especially affected, according to a new report.

27 May 2021: Compas: Forced worklessness and fatherhood by Candice Morgan-Glendinning & Melanie Griffiths

Research being launched on 8 June: Political and media discourses around immigration tend to make a sharp distinction between desirable and undesirable migrants. Some people are more welcome than others, including on the basis of factors such as income level, savings, education, employment status and area of work. Foreign nationals with low incomes, who are out of work or deemed ‘low skilled’, tend to be portrayed as abusing the system, undercutting British workers and as a burden on the taxpayer.

Less known, are the many ways in which the immigration system itself forces unemployment upon people (whilst simultaneously draining people of savings through the huge sums required for immigration applications and appeals). Many migrants, including people claiming asylum or subject to Deportation Orders, rarely have the right to work or access public funds. The few asylum seekers who do get the right to work are only eligible to work in jobs on the Shortage Occupation List, which are graduate level or above and include civil engineers, archaeologists and chemical scientists. And those who do receive any financial support, only get a fraction of mainstream benefits.

Continue reading “FAMILIES who have loved ones living with an insecure immigration status face “extreme and wide-ranging harm,” with children especially affected, according to a new report.”
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Concerns raised over ‘cramped and stressful’ asylum unit for mothers and babies

Updated 13 June 2021: The Canary: Conditions at a Home Office housing unit deny mums and babies a ‘sense of safety’

An expectant mother staying at a mother and baby unit in Glasgow spoke to The Canary about living conditions there. This mother, who wishes to remain anonymous, has been living in this unit since March 2021. She said it’s “very stressful” living in such cramped conditions where “there is no community”.

Various campaigners in Glasgow, coming together as “the Roof Coalition”, are demanding the Home Office closes this unit that accommodates over 20 women and their babies. The Roof Coalition’s #FreedomToCrawl campaign calls on the public:

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Challenges to Home Office withholding Data

8 June 2021: Open democracy: Judge slams Michael Gove’s office as open Democracy wins transparency court case

Exclusive: UK government accused of ‘profound lack of transparency’ as openDemocracy wins legal victory over ‘Orwellian’ Freedom of Information unit

openDemocracy has won a significant legal victory against the UK government. The judgement forces transparency on a secretive unit accused of ‘blacklisting’ Freedom of Information requests from journalists, campaigners and others.

After a three-year battle, judge Chris Hughes found that the documents the Cabinet Office presented in court about the controversial Clearing House unit were ‘misleading’. He added that there is a “profound lack of transparency about the operation”, which might “extend to ministers”.

Continue reading “Challenges to Home Office withholding Data”
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Cats on the Run

2021 June 9: From our partner organisation RAPAR : Cats on the Run is a participatory project working with undocumented people during quarantine. See the launch event here:

This project was conceived and managed by RAPAR.
Produced by Sheba Arts.
Funded by Lankelly Chase Foundation.

Please take some time to look at the films here: http://www.rapar.co.uk/cats-on-the-run.html

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Releasing resilience and building networks of resilience report

JUNE 2021: This is a piece of collaborative work by three StatusNow4All signatories: Migrant Voice, Kanlungan, and RAPAR. The latest report ‘Releasing resilience and building networks of resilience: learning from the survey, interviews, and evaluation‘ is now available – see details below

Among the survey findings, 80% of respondents were worried about their financial situation during the pandemic, and about being able to afford food and other items that they might need. In addition, half of all respondents said they were unable to afford hand sanitiser, face masks, soap or cleaning products.

The Building Resilience project provided spaces for migrants with limited immigration status and no recourse to public funds to discuss shared experiences throughout the Covid-19 pandemic and form networks of solidarity.

‘Networks of resilience are important and meaningful. And for as long as the UK’s hostile
environment remains in place, individuals from the most marginalised and isolated
communities who make up networks of resilience will be compelled to continue to find ways to release and build resiliences through which they search out pathways to status and better access to basic rights.’

Read the full report here.

There is coverage here:

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/06/12/gay-asylum-seeker-home-office-application-gabon-conversion-therapy-priti-patel/

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/migrant-who-fled-kidnap-gay-20760497

https://inews.co.uk/news/uk/i-fled-conversion-therapy-as-a-gay-man-in-gabon-now-im-living-on-less-than-6-a-day-1043226

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Campaign against the multinational Mitie recruitment of workers in the new women-only detention facility, Hassockfield

Status Now welcomes and supports this campaign :

Dear friends,

Abolish Detention, which is campaigning to prevent the opening of a detention centre in Hassockfield/Medomsley, is asking for support for a campaign against the multinational Mitie which is running adverts to recruit people to run its new women only detention prison near Durham. Mitie was condemned by the prison inspectorate in 2016 which said its immigration detention centres were “dirty”, “rundown” and “insanitary. It is one of  the UK’s biggest detention profiteers: it runs the two Heathrow detention centres and has a £525 million deportation “escorting” contract with an annual turnover of £2.2billion.

Please join the campaign and take action – see below for what you can do – thank you.

Global Women Against Deportations

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Why do we call for StatusNow4All: In the Spotlight: African Global Voices

7 June 2021: Why do we call for StatusNow4All/Indefinite Leave to Remain: African Global Voices

I am NdabaVictor, of African Global Voices,

We at African Global Voices – UK advocate for people who have  been subjected to injustices in the criminal system.

We are a small grassroots not-for-profit hands-on-the-ground organisation of people who have lived experience of being in the asylum system, and we are based in Liverpool. Our members are all over the UK due to the policies of the Home Office’s long-standing hostile environment, which is built on systematic racial prejudice and discriminatory ideology. 

Our members have multiple problems due to their situations, many have no settled status, others had Refugee Leave taken from them, many have been victims of torture and some have significant medical conditions. We offer them Peer Support Mentoring,  and also refer on to agencies that can help them.  In addition we visit refugees and people seeking asylum who are in detention centres and prisons.

Continue reading “Why do we call for StatusNow4All: In the Spotlight: African Global Voices”
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Status Now 4 All salutes the courage of the Napier Barrack residents

StatusNow logo

In response to day’s article in the Guardian: Asylum seekers in Napier barracks ‘face blacklist threat for speaking out’: Residents in the Home Office facility claim they have been told their applications will be ‘impaired’ if they talk to the media

Through our network Status Now knows that people have been threatened with this kind of implicit and explicit bullying and harassment for years: the idea that you will cease to be political as an unwritten condition of claiming asylum is a fundamental violation of our right to be human. Status Now 4 All salutes the courage of the Napier Barrack residents who, like so many others who are rising and organising to end the Hostile Environment and realise their safety and that of their families, demonstrate the truth that it is necessary to create solidarity and confront the bully – whoever they are. ENDS

Read a series of reports here: https://statusnow4all.org/concerns-about-the-use-of-army-barracks/