October 2023 - Status Now 4 All

October 24, 2023December 1, 2023

Friends of StatusNow in-person meeting 12 October 2023

FRIENDS OF STATUS IN-PERSON MEETING TO PROMOTE ITS ‘LEARNING TO WORK TOGETHER’ ACTIVITIES

This event took place on Thursday 12^th October, from 12:00 until 3:00pm. The report by Loraine Masiya Mponela follows:

A group of migrants and asylum seekers with precarious immigration status met in Birmingham to discuss a campaign strategy in the run up to elections.

The meeting was hosted by Birmingham Asylum and Refugee Association (BARA) which is a signatory organisation for the campaign.

“We are resilient, we are strong. We can build a new life here. Let us work together to achieve this” said the chairperson for BARA Faith Ngcobo.

October 18, 2023November 8, 2023

State of the Nation : claiming asylum

18 October 2023: The British Red Cross

The British Red Cross’ State of the Nation report on the UK asylum system brings together the latest data on the asylum and modern slavery systems.

It covers who is claiming asylum in the UK, how they are arriving, how they are being supported while they wait for a decision and who is being granted protection. It also presents data on survivors of modern slavery in the UK.

Read the report

Facts at a glance

October 17, 2023October 17, 2023

Spotlight on the impact of Statelessness

Updated 17 October 2023: European Network on Statelessness: Are Stateless Claimants Disadvantaged Within Asylum Procedures? New Evidence from the UK Context

Thomas McGee, PhD researcher at Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness (Melbourne Law School) and the MENA Statelessness Network (Hawiati)

This blog post introduces new research, conducted as part of the #StatelessJourneys project, into the challenges faced by stateless claimants within asylum procedures in the UK context. The study focuses on the experiences of stateless Kurds from Syria in the UK, revealing hurdles related to civil documentation, cultural understanding, and language analysis. These findings emphasize the need for more statelessness-sensitive procedures and policy changes, both in the UK and within other countries of asylum across Europe.

October 5, 2023November 13, 2023

Status Now 4 All! Renewing our Call!

In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns in 2020, a group of organisations working in solidarity with migrant and refugee people issued a call for ‘Status Now 4 All!’ in order to address the needs of hundreds of thousands of people who were in positions of exceptional risk as a consequence of having a precarious right of residence in the UK.

A lot about the predicament of migrants in British society that emerged during these months conflicted with dominant prejudices that existed over their position as workers and fellow members of local communities. It became widely understood that migrants earned their livings as key workers across many sectors of services and industries, and were obliged to continue working in high-risk occupations. As health and care workers, working in public transportation, and employed in other vital roles for fulfilling supply chains in the distribution of food and other essential goods, migrants, therefore, formed a large proportion of the newly-named group: ‘essential workers’.

October 2, 2023October 2, 2023

In the run up to the 2024 General Election

2 October 2023: Guardian: In one vulgar swoop, Suella Braverman has humiliated every single migrant in the UK

The home secretary’s assertion that multiculturalism has ‘failed’ would have been considered beyond the pale even decades ago

Even by this government’s standards, last week was bleak and this one, as the Tory conference gets under way, promises to be no less dispiriting. It is clear that Conservative party policy proposals and rhetoric are now nothing but wild last-ditch attempts to renew chances at the next election, but Suella Braverman’s latest assertion that multiculturalism has “failed” proved that when it comes to immigration, we have moved away from dog whistles and back towards the sort of Powellite language that, even decades ago, was considered beyond the pale.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/02/suella-braverman-migrant-uk-multiculturalism