StatusNow Editor, Author at Status Now 4 All

December 20, 2021January 24, 2022

The Status Now Network (SNN) is looking for a Network Development Coordinator – deadline is 24 January 2021 at 9am

Updated 20 December 2021: The deadline for our receipt of applications has been extended to 24 January 2022 at 9am, interviews will be planned for 31 January 2022.

26 October 2021: Status Now Network (SNN), a coalition of almost 140 migrant and refugee solidarity organisations, has a vacancy for the post of Network Development Coordinator.

SNN is campaigning across the UK for the regularisation and Indefinite Leave to Remain of migrants and refugees who currently have a precarious residence status. It is migrant and refugee-led and works through public education and participatory action research projects which aim to establish precarious migrant residence status – as an access to human rights and social justice issue – across the areas of housing, employment, health, family welfare and race equality.

December 14, 2021September 16, 2023

Online Event 25 November 2021 6-8pm – These Walls Must Fall: We Want Freedom

Updated 14 December 2021: the video of this zoom event can be seen here, along with many others on their channel:

https://youtu.be/Ho1v53WQ9y4

These Walls Must Fall event: Join us for ‘We Want Freedom!’, a national These Walls Must Fall online event at this crucial time in the fight for migrant justice.

The devastating ‘Borders Bill’ is in Parliament for the second reading right now. It could bring unprecedented changes to the UK immigration system, which already treats people who come to the UK incredibly cruelly.

Speakers from across the movement will discuss the whole system of deportation and detention, how we can fight it at every stage, and how local acts of solidarity can make a difference.

November 10, 2021November 11, 2021

Cause Célèbre

Updated 10 November 2021: BBC – Asylum seeker inquest: Immigration officers may have had role in death

Immigration officers’ actions could have contributed to the death of an asylum seeker in Newport, an inquest jury has concluded.

Mustafa Dawood, 23, suffered head injuries when he fell from the roof of a car wash while being chased by officers.

[…] The inquest at Gwent Coroner’s Court heard immigration officers had arrived at Albany Trading Estate just after 10:00 GMT on 30 June 2018 following intelligence that foreign nationals were working there illegally.

They chased Mr Dawood, who ran onto the roof of a warehouse, believing he would be arrested.

The officer in charge, Matthew Day, said he called off the pursuit due to concern about Mr Dawood’s safety.

However other officers present that day said they did not remember receiving an order to stop.

While running away, Mr Dawood fell through plastic roofing into a locked room below, where he was eventually found with “severe and fatal” head wounds.

History repeated, “Death of Joy Gardner” (Wikipedia), a 40-year-old Jamaican mature student living in London, England, United Kingdom. Gardner died after being detained during a police immigration raid on her home in Crouch End, when she was restrained with handcuffs and leather straps and gagged with a 13-foot length of adhesive tape wrapped around her head. Unable to breathe, she collapsed and suffered brain damage due to asphyxia. She was placed on life support but died following a cardiac arrest four days later. In 1995, three of the police officers involved stood trial for Gardner’s manslaughter, but were acquitted.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Joy_Gardner

September 8, 2021September 16, 2023

Migrant Voice: My future’s back: international students fight injustice with legal victories

Migrant Voice’s “My Future Back” campaign has helped three more South Asian students clear their names from Home Office accusations of cheating in an English-language test.

They have been fighting for justice for seven years since the government responded to a TV programme about cheating in the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) by suddenly terminating the visas of 34,000 overseas students, making their presence here illegal overnight. A further 22,000 were told that their test results were “questionable”. More than 2,400 students were deported.

August 18, 2021June 5, 2023

We Need Practical Resources that Enable Positive Acts of Compassion with Everyone who Needs Them

“The support that is being offered to Afghans highlights the lack of help and resource being given to people fleeing similar threat and oppression elsewhere.”
Sir Peter Soulsby, City Mayor for Leicester

The plight of the Afghan people who are now fleeing from their homes is prompting positive and compassionate responses from a wide range of bodies and groupings across the UK. Councils such as Abergavenny, and conurbations such as Greater Manchester and Liverpool are receiving some additional monies via the Home Office to house people. However, as Sir Peter Soulsby, City Mayor for Leicester, an organisational signatory to the Status Now Network has observed to us this morning:

“As we have always done, Leicester will welcome those seeking refuge from conflict and oppression. We will be taking the opportunity to participate in the resettlement scheme announced today as a response to the truly awful situation in Afghanistan. We expect that resources will be provided to local councils so that we can provide and co-ordinate the support that will be needed. Leicester will proudly offer sanctuary and a new home to Afghans fleeing the Taliban. The support that is being offered to Afghans highlights the lack of help and resource being given to people fleeing similar threat and oppression elsewhere. These people too are welcome in Leicester and deserve better from the government.“

August 11, 2021August 11, 2021

Asylum seeker was made “scapegoat” by British authorities

11 August 2021: BBC – Channel migrants: Asylum seeker cleared of people smuggling was ‘scapegoat’

n Iranian asylum seeker cleared of people smuggling has said he was made a “scapegoat” by British authorities.

Fouad Kakaei, who steered a dinghy across the English Channel, was found not guilty at a second trial after appealing against his first conviction.

His barrister believes a law intended to prosecute people smugglers is being used on asylum seekers, because they are “easy targets”.

August 11, 2021August 11, 2021

UK deportation flight to Jamaica

11 August 2021: The Guardian – UK deportation flight to Jamaica leaves with just seven people onboard

Only seven people were deported to Jamaica on a Home Office charter plane in the early hours of Wednesday morning at an estimated cost of £43,000 a person, despite 90 being earmarked originally for the flight.

Concerns were raised about the UK’s decision to go ahead with the flight due to opposition from the Jamaican government because of Covid worries. Fears were also expressed about the vulnerability of some of those due to fly because of trafficking indicators and mental health problems.

A series of urgent high court injunction applications seeking to block some of the deportations continued almost until the flight took off at 1am on Wednesday morning.

August 8, 2021September 16, 2023

Shoulder to shoulder – everywhere – until deportations stop and statusnow4all starts

StatusNow logo

This Network stands shoulder to shoulder with all those committed to ending the Home Office’s plans to deport anyone, to any country.

Like many other big businesses whose profits have increased during COVID, the travel company contracted by the Home Office to operate several of this summer’s flights, TUI, is making a killing – in more ways than one (See Corporate Watch’s depth analysis on TUI published in January of this year).

When signatory organisation Southeast and East Asian Centre (SEEAC) alerted us in April to a flight that targeted people from Vietnam, it was just days after the Home Office had been exposed – yet again – for breaching its own deportation rules.