Category: Housing

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The immigration detention estate for women

Updated 23 November 2021: Re: Hassockfield/Consett/Derwentside immigration detention centre to house women will open by the end of 2021!

iNews: As migrant channel crossings hit a new record, insiders says centres like Yarl’s Wood can never be humane

For 20 years, Yarl’s Wood has been holding asylum seekers without time limits. Now a controversial new centre is replacing it to hold women. Is it time to call an end to detention?

Agnes Tanoh still remembers the fear of being taken into Yarl’s Wood, nearly a decade on. “You walk through the gates,” says the 65-year-old Ivorian refugee, “and the tunnel you take to reach the first office destroys your mind. I thought, ‘I am going somewhere I may never leave.’”

It was March 2012 when Tanoh was arrested and taken to the notorious immigration detention centre in Bedfordshire. After the disturbing ordeal of fleeing her home country the previous year, with her life at risk, she was incarcerated indefinitely as she awaited news of her fate.

“You haven’t defended yourself at trial,” she explains. “Being taken to a detention centre is being given a sentence without a time limit. It can be one week, three months, one year – you don’t know. Detention breaks families and causes distress and trauma.”

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COVID-19 has also laid bare existing fault lines within society and has exacerbated inequalities.

Updated 11 November 2021: Kanlungan Filipino Consortium@kanlunganuk From today, care home workers must prove they are double jabbed through the NHS COVID pass but for people who don’t have a GP or NHS number, this will be impossible. Our Advocacy and Campaigns Officer explains here why barriers to healthcare for migrants must be removed (South East London BBC News)

NEON@NEON_UK · : We really need to focus on making sure that health care is accessible to all in this country, especially in the pandemic. It’s just another example of how the government’s immigration policy makes no sense from a public health perspective. @FrancescaHumi on @BBCNews today.

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Scottish Housing Forum for Asylum Seekers and Refugees

Reminder: Date for your diary – 21 September 2021: Are you an asylum seeker, refugee or a supporting organisation in Scotland? If yes, please join us for this tenancy participation event.

MigrationUK, Scottish Asylum and Refugee Action Group, Status Now 4 All (Scotland) and Tenancy Participation Advisory Service (Scotland) are inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

TOPIC: Scottish Housing Forum for Asylum Seekers and Refugees: Tenancy Participation

SPEAKERS :
Tony Kelly, Tenancy Participation Advisory Service (Scotland)
Asylum Seekers and refugees with lived experience on housing issues
Peer group representatives
Support services

TIME:
Sep 21, 2021
06:30 PM London

About this event: The aim is:

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Scottish Government Act – Stand against the New Immigration Bill: 2 September 2021

Peaceful demonstration: Scottish Government Act – Stand against the New Immigration Bill: 2 September 2021

StatusNow4All Scotland

See the videos of the livestreams here: https://www.facebook.com/MigrationukServices and here: https://www.facebook.com/StatusNow4All

The National: Holyrood demo over Patel’s Nationality Bill

MEMBERS of a group campaigning to end evictions in Scotland have mounted a demonstration in Edinburgh over the UK Government’s Nationality and Borders Bill, claiming it would see the criminalisation of asylum seekers.

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Living Precariously or Health and Safety for All – a call for Indefinite Leave to Remain now

29 August 2021: StatusNow4All: Living Precariously or Health and Safety for All – a call for Indefinite Leave to Remain now

The asylum system is broken: there is a backlog of around 70,000 asylum applications which the newly arriving current Afghan applicants are expected to join. On 16 August 2021 the Home Office suspended its decision-making processes relating to asylum applications made by people from Afghanistan by withdrawing that country’s policy and guidance.  It is a gross miscarriage of natural justice to suspend legal process for those waiting for decisions or appeal hearings or in detention when a simple decision could immediately be put into effect – a grant of Indefinite Leave to Remain. 

This is why StatusNow4All calls for ALL those who do not have settled status to be given Leave to Remain. It is imperative for the Government to exercise its authority immediately by granting Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) and the right of access to Family Reunion as a matter of urgency to all people from Afghanistan who are currently in the UK. With political will, this can be done: nothing less than ILR will give people equitable access to healthcare, housing and food. 

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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.“

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‘My life is frozen’

From StatusNow signatory Jesuit Refugee Service: ‘My life is frozen’ – life in limbo for people seeking asylum

The impact of having their lives put on hold is devastating for refugee friends

This week the Independent published a special report looking at the lives of people seeking asylum, who are forced to live in limbo. As they spend years waiting on a decision to be made on their asylum claim, they live in great uncertainty, banned from working, and at risk of exploitation and abuse. These stories echo the harrowing experiences of the friends of JRS who are battling this hostile system, which is founded on suspicion. As they desperately seek to be recognised as refugees, they struggle to survive.

Data shows over 1,200 people seeking asylum currently in the system, have waited more than five years, with 399 more than a decade.

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Rising Calls for Health and Safety 4 ALL

StatusNow logo

19th July 2021: PRESS RELEASE: Rising Calls for Health and Safety 4 ALL
Debate in Parliament today coincides with simultaneous demonstrations

“As a health worker, I must be enabled to do my job to the best of my ability, not be confronted with this abuse and distress and trauma and expected to keep on working, keep on raising my children safety, while my man is threatened with this great danger”. Front Line Nurse, Daisy Motlogwa

“It is incredible that we let unknown numbers of people languish without documentation, forced into the “unofficial” economy or worse. People who can work, want to work and pay taxes should be brought into the mainstream.” Tony Lloyd MP for Rochdale

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Asylum seekers being subjected to dangerous and life threatening housing conditions by The Mears Group

22 June 2021: Chronicle Live: Refugees living in fear over the state of their Newcastle home speak out

The three asylum seekers have raised their concerns over what has been described as the dilapidated and dangerous state of their home in Newcastle. Asylum seekers in Newcastle have spoken out about what they describe as the dilapidated and potentially dangerous conditions they are living in.

They live in Benwell Grove, Fenham, in housing provided by the Mears Group which has a £1bn Government contract to provide accommodation and support for asylum seekers.

[…]

Robina Qureshi, director of Positive Action in Housing, wrote: “This young man, along with two other asylum seekers, is being subjected to dangerous and life threatening housing conditions by The Mears Group, asylum housing contractor who began major electrical rewiring and repairs without any notice while the three asylum seekers are living there.

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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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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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Home Office drops plans to resume evicting some asylum seekers ‘with immediate effect’

Updated 25 May 2021: Guardian: Home Office drops plan to evict thousands of migrants during pandemic

U-turn affects around 4,000 people refused asylum who were facing eviction with ‘immediate effect’

The Home Office has reversed its plan to evict thousands of migrants during the pandemic, the Guardian has learned.

The U-turn affects about 4,000 migrants who were facing eviction from Home Office accommodation.

Concerns were raised that the department’s plan to resume evictions of some refused asylum seekers with “immediate effect” could increase the spread of Covid and discriminate against people of colour who will be disproportionately affected by the policy.

A court order signed on Tuesday by government lawyers and their counterparts challenging the evictions policy confirmed that the home secretary, Priti Patel, had withdrawn it.

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A Letter to the People of the UK

16 March 2021: Hasting Community of Sanctuary: Speaking from the Heart about Napier Barracks

Erfan – a former resident held in Napier Barracks for nearly 6 months, and who was one of the nearly 200 people who contracted Covid in the massive outbreak in the barracks in January has written a powerful letter to the People of the UK. We are honoured to share it here.

The letter can also be found here: Help Refugees: https://helprefugees.org/news/a-letter-to-the-people-of-the-uk-from-a-former-resident-of-napier-barracks/

A Letter to the People of the UK

Dear People of the UK,

You may know me from the letters which were written on behalf of the Napier barracks residents. I am now outside of the camp and cannot talk on behalf of my other friends. However, I personally would like to say a few important things about what I have seen and learnt during my stay at Napier Barracks and the United Kingdom.

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