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Exporting people seeking asylum – Rwanda
There will be further protests about removals to Rwanda: See reports below
Updated 2 April 2023: BBC: A lot to unpack from that interview – Laura Kuenssberg
Presenter, Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg
It was the first time the home secretary had come into our studio live and there was plenty to talk about – and plenty of headlines from what she had to say.
First off, Suella Braverman was resolutely determined to defend her plans to send migrants to Rwanda, saying repeatedly that in her view it is, contrary to the United Nations’ view, a safe country for refugees.
There’s no question that there’s public desire to stop the terrible trade of people trafficking across the Channel. Many governments, not just the UK, are grappling with what to do. But there are plenty of practical and political problems about the home secretary’s approach, and huge jeopardy in her and the prime minster’s slogan to “stop the boats”.
Continue reading “Exporting people seeking asylum – Rwanda”StatusNow4All Newsletter March 2023
| Welcome to this edition of SNN newsletter where we are covering a number of items that will be of interest to everyone involved in migrant and refugee solidarity work. The first article comments Sunak’s ‘stop small boats’ plan with the ‘illegal migration bill’. The second highlights how the government’s aim is not to ‘stop the small boats’, but to stop people asking for refugee status in the UK and invite the workers’ and antiracist movements to further mobilize together against the government’s cruel antirefugee policy. Our third article reports the result of a recent research that shows how the 10-year route is a ‘punishing process’ that reduces immigrants in misery. Children and the hostile environment is the topic of our fourth article that invite to a webinar organized by our signatory Social Scientists Against the Hostile Environment. Finally, we publish a call from our signatory Migrant Voice to contribute to their forthcoming report on the conditions of asylum seekers in London hotels. |
Trade unions unite in solidarity with refugees
The Fire Brigades Union is proud to have coordinated the following statement, which was passed as a resolution at our Executive Council last week:
In recent weeks, we have seen an alarming rise in violence and intimidation organised by the far right against refugees and refugee accommodation.
The government is complicit in these attacks. The Rwanda policy does not make sense as a means of stopping small boat crossings – and it is failing on its own terms – but it fits with a long-running campaign of rhetoric and demonisation.
Anti-migrant politics are an attempt to divide working class people against each other. In the past decade, the UK has suffered a crisis of living standards – with wages falling and public services left to rot. The people to blame for this are politicians, billionaires and big corporations, not migrant workers or refugees forced to live in temporary accommodation. The anti-refugee campaign offers no solutions to the real problems faced by the deprived communities they are often targeting. The answer is solidarity, not scapegoating.
As trade unionists, we know whose side we are on when we see far right mobs attacking refugees and politicians playing the mood music. We send our solidarity to Care4Calais and all groups fighting for refugee rights, and we support the call for safe and legal routes into the UK. We call on workers and trade union members to show their solidarity and to mobilise against the far right.
Signed
Continue reading “Trade unions unite in solidarity with refugees”StatusNow4All Newsletter February 2023
| Welcome to this edition of SNN newsletter where we are covering a number of items that will be of interest to everyone involved in migrant and refugee solidarity work. The first article analyses the government ‘s responsibilities for the racist riot in Knowsley. The second highlights how four reviews of the hostile environment recently published by the Home Office show that this policy is racist. The fight for antiracist workplaces and our call for status now for all is the focus of our third article, while the fourth article shows the strong support of the BFAWU (Bakers, Food & Allied Workers Union) to our campaign and reports an important motion approved by its executive committee. |
The Bakers, Food & Allied Workers Union’s support to the call for status now for all
20 February 2023: The president of BFAWU (Bakers, Food & Allied Workers Union), Ian Hodson, was one of the participants in the Status Now Network strategy weekend (held on 27th – 29th January).
He found it to be ‘a very inspirational event meeting real leaders and fighters for justice, people who are suffering real hardship but show incredible strength and resilience’.
He wrote this contribution announcing the motion approved by the BFAWU executive committee and stressing their strong commitment to the status now for all campaign:
Having recently attended the Status Now strategy weekend, I was pleased to report back to my national executive about the positive time I spent taking part in developing how we build the campaign and solidarity. I am pleased that our executive has adopted the following motion which will now go to our conference in June this year. It reads as follows:
Continue reading “The Bakers, Food & Allied Workers Union’s support to the call for status now for all”Migration Health and Care
PICUM: FINLAND: NEW LAW EXPANDS HEALTH CARE FOR UNDOCUMENTED MIGRANTS
A new law has recently come into force in Finland that expands health care for undocumented migrants living in the country. Under this law, undocumented people can now access necessary care – that is, care that health care professionals deem necessary. This covers, for instance, conditions like diabetes or asthma that, if left untreated, would constitute a risk to the person’s health and increase the likelihood of urgent care being needed in the future.
Continue reading “Migration Health and Care”StatusNow4All Newsletter January 2023
| Welcome to this edition of SNN newsletter where we are covering a number of items that will be of interest to everyone involved in migrant and refugee solidarity work. The first article analyses the renewed government attacks on the rights of migrants and invites all movements for migrant justice to come together and intensify our campaigns to defeat them. The second article reports the launch of the antiracist network promoted by the Trade Union Congress. A call for the rights of domestic workers by our signatory Waling Waling is the topic of our third article, while a contribution by our signatory Migrant Voice denounces the horrible conditions experienced by asylum seekers in London hotels. Finally we welcome our new signatory Migrant Democracy Project. |
Britain’s unions launch of anti racist network
The inaugural meeting of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) anti racist network took place in London last November.
It was attended by about 50 people, The overwhelming majority of them were migrant and migrant advocate organisations’ members.
The discussion stressed the importance that all workers, whatever their immigration status is, get organised to stop exploitation, and showed a general wish to see a permanent network created and coordinated by the TUC.
A number of thought provoking speakers were heard (including Emmanuelle Andrews, Liberty; Fizza Qureshi, Migrants Rights Network; Gargi Bhattacharyya, TUC Race Relations Committee; Liam Shrivastava, Institute of Race Relations; Sereena Abbassi, gal-dem; Sophie Chauhan, Dalston Superstore). The Government’s anti migrant and racist legislation was condemned and it was evident that the TUC and individual Unions accepted that they must do much more, both in challenging racism and organising precarious workers.
Continue reading “Britain’s unions launch of anti racist network”StatusNow4All newsletter July 2022
| Welcome to this edition of SNN Newsletter! We are covering a number of items in this issue that will be of interest to everyone involved in migrant and refugee solidarity work. First up is the report on our campaign for better asylum seeker accommodation. Our SNN colleagues in the North West are particularly active in this area and after a first online event during Refugee Week are now planning new initiatives to fight for better provision of safe and decent homes for people in the asylum system. The second article is dedicated to the campaign “Our place is here” developed by Kanlungan together with other organizations in defense of the rights of domestic workers. The third item reports on the SNN event organised during Refugee Week which assembled a roundtable of activists to discuss where we have got to with the campaign against the hostile environment and the steps that need to be taken for this to go forward. The key idea is the project underway to organise a People’s Tribunal on Migration Justice over the course of the next 12 months which will draw on the evidence of violation of the rights of migrant people to indict Government policies and help forge the sort of alliances we will need to bring about change. The appalling news about the deaths of at least 37 people at the border between the Spanish enclave of Melilla and Morocco is the subject of our fourth feature. In response to this massacre at the hands of the Spanish civil guard and the Moroccan police authorities the Transnational Migrant Platform has launched an appeal for solidarity and action to force an inquiry into how the tragedy happened. Finally, our fifth article focuses on the important role assumed by the Union, particularly by the Public Services and Commercial Union (PCS), in the fight against the Rwanda offshore plan and stresses the need to fight all together for the rights of migrant and native workers in the UK. In addition to these items we also have information on the call for a public demonstration outside the Royal Courts of Justice on 19 July to coincide with the opening of the judicial review hearing on the legality of the Home Office’s Rwanda refugee removal plan. Do join us at this protest if you can. |
Refugee Week – Events in June 2022
You’ll find below information about some of the events in June 2022
Refugee Week: https://refugeeweek.org.uk/
25 May 2022: Migrants Organise ONLINE RALLY: End The Hostile Environment! #10YearsTooLong #SolidarityKnowsNoBorders :
Details of the coming campaign in June will be released at an online rally on 25 May 6pm , featuring a powerful lineup of speakers on the frontlines of the fight for migrant justice. Make sure to register here to receive further information about the week of action! (see below)
Here is a video of the rally:
Continue reading “Refugee Week – Events in June 2022”StatusNow4All at PCS Conference
25 May 2022: The Guardian: Home Office staff worry they may be asked to act illegally in ‘culture of fear’.
After 10 years of hostile environment, critics say immigration crackdown has had devastating human cost
Frontline Home Office staff have warned of a “culture of fear” where they are being put into dangerous situations, and may be asked to act illegally, on the 10th anniversary of the launch of the hostile environment.
Continue reading “StatusNow4All at PCS Conference”Motion for use by Trade Union bodies
This motion for use by Status Now Supporters has been produced by the reference group as a short motion to go, suitably amended, to trade union bodies, including national and regional conferences. We do need to get more trade union support in order to deliver on our core demand Status Now For All – indefinite leave to remain.
‘Conference condemns the continued political and physical attacks on refugees, asylum seekers and others without their status in the UK. Conference accepts that many people, even with the right to work, are often in precarious situations due to their immigration status. Conference reaffirms the right of all workers to employment which is safe and secure. To this end Conference supports the call made by a number of migrant bodies, anti-racist, poverty eradication groups and others that all undocumented and precarious people residing in the UK should be granted indefinite leave to remain.’
Trade Unions: Organising and Promoting the Rights of Workers who do not have Settled Status
7 October 2021: Trade Unions: Organising and Promoting the Rights of Workers who do not have Settled Status
Why do we call for StatusNow4All?
We call upon the British and Irish States to act immediately so that all undocumented, destitute and migrant people in the legal process in both the UK and Ireland are granted Status Now, as in *Indefinite Leave to Remain. In this way every human, irrespective of their nationality or citizenship can access healthcare, housing, food and the same sources of income from the State as everyone else.
There are many people working precariously in UK and at real risk of exploitation by unscrupulous ‘employers’, due to not having settled status.
Visas expire and personal circumstances change. Without settled status – Indefinite Leave to Remain – people are very much at the mercy of uncertainty as employees, and of employers. See the StatusNow4All website for a wide variety of posts about why people need settled status, and about the racist and hostile environment that puts them at risk.
• People become undocumented when they do not possess an authorisation to be in the country they are in. Some may have been born here, or lived here for many years (think of Windrush), others may have been trafficked, and most have had authorisation at some point. Their precarious situation may be due to a change in the law that complicates their situation, or an asylum application for international protection that has been refused in this deliberately hostile environment, or their visa is no longer valid so maybe someone whose student visa has finished, or lost their job whilst on a work visa, or suffered domestic abuse whilst on a spousal visa
• They may be domestic workers, care workers, or working in the garment trade, in a carwash, a sweatshop, the local takeaway, nailbars, prostitution, for gangmasters etc. etc.
• There are others who have been given a Deportation Order for what may have been a miscarriage of justice, or a crime in order to survive, and they are living indefinitely without permission to work
Unions – please join our campaign
National Union of Journalists, Manchester and Salford Branch has become a signatory – see information about other Union activity and model motions here: Trade Union activity