What else you can do Archives - Page 3 of 4

July 19, 2021July 20, 2021

WEBINAR: TUES 20 July, 12 – 1.30pm: UP FROM DESTITUTION

Women and our children escaping persecution, war and ecological devastation, have a right to asylum and support.

LAUNCH OF: Up from Destitution, a survey of women seeking asylum and making immigration applications in the UK. Nearly half of the women surveyed had no income at all and 60% are living on an income so low that they are officially destitute.

PANEL INCLUDES:
All African Women’s Group (AAWG) – a self-help group of women seeking asylum
Refuge from Rape and Destitution – an initiative of Women Against Rape to end injustices in the asylum system and destitution imposed by government.

PANELLISTS WILL ADDRESS:

July 11, 2021September 16, 2023

Manchester Protest Against Immigration Bail Reporting on 15 July 2021

Manchester Protest Against Immigration Bail Reporting on July 15^th from 1-3pm, the Home Office Reporting Centre, Dallas Court, Salford, M50 2GF

***Click here on our events category for more events coming up***

Video from the event, and photos below:

Mariam SNN North West working group leader profiling Status Now outside Dallas Court Salford today

July 9, 2021July 9, 2021

Aspen cards and surveillance of people in the asylum system

Reports coming in from around the country about serious delays in the changeover of ‘Aspen’ card provider on 21 May 2021, leaving people destitute; see the Home Office ‘fix’ as an attachment below … but people are still without money for food two weeks later.

Update from signatory organisation PositiveAction in Housing: The Aspen Card Crisis

More than six weeks on, the Home Office admits that 7% of asylum seekers have still not received their debit card (Aspen). The Home Office would not give the actual figure, but we believe this translates to roughly 4,500 asylum seeking men, women and children across the U.K. still affected by the Aspen card crisis.

Complaints are coming in to our office at the rate of 25 to 30 cases per week and we expect this to continue. This is on top of the current caseload of 83 asylum-seeking families (including 16 children and babies) left without money for food. Contrary to what Home Office ministers imply, those who live in private accommodation or hotels do not receive Emergency Crisis Payments. And many people report that they have received random amounts without back payments.

To increase capacity, we have teamed up with Latta & Co Solicitors in Glasgow and Duncan Lewis in London to take up some of the most urgent cases that are not getting sorted. This means using Pre Action Protocols and Judicial Review, if necessary. To minimise unnecessary delays we are liaising directly with the Home Office, instead of going through MigrantHelp. This approach means we get a quicker response.

June 8, 2021September 16, 2023

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

May 26, 2021July 6, 2021

Regularise: A Safer Path to Settlement:

This report comes from StatusNow4All signatory organisation Regularise

24 May 2021: Regularise: A Safer Path to Settlement: Undocumented migrants and the 20 year rule on long residence

Excerpt from Regularise’s briefing:

Background

The 20 year rule on long residence is an immigration directive which appears in the Immigration Rules, written by the Home Secretary and published by the Home Office under the power of section 3 of the Immigration Act 1971. It concerns the ability of undocumented migrants to regularise their status and subsequently—after a 10 year period of ‘continuous lawful residence’ in the UK—qualify for Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) via multiple applications for Limited Leave to Remain (LLR).

Introduced on 9th July 2012, the 20 year rule replaced the 14 year rule which formerly provided a shorter and more direct route to settlement. Prior to 2012, this route permitted undocumented migrants living in the UK to regularise their status by applying for ILR immediately following 14 years continuous residence.

Under the 20 year rule, in order to reach the same point of qualification for an ILR application, a person is required to have continuously resided in the UK for at least 30 years which includes at least 20 years continuous and precarious residence before they are able to make four separate successful applications for 30 months of LLR at a time, totalling a further 120 months or 10 consecutive years (see Fig.1). For comparison, the EU Settlement Scheme required over a million EU migrants to prove they had five years’ continuous residence before being granted settled status. As of May 2020, more than 3.3 million EU Settlement Scheme applications had been concluded of which 57% were granted settled status and 41% pre-settled status.

How does the 20 year rule work?

May 17, 2021September 16, 2023

Anti-Deportation Protesters Block Immigration Van From Leaving Glasgow Street

Updated 17 May 2021: We begin with the Guardian article: Cruel, paranoid, failing: inside the Home Office, followed by articles regarding the successful Glasgow action yesterday in securing the release of two men from a Borders & Immigration van from Positive Action of Housing; and the BBC. There is also a more recent article about the dawn raid that was not witnessed.

Guardian Cruel, paranoid, failing: inside the Home Office

For the thousands of people who end up on the wrong side of the Home Office each year, there is often a sudden moment of disbelief. This can’t be happening, people tell themselves. They can’t do this, can they? https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/may/13/cruel-paranoid-failing-priti-patel-inside-the-home-office

April 28, 2021April 28, 2021

End the virus of racism

28 April 2021: Aljazeera: Racism on the frontline: Britain’s Asian healthcare workers

Racist abuse of Asian healthcare workers is reportedly on the rise as they risk their lives in the fight against COVID.

Choose Love petition

Choose Love TAKE ACTION: We have to stand against the UK government’s new plan for immigration. The new plans are cruel, misleading and will destroy lives.If the government was serious about protecting lives and smashing smuggling gangs, they should be making it simpler and easier for people at risk to claim asylum – not embarking on these deeply inhumane plans.⁣ Please sign this petition calling on the government to scrap this cruel and destructive plan:

https://action.helprefugees.org/page/78976/petition/1 #RefugeesWelcome #ChooseLove

March 25, 2021September 3, 2021

Human Beings, Not Commodities: Status Now 4 All Summit

25 March 2021: People seeking asylum should be treated like human beings, says a major organisation supporting migrants.

StatusNow logo

Responding to Home Secretary Priti Patel’s ‘biggest overhaul of the UK’s asylum system in decades’, Nazek Ramadan, the Executive Director of Migrant Voice who will be chairing the Status Now 4All Summit: One YearOn (https://statusnow4all.org/status-now-summit-one-year-on/) this Saturday, said:

“It is based on false premises – particularly on the actual availability of legal routes – and tears apart the principle of the right to claim asylum.

March 10, 2021September 6, 2021

Please write to your MP: EDM 1442

StatusNow logo

Please bring this Early Day Motion – EDM #1442 to the attention of your MP and request that they sign it.

This is a suggested text:

February 22, 2021March 25, 2022

The Right to Food: Liverpool and Manchester

Food poverty: Food poverty is commonly defined as ‘the inability to acquire or consume an adequate or sufficient quantity of food in socially acceptable ways, or the uncertainty that one will be able to do so’.

It can have a detrimental impact on physical and psychological wellbeing so it’s important for a person to have access to and the choice of an affordable, acceptable and healthy diet throughout their life

Public Health Scotland http://www.healthscotland.scot/health-inequalities/fundamental-causes/poverty/food-poverty

December 19, 2020January 15, 2021

Appalling conditions in barracks housing people seeking asylum

Status Now 4 All has a continuing deep concern about the impact on the physical and psychological well-being of people seeking asylum of being accommodated in ‘contingency units’ by the companies acting on behalf of the Home Office. The news items below amplify the voice of those with this experience.

We ask you to write to your MP calling for the use of barracks to be stopped, and for the Home Office to appropriately exercise its duty of care … and make a big noise about this desperate situation: Call for Status Now for All

December 18, 2020December 19, 2020

EDM (Early Day Motion)1263: Migrant Workers’ Rights

What can you do? Please ask your MP to sign EDM #1263, and to talk about it with colleagues. Thank you

Tabled on 10 December 2020: That this House would like to thank migrant workers who have been at the forefront of the UKs response to the pandemic; believes that recovery from covid-19 must level up migrant workers’ rights; further recognises that the Hostile Environment, particularly No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) and the “illegal working” offence, forces migrants to continue go into work even when it is not safe to do; is concerned that the illegal working offence pushes undocumented migrants to look for employment among exploitative employers who know they are unable report abuse in the workplace for fear of immigration enforcement; expresses further concern that the illegal working offence disincentivises employers from hiring migrant workers and creates a culture of discrimination in employment practices; notes that the exploitation of migrant workers in the labour market drives down labour standards and protections for all workers; and calls on the Government to implement the recommendations in the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants “Work It Out” campaign by scrapping NRPF and repealing the “illegal working” offence.