Why do we call for Status Now Archives

February 3, 2023February 3, 2023

Reckless ‘Nationality & Borders’ legislation

We continue to campaign for those who have precarious status to be granted Indefinite Leave to Remain and for there to be discussions about how to move forward with the banners of #StatusNow4All and #HealthAndSafety4All.

When the will is there, it can be done – that is our point: there is hope yet … We will collate reports and legal challenges here.

February 2023: Guardian: Alf Dubs: Braverman calling refugees ‘invaders’ was low point of my career

Labour peer who fled to UK to escape Nazis says home secretary’s words ‘deeply and personally upsetting.

Alf Dubs, the veteran Labour peer who arrived in the UK as a child fleeing the Nazis, has described Suella Braveman’s likening of refugees to invaders as “deeply and personally upsetting”, and a low point of his half century in politics.

Dubs, who fled what was then Czechoslovakia unaccompanied in 1939 and came to the UK aged six as part of the Kindertransport system, condemned the home secretary for using language that painted those also fleeing persecution as “hostile people”.

Dubs’ comments, made in a new podcast series presented by the Lord Speaker, John McFall, follow criticism of Braverman by another survivor of the Holocaust last month.

In comments made in October, shortly after she was reappointed by Rishi Sunak, Braverman said in the Commons that refugees and migrants crossing the Channel in small boats were “the invasion on our southern coast”.

February 1, 2023February 2, 2023

Stop the deportations

Updated 2 February 2023: RAPAR: @raparuk 8:37 PM We have just found out that Kouame is not being removed tomorrow. Praise all our gods. It is not over yet – and we will keep working tooth and nail for Kouame’s safety – but we can breathe for now.

Updated 1 February 2023: RAPAR: Keep Kouame Safe:

February 1, 2023February 1, 2023

Channel Crossings

Updated 1 February 2023: Gov.uk: Leadership of small boats operations returns to the Home Office

The Small Boats Operational Command (SBOC) will bring together the government’s response to small boats with 730 additional staff.

Telegraph: Stop migrant boats or face defeat, Suella Braverman tells Tories

Home Secretary tells The Telegraph the party’s reputation for competence is ‘on the line’ and crossings must be tackled to win election

January 27, 2023January 27, 2023

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.

January 25, 2023January 31, 2023

Concerns about the use of army barracks, hotels, offshoring etc etc. continued 2023

This post follows on from the initial post which became very long, but can be found here: https://qarn.org.uk/concerns-about-the-use-of-army-barracks-etc/. Here we update the post with reports of atrocities around the army camp accommodation and hotels, and other Home Office plans to accommodate people in new sites.

See also posts regarding ‘Detention Centres‘ such as such as Hassockfield/Derwent https://qarn.org.uk/detention-centres/,

and also the post regarding plans to export people seeking asylum to Rwanda https://qarn.org.uk/exporting-people-seeking-asylum-rwanda/

1 January 2023: Guardian: Home Office publishes details of £70m contract to house asylum seekers

Charities have criticised ‘warehousing’ centres, calling instead for better integration in society

Details of a £70m contract to put asylum seekers into controversial accommodation centres have been published by the Home Office, the Guardian has learned.

The Home Office has said repeatedly it wants to move tens of thousands of asylum seekers out of hotels, which are costing about £5.6m a day. But its first attempt to set up such a centre at RAF Linton-on-Ouse, in North Yorkshire, stalled after local opposition, including from Conservative politicians and the threat of legal challenges. Since then no other concrete plans have emerged.

In December, the Home Office added the £70m project to its procurement pipeline, the mechanism that it says provides a formal look at its “anticipated outsourcing activity over the next 24 months”.

January 25, 2023January 25, 2023

Barriers and Bridges to Wellbeing

Updated 25 January 2023: The Use of Biological Methods in Asylum Age Assessments (dated March 2022)

Accuracy of examining bones to determine age In non-medical contexts, bone development and skeletal maturity assessed by these methods is used to assess overall maturity as a proxy for chronological age. The accuracy of these methods has been widely researched. Most children (95%) will have a skeletal maturity age within plus or minus 2 years of their chronological age.

January 22, 2023February 3, 2023

Enabling Nurse Daisy

Updated 21 January 2023: Another beautiful day as we stand in solidarity with the women incarcerated at the Derwentside IRC aka Hassockfield detention centre.

We were joined by students from Durham university – this tells us our call to shut down this centre is gaining momentum. We had senior member from Durham and a politician that spoke strongly against this establishment. It was peaceful and the police were there but did not have work very hard.

January 17, 2023January 17, 2023

Exporting people seeking asylum – Rwanda

There will be further protests about removals to Rwanda: See reports below

Updated 17 January 2023: Free Movement: High Court gives green light to appeals in Rwanda challenges

Page contents

On 16 January 2023 there was a High Court hearing to deal with all matters following on from its ruling published on 19 December 2022. You can you can read more about the case and its implications here and here. You can find a full copy of the judgment here, and a summary here.

The various claims in this case were heard on a ‘rolled up’ basis. This means that permission to apply for judicial review and the substantive merits of the grounds were considered at the same time. Permission was granted on all of the grounds advanced by individual asylum seekers and Asylum Aid.

January 11, 2023January 11, 2023

Waling Waling’s call for the rights of domestic workers

Waling Waling: In 1997/98 the then Labour government accepted that domestic work in the private household would be recognised as work in employment legislation.

This followed a ten-year long campaign organised by Kalayaan, Waling Waling, the Commission for Filipino Migrant Workers (CFMW) and fully supported by the Transport & General Workers Union, now Unite. Other organisations and individuals including parliamentarians in both Houses and in the European Parliament supported the campaign over the years. Disgracefully, in 2012 the then Home Secretary in the coalition government, Teresa May abolished the domestic worker visa with rights and protections, saying that future domestic workers would be protected under the Modern Slavery Act, thereby reducing workers with legal rights and protections to victims with the promise of protection. This system simply doesn’t work.

January 10, 2023January 10, 2023

Detention Centres — IRCs

See also updates about the tireless campaigning of Daisy and family here: https://statusnow4all.org/enabling-nurse-daisy/

See posts regarding contingency accommodation which is sometimes quasi-detention https://statusnow4all.org/concerns-about-the-use-of-army-barracks-hotels-housing/

BID: Join us for ‘No More Detention Centres‘ on 24th January at 7pm

Join us to learn about the proposed expansion of immigration detention in the UK and how we can resist it.

The Home Office has recently announced plans to reopen Campsfield House and Haslar as Immigration Removal Centres, increasing the number of people that can be detained at any given time by 33%, at a cost of £399 million to the taxpayer.

These plans are part of an alarming trend of regressive and inhumane legislation which criminalises asylum seekers and migrants and substantially increases the numbers of detainable and deportable people. Increasing detention capacity is part of the infrastructure required to enact the Government’s inhumane plans to remove people seeking asylum to Rwanda, which must be stopped.

This event will bring together several speakers to discuss how we can come together to resist the expansion of immigration detention and move towards a world in which no one is deprived of their liberty for immigration purposes or deported from their home.

Panel Chair:
Writer and campaigner Gracie Mae Bradley will chair the panel. She has a decade’s experience working in NGOs in England, including as Director of the civil liberties group Liberty, as well as being part of many grassroots campaigns. She is co-author of Against Borders (Verso, 2022).

Speakers:
Kolbassia Haoussou MBE, Director of Survivor Empowerment at Freedom from Torture who will be speaking about their successful campaigning work targeting airlines removing asylum seekers to Rwanda as well as broader campaigning against Hostile Environment Policies.
Jacqueline McKenzie, partner and head of immigration and asylum law at Leigh Day Solicitors with whom BID is working on a legal challenge against Manston. Drawing on her vast experience, including representing hundreds of people affected by the Windrush Scandal, she will be discussing how we can hold the government to account in court.
Layla Moran, MP for Oxford West who joined local campaigners in successfully closing an Immigration Removal Centre in Oxford in 2018, and is currently fighting government proposals to re-open it.
Bill MacKeith, from the Keep Campsfield Closed Coalition, will be sharing insight gleaned from over 30 years of campaigning to close Campsfield down and keep it closed.
Pierre Makhlouf, Legal Director at Bail for Immigration Detainees, will be discussing trends in Immigration Detention Policy, the case against immigration detention and BID’s work to end it.

Book your free place now

December 16, 2022December 19, 2022

International Migrants Day 18 December 2022

On 4 December 2000, the General Assembly, taking into account the large and increasing number of migrants in the world, proclaimed 18 December International Migrants Day (A/RES/55/93). On that day, in 1990, the Assembly adopted the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (A/RES/45/158).

This article comes through our signatory organisation Southeast and East Asian Centre (London):

Focus on Labour EXploitation – FLEX: International Migrants Day 2022: A Call for Stronger Protection for All Migrant Workers

To mark International Migrants’ Day 2022, Mariko Hayashi and Luisa Pineda from the Southeast and East Asian Centre (SEEAC) highlight the barriers and risks faced by migrant workers from their community, sharing first-hand experiences of exploitation and calling for workers to be better protected in this guest blog.

December 16, 2022December 16, 2022

Concerns about the use of army barracks, hotels, housing

This post is being updated with reports of examples of atrocities around the army camp accommodation and hotels, and other Home Office housing

For information about Detention Centres – IRCs – Hassockfield/Derwentside please see here: https://statusnow4all.org/detention-centres-ircs/

For information about off-shoring/exporting people seeking asylum/Rwanda please see here: https://statusnow4all.org/exporting-people-seeking-asylum-rwanda/:

Update 16 December 2022: from our signatory organisation RAPAR:

PRESS RELEASE from @raparuk 16th Dec. 2022: Whistleblower speaks out about safeguarding, racism and scabies at Serco’s asylum “hotel” in Warrington

https://buff.ly/3hygtgQ

and:

Please help raise money for Shay Babagar and @RAPARUK to build on Shay’s 35-day hunger strike to challenge Serco’s treatment of ‘hotel’ residents seeking asylum.
Justgiving: https://buff.ly/3BDx5dO

Campaign flyer: https://buff.ly/3j4CG6D
About campaign: https://buff.ly/3VYnZ3B

December 16, 2022December 16, 2022

‘We must end this slow violence, inflicted by the state against asylum-seekers.’

15 December 2022: Morning Star: Allowing asylum seekers to work makes sense

CLAUDIA WEBBE MP argues that granting all migrants indefinite leave to remain and the ability to work will only strengthen the power of our class — as well as boosting the economy

We can learn a lot from those who experience and resist the British asylum system.

December 14, 2022December 14, 2022

Rishi Sunak PM in Parliament 13 December 2022

This is the original concern: BBC: Rishi Sunak pledges more staff to help clear asylum backlog

(see article at the end of this post for details)

Quakers in Britain responded: Vulnerable people who arrive on our shores should be treated fairly under international law, Quakers say

Quakers believe that all people are precious, everywhere. Today they speak out yet again against the UK government’s plans on migration which continue to embed policies of discrimination into the practices of the British state.

Embroidered butterfly reads migration is beautiful — Vulnerable people who arrive on our shores should be treated fairly under international law, Quakers say, photo credit: Quakers in Britain – artwork by Rosemary Crawley

Announcing his latest plans for the asylum system, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said new legislation would make it clear that those entering the UK by unsafe and irregular routes would not be able to remain.

But the Prime Minister’s plans, announced on Tuesday 13 December, criminalise those seeking sanctuary and contravene the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, of which the UK was a founding signatory.

The UK should do more to promote peace and climate justice abroad, allowing people to live safely at home, rather than being forced to take often life-threatening routes to safety, said Oliver Robertson, head of witness and worship at Quakers in Britain.