Status Now 4 All salutes the courage of the Napier Barrack residents

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In response to day’s article in the Guardian: Asylum seekers in Napier barracks ‘face blacklist threat for speaking out’: Residents in the Home Office facility claim they have been told their applications will be ‘impaired’ if they talk to the media

Through our network Status Now knows that people have been threatened with this kind of implicit and explicit bullying and harassment for years: the idea that you will cease to be political as an unwritten condition of claiming asylum is a fundamental violation of our right to be human. Status Now 4 All salutes the courage of the Napier Barrack residents who, like so many others who are rising and organising to end the Hostile Environment and realise their safety and that of their families, demonstrate the truth that it is necessary to create solidarity and confront the bully – whoever they are. ENDS


Read a series of reports here: https://statusnow4all.org/concerns-about-the-use-of-army-barracks/

High Court rules Home Secretary acted unlawfully in accommodating asylum seekers in inadequate Napier barracks

3 June 2021: Comment from StatusNow4All signatory: Care4Calais:  · **Breaking news**The high court found today:

– Napier Barracks was inadequate accommodation for asylum seekers, placing them at risk of a fire and contracting COVID-19

– The Government’s process for selecting people to be accommodated at the Barracks was flawed and unlawful

– Residents of Napier Barracks were unlawfully detained under purported Covid rules

However over 265 asylum seekers remain accommodated at Napier barracks today and the Government intends to increase numbers up to 337. Already, since being refilled, over 45 people have been transferred out of the Barracks on the grounds of vulnerability following the legal work, indicating that there is still no adequate screening process in place.

We are delighted with this judgement, which follows long months of the Government ignoring a mountain of evidence and complaints that the Barracks are not only unsuitable, but highly damaging, to vulnerable people entrusted to their care. It is disappointing that evidence provided by NGOs and regulators was ignored for so long and it has taken legal action to reach this verdict. However today Napier barracks remains in use and our goal must be to get those inside moved to suitable accommodation as soon as possible. Penally was closed and Napier should be too.

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“IMMIGRATION EXEMPTION” RULED UNLAWFUL UNDER GDPR

The Data Protection Act 2018, unlike its 1998 predecessor, contains an exemption. Paragraph 4, Schedule 2 says that the right of access to one’s data (among others) does not apply in the context of “immigration control”, but …….

2 June 2021: Case brought by StatusNow signatory the3million: “IMMIGRATION EXEMPTION” RULED UNLAWFUL UNDER GDPR

When the “immigration exemption” became law as part of the 2018 Data Protection Act, it threatened the data rights of all UK residents, including British citizens. Open Rights Group and the3million responded by taking the Government to court.

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Immigration raid in Kilburn at 3AM

#OustDuterte #StoptheKillingsPhFilipinos here describe the immigration raid in Kilburn at 3AM today as ‘tokhang-style’ – our local term for Duterte’s bloody war on drugs police operations at dawn that always end in extra-judicial killings. The hostile environment retraumatizes Filipinos living in the UK.

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?

Continue reading “Regularise: A Safer Path to Settlement:”

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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Government ‘devoid of compassion and competence’ over English Channel crossings as numbers double

22 May 2021: Independent: Exclusive: Netherlands and Sweden join list of EU countries saying they will not agree to take asylum seekers from UK

The number of migrants crossing the English Channel has doubled year on year despite Priti Patel’s vow to make the route “unviable”, The Independent can reveal.

Continue reading “Government ‘devoid of compassion and competence’ over English Channel crossings as numbers double”

Britain’s borders: wide open to Covid, slammed shut for people in need

What are the priorities?

19 May 2021: Guardian: Britain’s borders: wide open to Covid, slammed shut for people in need

“During the first three months of the pandemic – from 1 January until lockdown on 23 March last year, 18 million people arrived in the UK from abroad. But only 273 of them were obliged to quarantine. By contrast, across the 12 months to March 2020, 23,075 people were thrown into immigration detention centres: prisons for people who have not been convicted of any crime but are suspected of entering – or remaining in – the country without the correct paperwork.”

Read the article here: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/19/britain-borders-covid-government-indian-variant-migrants

Status Now Newsletter May 2021

Status Now Network‘s campaign is gaining traction. Organisations continue to join – most recently, we welcome Right to Remain – and our campaign now includes organisations and groups representing faith communities, migration academics, public service workers, activists in Northern Ireland, and community organisations in Scotland. 

We are winning: we will render the hostile environment friendly, and we ask you to continue supporting our actions until we achieve our goal: Indefinite Leave to Remain for all undocumented migrants and those in the legal process. 

Join StatusNow4All! Successful Status Now 4 All Summit last March. 

Status Now 4 All
 offered analysis and updates to signatories and their friends and supporters of the campaign for the UK Government to grant Indefinite Leave to Remain to all undocumented migrants and those in the legal process living in the UK and the Republic of Ireland

Status Now has Regional Working Groups based in London, The Midlands and the North West, a National Working Group developing in Scotland and  several Thematic Working Groups about housing, public health, workers’ rights and protection, and Faith (READ Status Now Network’s Faith Communities Calling Card explaining our call for Indefinite Leave to Remain here).

These Working Groups are composed of representatives from signatory organisations, and all groups are driven by the needs and visions of migrants with lived experience both within and outside of the immigration system

Visit the Status Now 4 all website to join us and become part of the campaign for #StatusNow4All.

Continue reading “Status Now Newsletter May 2021”

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

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BID raises concerns on the use of prolonged solitary confinement in immigration detention

Time-served prisoners!

16 May 2021: Guardian: Torture victims kept in solitary by Home Office for up to a year

Immigration detainees left desperate and suicidal after being held in prisons during the pandemic

The Home Office has pursued a policy of psychological brutality by locking up scores of torture survivors in solitary confinement for indefinite periods, according to fresh testimony from immigration detainees.

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Court says: This man is not a criminal

January 2021: BBC: Channel migrants: Iranian jailed for piloting two dinghies

‘Following the sentencing, the Home Office’s Clandestine Channel Threat Commander Dan O’Mahoney said Kakaei’s actions “risked lives” and the prosecution “put a stop to that cycle of criminality”.


This is what the New Plan for Immigration rests on, calling people seeking asylum ‘criminals’, but on retrial:

14 May 2021: Guardian: Iranian asylum seeker cleared of Channel smuggling charges

Man who took turn steering boat ‘because he didn’t want to die’ freed, with case opening way for others to appeal their sentences

An asylum seeker jailed on smuggling charges for helping to steer a boat filled with migrants from France to England has had his conviction overturned at a retrial after spending 17 months in jail.

Continue reading “Court says: This man is not a criminal”