Status Now 4 All

March 12, 2023March 13, 2023

Sunak’s ‘stop small boats’ plan is a desperate gamble he seems unlikely to win

12 March 2023: The “illegal migration bill” places a legal duty on the home secretary to remove anyone who arrives on a small boat, either to Rwanda or another “safe third country”, “as soon as reasonably practicable”.

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For this plan to work it will be necessary to detain each and every person arriving in a small boat until their removal can be affected. The logistical problems here are immense. Last year the total entering by this route was 45,756. The figure for the current year is likely to be as high, with over 3,000 arriving since January.

According to the Oxford University Migration Observatory the immigration removal centre estate has a capacity for detaining people in the region of 2,500 places. A further 500 people have been detained in regular prison establishments but the scope for making greater use of these facilities is limited. The statistics provided for the UK in the World Prison Brief shows the prison system already in an overcrowded state, with more than 83.000 people being held across an estate with an official capacity of just over 77,000.

March 12, 2023March 12, 2023

New report condemns 10-year route as ‘a punishing process’

12 March 2023: The Institute for Public Policy Research, together with the Manchester Immigration Aid Unit and Praxis, has published a report on the workings of the home office’s 10-year route to settlement.

Around 170,000 people currently have leave to remain in the UK under the provisions of this route at the present time. In the main it covers the position of people to whom the home office must grant a residence status of some form in order to comply with obligations under international human rights law. A typical 10-year route residence permit holder would be the parent of a British citizen child, or a child who has lived for more than seven years in the UK.

March 7, 2023March 7, 2023

‘A punishing process’: Experiences of people on the 10-year route to settlement

2 March 2023: Guardian: Half of people trying to get permanent UK residency by 10-year route struggle to afford food

Effects of ‘devastating and punishing’ Home Office system introduced in 2012 now being felt, experts say

More than half the people trying to secure permanent residency in the UK through the Home Office’s “devastating and punishing” 10-year route struggle to afford food and pay bills, a survey has indicated.

The 10-year route to settling permanently in the UK was one of a series of deliberately tough measures introduced in 2012 by Theresa May when she was home secretary, as part of drive to cut net migration. Researchers say the full effects of the policy are only now starting to be felt.

March 7, 2023March 29, 2023

Article 39 seeks legal protection for highly vulnerable children housed in Home Office hotels

Updated 29 March 2023: Guardian: Sixty-six children still missing after vanishing from Brighton asylum hotel

Senior family judge hears charity’s urgent bid to have ‘world’s most vulnerable children’ declared wards of court

Lawyers for the home secretary have disclosed to a family court that 66 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children remain missing from just one local authority – Brighton and Hove – after disappearing from a hotel.

The number was revealed at an urgent hearing to address the fact that no agency has parental responsibility for the missing youngsters.

More than two months ago, a minister confirmed that 200 children – many of whom had arrived in the UK on small boats without a parent or guardian – disappeared after being placed in hotels run by contractors employed by the Home Office.

The figure included 76 youngsters who had vanished from a hotel in Brighton amid fears they had been targeted by criminal gangs.

March 6, 2023September 16, 2023

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

March 2, 2023March 2, 2023

REPORT: EXPERIENCES ON THE 10-YEAR ROUTE TO SETTLEMENT

2nd March 2023 Praxis: REPORT: EXPERIENCES ON THE 10-YEAR ROUTE TO SETTLEMENT

Around 170,000 people are estimated to be on a ‘10-year route to settlement’ – a way for some people with strong ties to the UK to be able to stay here permanently. On this route, individuals face a number of challenges – length of time before being eligible to stay permanently, the high cost of visa fees (around £13,000 over the 10-year period for one adult), the requirement for repeat applications every 2-and-a-half-years, complex applications with few options for legal advice, and restrictions in accessing welfare through the default ‘no recourse to public funds’ (NRPF) condition.

In new research conducted by Praxis and partners the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) and the Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit (GMIAU), we take stock of the impacts of the 10-year route to settlement on people’s lives. Our findings are drawn from a survey of over 300 people who are either on the 10-year route to settlement, or have been on the route, as well as in-depth interviews with people on the route.

Our research find a series of potential pitfalls and wrong turns arising from the design of the route that lead to poverty and insecurity for many. This is an immigration route often used by women, parents and caregivers, and people from a Black and South Asian background. Usually, people on the 10-year route are long-term residents – 60 % of those we surveyed had been in the UK for more than a decade. Many are working in low-paid jobs and have severely stretched household finances. The high costs, repeated renewals, complexity and NRPF place considerable pressure on people for a prolonged period of their lives and hold people back from achieving all they could for themselves and their families, their communities and the economy.

February 25, 2023October 5, 2023

Barriers and Bridges to Wellbeing

Updated 25 February 2023: Vulnerable asylum seekers ‘prisoners in their own homes’ after fleeing war zones

As many asylum seekers say they have been placed in unsuitable properties littered with tripping hazards, an expert blamed the system which she says ‘creates a hostile environment’

Alimony Bangura, a disabled asylum seeker from Sierra Leone, is living in Manchester (

Disabled asylum seekers who fled war zones for the safety of Britain say they have been left as prisoners in their own homes.

Many claim they have been placed in unsuitable properties that are littered with tripping hazards and have broken lifts.

One disabled man told how he fell while trying to reach his upstairs bathroom.

And a blind refugee said he could only go out once a week with the aid of carers.

Their misery continues despite a 2020 court case which found the Government failed to provide disabled-friendly digs.

Campaigners say they have warned Home Secretary Suella Braverman of a string of cases across the country.

Worryingly, there is no official record of how many asylum seekers are disabled.

February 21, 2023March 12, 2023

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.

February 20, 2023September 16, 2023

Status Now Network and the fight for antiracist workplaces

20 February 2023: Status Now Network and the fight for antiracist workplaces

Status Now Network joined the Stand Up to Racism and TUC’s national conference Fighting for Anti-Racist Workplaces held at SOAS, University of London, last February 4^th. The conference highlighted the role of the trade union movement to combat racism in the workplace, the hostile environment that targets migrant workers and refugees, and the various community interventions to prevent the rise of the far-right movement across the UK.

Refugees and SNN campaigners Loraine Masiya Mponela and Rogelio Braga were invited to participate in the workshop session #Stop Rwanda #Refugees welcome -don’t let scapegoating divide us , where Braga was one of the speakers. He highlighted that the plight of undocumented migrant workers should also be at the agenda of the British union movement. Undocumented migrants with their precarious migration status are subjected to exploitation, racism, and unfair labour practice with limited protection and support from institutions.

Below is Braga’s speech in the Conference.

February 20, 2023February 20, 2023

Years of refugee policy failure laid the grounds for the Knowsley riot

20 February 2023: Years of refugee policy failure laid the grounds for the Knowsley riot – the government should be made to own it

The scene outside The Suites hotel in the Liverpool suburb of Knowsley earlier this month provided a powerful summary of where the politics of immigration are in the UK at this moment in time.

It is sadly a feature of anxious times that segments of the population will look to simplistic explanations for the threats to their living standards which place the blame on ‘foreigners’ and other minoritized people.

February 20, 2023October 5, 2023

Home Office review of the hostile environment concedes that it is racist

20 February 2023: The home office published a series of reviews of its hostile environment policies at the beginning of February.

An attempt was made to rebrand the approach after the details of the Windrush scandal became public in 2017 as ‘complaint environment’ policies but the older term has remained current.

The four reviews published do far are:

February 20, 2023March 12, 2023

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:

February 8, 2023February 8, 2023

PICUM

7 February 2023: Platform for Undocumented Migrants (PICUM) @PICUM_post

Regularisation works, but it needs to be done well. Scroll through our thread to learn about 10 key steps to make it fair, humane, and effective. – and read more in our latest report:

Regularisation mechanisms and programmes: Why they matter and how to design them

February 1, 2023September 16, 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