Kurdish government bans deportation flights from UK

The Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq has banned the landing of flights deporting failed asylum seekers to its territory, amidst plans for sixty Iraqis to be deported in the next week.

Read more

Award-winning law volunteers are a fragile life-line

Welsh Refugee Council congratulates the Welsh voluntary organisation Asylum Justice on winning first prize in the national United Reformed Church Community Project Awards.

Asylum Justice, which is run entirely by volunteers, has been providing free legal advice for refused asylum seekers in Wales for several years. It works in Cardiff, Swansea and Newport. Asylum Justice is led by retired barrister Roger Warren-Evans. Other volunteers include law students and practicing lawyers offering free time.

Asylum Justice was set up when a church-based support group for asylum seekers realised that the greatest unmet need is legal advice.

Read more

UKBA bids to restrict jobs for asylum seekers

By Alan Travis

Home Office ministers are trying to thwart the impact of a supreme court ruling lifting a work ban on 45,000 asylum seekers by severely restricting the jobs they can apply for.

The immigration minister, Damian Green, wants to bar the asylum seekers from more than 28.5m jobs and restrict them to industries in which there are official staff shortages.

Home Office officials are investigating the possibility of telling asylum seekers they can apply only for vacancies among 400,000 skilled jobs in shortage occupations – a tiny fraction of the jobs in the UK economy. Asylum seekers would have to be qualified maths teachers, chemical engineers, high-integrity pipe welders or even experienced orchestral musicians or ballet dancers to have any hope of being allowed to work. The conditions mirror the restrictions of the points-based immigration system which bans unskilled workers from outside of Europe from working in Britain.

Read more

Amnesty slams Greek authorities for ‘treating migrants as criminals’

(Ekklesia) The Greek authorities should immediately review their policy of locking up asylum-seekers and irregular migrants, including many unaccompanied children, Amnesty International said in a new report today (27 July).

The report reveals that many are held in poor conditions in border guard stations and immigration detention centres with limited or no access to legal, social and medical aid.

The report’s approach is clear from its title, “Greece: Irregular migrants and asylum-seekers routinely detained in substandard conditions”. It reveals that in the vast majority of detention facilities visited by Amnesty International delegates, conditions ranged from inadequate to very poor. Those detained told Amnesty of instances of ill-treatment by coastguards and police.

“Asylum-seekers and irregular migrants are not criminals,” said Nicola Duckworth, Amnesty’s Europe and Central Asia Programme Director, “Yet, the Greek authorities treat them as such, disregarding their rights under international law”.

She added, “Currently, migrants are detained as a matter of course, without regard to whether such measure is necessary. Detention of asylum-seekers and migrants on the grounds of their irregular status should always be a measure of last resort.”

Detention prior to deportation can last for up to six months in Greece for asylum-seekers and irregular migrants. Greek law also makes irregular entry into and exit out of the country a criminal offence.

Tens of thousands of irregular migrants and asylum-seekers arrive in Greece each year. The vast majority of asylum-seekers and individuals fleeing war-torn countries reach the country through the Greek-Turkish land and sea borders. They are mostly Afghan, Somali, Palestinian, Iraqi and Eritrean.

“After an often-hazardous journey, migrants end up in detention centres without access to a lawyer, interpreters or social workers,” explained Duckworth, “As a result, their circumstances are not assessed correctly and many in need of international protection may be sent back to the places they have fled, while others may be deprived of appropriate care and support”.

Irregular migrants and asylum-seekers are not informed about the length of their detention or about their future. Amnesty reports that they can be kept for long periods of time in overcrowded facilities with unaccompanied minors being detained among the adults. Those detained have limited access to medical assistance and hygiene products.

Few asylum-seekers are recognised as refugees by the Greek authorities. From the over 30,000 asylum applications examined in 2009, only 36 were granted refugee protection status while 128 were granted subsidiary protection status.

The duration and poor conditions of their detention provoked irregular migrants and asylum-seekers to stage protests in Venna, north-east Greece in February 2010. Likewise, in April 2010, irregular migrants went on hunger strike on the island of Samos to protest against their length of detention.

Duckworth insisted, “Detention cannot be used as a tool to control migration. The onus is on the authorities to demonstrate in each individual case that such detention is necessary and proportionate to the objective to be achieved and that alternatives will not be effective.”

Amnesty International believes the plans being developed by the Greek authorities to establish screening centres should include alternative approaches, such as those running open or semi-open centres for people arriving in the country. They say the authorities need to ensure that irregular migrants and asylum-seekers arriving at those centres have access to free legal assistance and interpreters in languages they understand, as well as medical assistance.

Meeting the health needs of refugees and asylum seekers

The experiences of refugees and asylum seekers

Numbers of asylum seekers from each country fluctuate, principally according to the local human rights situation. Current numbers of asylum seekers, refugees and Internally Displaced Persons globally are found on the UN Refugee Agency website (UNHCR)

The vast majority of global refugees are hosted by developing regions, most of which have scarce resources to provide for their needs.

Only those with access to significant resources travel to industrialised countries. Some have been detained and tortured in their own countries, and exposure to violence is widespread. Some people have been persecuted because of their political or religious beliefs and activities, others because they belong to a minority ethnic group, or due to their gender or sexual orientation. Some have had to leave because of an environmental disaster or an infrastructure project. Some people migrate due to poverty as disparities between rich and poor, both between and within countries, continue to widen.

Those leaving their country to seek asylum experience many losses. As well as losing family members, through death or separation, they lose their home, family, friends, money, job and identity, and may lose dignity and hope. It is the multiple losses and, most importantly, the loss of their role; status and usual support network that may make it difficult for people to cope.

Most of those seeking asylum in the UK are single men under the age of 40, although worldwide most refugees are women. Many families in the UK are without one parent, who may be missing or dead, and there are a significant number of unaccompanied children.

In order to fulfil the terms of the Geneva Convention an asylum seeker must demonstrate that (s)he is personally at risk of persecution were (s)he to be returned to his/her country of origin. This is not always easy to prove.

Those making the often arduous and dangerous journey to exile are courageous, resourceful and resilient, and these qualities can assist them to rebuild their lives. After the initial relief of arriving, frustration and disillusionment may ensue, as the reality of life becomes apparent. It is important to enable people to develop independence, acquire language, and have access to education and employment. Integration requires support from the local community.

The Linking with local communities and befriending area of this resource has more information on this.

The Information Centre about Asylum and Refugees (ICAR) collates up-to-date and accurate information and detailed analysis on UK asylum statistics including a statistics paper
Key Statistics about asylum seeker arrivals in the UK

What brings asylum seekers to the United Kingdom? Burnett A and Peel M: BMJ 2001; 322:485-8 discusses the reasons that cause people to go into exile and the situation in which they find themselves in the UK.

Asylum Seekers and Refugees resource pack (2008) published by Health Scotland aims to provide useful information for frontline staff such as health visitors, practice nurses and general practitioners:

• to develop cultural competence in the services they provide.
• to enable each health professional to broaden their knowledge base in relation to asylum issues.
• to give guidance to health professionals on useful resources and where to access further information.

For a description of UK asylum statistics within a global context see the Information Centre about Asylum and Refugees (ICAR).

The Home Office UK Border Agency website explains:

• who can be given asylum in the UK
• how asylum applications are processed
• what asylum applicants can expect whilst awaiting a decision
• what happens after a decision is made

HAT News, The UK Border Agency and Department of Health are not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Royal recognition for refugee and asylum seeker volunteers

By Joe Nimmo

British Red Cross refugee services in Portsmouth was honoured for its work helping people who have escaped persecution to adapt to life in the UK.

The refugee services team was recognised yesterday in a ceremony at All Saints Church in Commercial Road, Portsmouth, where they are based, in front of city dignitaries including The Lord Mayor of Portsmouth, Cllr Paula Riches.

Read more

Can EU law protect asylum seekers

By Rosalind English

As EU legal provisions collide with fiscal austerity measures in member states, the case of Greece could be a warning.

The details of the law underlying the case of Saeedi are complex – but its message is simple. Under EU law, member states have to provide minimum standards for the reception of asylum seekers.

But the obligations themselves relate to another body of law that exists, at least philosophically, outside the boundaries of the economic imperatives of the European Union: social and economic rights.

When these were attached to the Maastricht treaty in 1992 as the social chapter, Britain used its opt-out to avoid them becoming part of British law. On this basis, Mr Justice Cranston in the high court said that these rights were not directly enforceable against the UK – that the charter was an aid to interpretation only.

Read more

Details Revealed of Secret Removal of UK Asylum Seekers

Refugees who have been refused stay in the U.K. are flown out secretly in planeloads accompanied by escorts pressured by pay incentives to get the job done quickly, according to an investigation in The Independent newspaper.

The U.K. Border Agency (UKBA) is using chartered flights more frequently and using excessive force to restrain detainees appears to be commonplace, according to the details published on Monday.

Read more

The Need for Belonging:Nicole Burchett

Author: Burchett, Nicole & Matheson, Ruth
Published: 2009, June
Volume: 17
Issue no: 2

Page number(s): 85-91 This article presents a qualitative descriptive study of the impact of being prohibited from working by the asylum seeking processes within the United Kingdom and the subsequent effects of gaining refugee status. In-depth unstructured and semi-structured interviews were used to explore one individual’s experience, with grounded theory methods employed to guide the data analysis and identify themes. The resultant themes were; the lack of control resulting in change of identity and roles, changes in motivation and the impact of stigma. The f indings provide insider insights into the impact of legislatively imposed occupational injustice, the need to establish safety needs and the desire to have a sense of belonging. It challenges readers to examine their own beliefs on asylum seeking and explore ways in which communities can integrate refugees, providing opportunities to regain a meaningful role within society and re-establishing their lost sense of identity.

More information

By Neil Puffett

Hundreds of children seeking asylum in the UK have been deported unaccompanied to other European Union (EU) nations without due consideration given to their welfare or rights, CYP Now has learned.

Next Page »