Female asylum seekers struggle against UK culture of disbelief

(TrustLaw) – It should have been a happy time.

In 2008, Sanaa* (not her real name) left Iraq to join her British husband and start a new life in southeast England. But from the moment she set foot in her new home, she was beaten and verbally abused by her husband, also of Iraqi origin.

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Legal aid cuts could force trafficking victims to seek asylum

Lawyers have warned that proposed cuts to publicly funded immigration cases could force people who have been trafficked into the UK to seek asylum, even if this is not the best solution for them.

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Source: s o l i c i t o r s   j o u r n a l

Supreme Court dashes marriage rule

By Frances Webber

(IRR) – The Supreme Court has condemned the raising of the minimum age of entry for spouses and partners to 21 as a ’sledgehammer’.

The Home Office protested that the sole purpose of the November 2008 changes – which raised the minimum age of entry to join spouses and partners settled in the UK from 18 to 21 – was to help prevent forced marriages. The fact that thousands of spouses and partners in consensual marriages were forced to stay apart or stay abroad by the changes was a price worth paying for the protection of the vulnerable young women concerned. But although the law lords took the Home Office at its word, the way the changes were brought in, set out meticulously by Lord Wilson in the lead judgment in the Supreme Court, raises questions about the motivation of the Labour government, and recent remarks by prime minister Cameron raise further questions about the coalition’s support for the rule.

The Labour government’s interest in the issue of forced marriage began in 1999, when the Home Office established a Forced Marriage Working Group, which produced a report, A choice by right,[1] the following year. Jointly with the Foreign Office, it set up a Forced Marriage Unit in 2005 to offer help to those trapped in forced marriages. This unit deals with roughly 150 to 200 foreign victims of forced marriage a year, of whom between a quarter and a third are between 18 and 20. In 2007, parliament passed the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act, which provides a mechanism of protection.

These interventions on the issue of forced marriage were viewed with deep suspicion by political commentators and in south Asian communities.[2] The measures were seen as having more to do with an almost colonial-style policing of Asian communities than with any genuine concern for victims. Why, it was asked, was the government cutting provision for refuges, cutting legal aid provision which enabled women to use the law to protect themselves against domestic violence? Why were Home Office representatives fighting so hard in the immigration courts to deny and deport women complaining of honour violence, sexual violence, domestic violence abroad? Why, in 2003, did the government increase the probationary period for those joining husbands or partners here from one to two years, forcing many women to stay in unhappy, violent marriages? Why didn’t it make it easier for migrant women to leave violent partners by waiving the ‘no recourse to public funds’ rule for them? Ignoring all these issues to take up in such a high-profile way the far less common problem of forced marriage, which south Asian women’s groups were already working to combat in their own communities, was widely perceived as feeding into and perpetuating anti-Asian and particularly anti-Muslim racism at a time when the government was pushing the ‘community cohesion’ agenda and promotion of ‘British values’.

It was in this context that in 2006, the Home Office commissioned research on the desirability of raising the minimum age for entry of foreign spouses, having already raised the minimum age from 16 to 18. The research came down strongly against such a measure, saying it would not have the desired effect, would be detrimental and discriminatory – so the Home Office refused to publish it, saying it was methodologically flawed. Instead, it put the issue out for consultation – but there was no consensus in favour of raising the age; respondents were almost evenly split. In June 2008, the Home Affairs Select Committee investigated forced marriage as part of an inquiry into domestic violence and honour violence – and warned the government not to change the rules on entry of foreign spouses and partners until it had conclusive evidence of the impact of such a change, for parties to both forced and consensual marriages. Ignoring the Select Committee, the Home Office changed the rules anyway, and thousands of young couples found they could not live together in the UK. They included a young British-Chilean couple who fell in love but had to go to Ireland to be together, and a Pakistani couple who had had an arranged marriage. Both couples wanted to be together in Britain, and with the help of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) (http://www.jcwi.org.uk/), brought the test case arguing that the blanket rule against entry for under-21s denied their right to live together.

The Supreme Court, by a four to one majority, vindicated that right in its judgment of 12 October,[3] saying that the rule was brought in hastily, without the evidence the Select Committee said was necessary, and that the Home Office had not thought about the ‘colossal interference’ with the family life of the thousands of couples affected by the change each year.

The current government could have conceded the case, but instead chose to fight it. Although Home Office lawyers argued strenuously that the only purpose of the rule was to prevent forced marriage, and it had nothing to do with immigration control, prime minister David Cameron is on record as saying that it would ‘bring down numbers’[4] – an increasingly desperate obsession of his since he was forced to modify drastically his attempts to cut skilled worker visas in response to cries of pain by industrial leaders. Women’s organisations pointed out that the rule was unnecessary, since the protections of the Forced Marriage Act were working well, and Southall Black Sisters (http://www.southallblacksisters.org.uk/), a south Asian women’s group which intervened in the Supreme Court to support those affected by the rule, expressed the view that forced marriage is being used ‘in a cynical way to create a moral panic to justify the government’s immigration agenda’.

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FOOTNOTE

[1] Forced Marriage Working Group, A choice by right: The report of the working group on forced marriage, 21 May 2000. Download here (http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/communities/choiceby2). [2] Amrit Wilson, ‘The forced marriage debate and the British state’, Race & Class 49:1, 2007 (http://rac.sagepub.com/content/49/1.toc). [3] Quila and Bibi v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] UKSC 45, view the judgment here (http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKSC/2011/45.html). [4] Rahila Gupta, ‘Mere posturing from the Tories on forced marriage’ (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2011/oct/13/forced-marriage-law-supreme-court), Guardian, 13 October 2011.

Children’s Society condemns continuing child border detention

In May 2010 the Government announced that it would end the immigration detention of children, but it is failing to do so says the Children’s Society.

Between May and the end of August 2011, 697 children were held at all Greater London and South East ports. Almost one third were unaccompanied children. This could mean as many as 2,000 children could be detained each year.

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Source: Ekklesia

Goodbye paragraph 395C?

Source: Free Movement (Article first published 14 October 2011)

The cat gets it

Theresa May and David Cameron have promised to crack down on the perversion of human rights. May specifically stated that she wanted to amend the Immigration Rules to do so. Some of this is no doubt pure politics of the dogwhistle variety: it will not necessarily be followed by new policies or actual changes, but ministers want to be heard saying the ‘right’ thing.

It is difficult to take May seriously after Catgate. She cannot really be expected to check everything that is placed in front of her by her speech writers, but the pledge on changing the rules was unusually specific. I’ve been wondering what might follow, and my guess is that paragraph 395C will be scrapped. A Presenting Officer suggested to me that it might go the other day when we chatting before court, and this would perhaps arguably fulfil May’s promise.

The rule, very recently slightly amended, currently reads as follows:

395C. Before a decision to remove under section 10 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 or section 47 of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 is given, regard will be had to all the relevant factors known to the Secretary of State including:

(i) age;

(ii) length of residence in the United Kingdom;

(iii) strength of connections with the United Kingdom;

(iv) personal history, including character, conduct and employment record;

(v) domestic circumstances;

(vi) previous criminal record and the nature of any offence of which the person has been convicted;

(vii) compassionate circumstances;

(viii) any representations received on the person’s behalf.

In the case of family members, the factors listed in paragraphs 365-368 must also be taken into account.

The flaw is that, as you can see, the paragraph makes no mention whatsoever of human rights. Arguments under this rule have a completely different legal basis additional to and more generous than human rights arguments. I don’t think this sort of legal nicety will bother May and her speech writers, however. The arguments made under paragraph 395C are basically the same as made under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Paragraph 395C was a surprisingly generous addition to the rules when it was introduced in 2006 following the deportation debacle, and it also, by a legal quirk, gives huge discretion to immigration judges to make up their own mind about how to dispose of a case. That is the very last thing that the last two governments seem to want – allowing judges to judge cases on their merit under national and international law.

The forced marriage law was simply symbolic

With good reason, the supreme court has declared unlawful a ban on under-21-year-old spouses coming to the UK

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Source: Guardian

Cameron outlines new measures on immigration

Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday outlined the government’s plans to get a grip on immigration into Britain. The Prime Minister set out changes to work, student and family migration routes to tackle abuse and ensure that those coming to Britain will be good for the country and drive economic growth.

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Source: www.homeoffice.gov.uk

Asylum Seekers deported back to the first EU countries they entered

Awet spreads his hands out and shows us his scarred fingertips. “He burned his fingertips so he could apply for asylum like a new person,” explains his friend.

A group of men are gathered in the back room of a large squat on the outskirts of Rome, talking about their struggle to beat the European asylum system. They explain that it is common for asylum seekers to burn their fingers, so the fingerprint record of their entry into Italy is destroyed.

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Source: Guardian

Maya The Cat

Source: Free Movement

I have so far refrained from any mention of cats, although I came THIS close to asking in examination in chief yesterday whether my clients owned a cat…

You can read the disputed determination for yourself here, courtesy of The New Statesman. You can also read the reasons for yourself. Theresa May was ‘making it up’, basically. Alex Mik has sent in a more thoughtful piece on human rights reporting generally, which I am happy to reproduce below.

As a postscript to the judgment, Maya the Cat is still apparently going strong, as are the gay couple at the centre of the determination. You’d have thought The Daily Mail would be happy about that, but apparently not…

Can we have a little more responsible journalism please?

Much has been written recently about Daily Mail reporting, specifically their dreadful handling of the Amanda Knox trial. This has been covered by a number of better qualified outlets so I won’t focus on this. My attention was drawn to the Daily Mail’s reporting of what is being imaginatively tiled ‘catgate’. It was not the first time my attention had been drawn to it, as it was when the story was originally published in the Sunday Telegraph back in 2009. The story was inaccurate then and it continues to be inaccurate now. The problem is that the mistakes are getting bigger, and there is no need for them.

As soon as Mrs May mentioned the cat people were trying to find the case. The UK Human Rights Blog had time to publish two articles about it, the first of which gave a link to the actual Upper Tier Tribunal determination. The determination makes clear that the cat was irrelevant to the decision to let the individual remain in this country (The decision was reached because the Home Office were not following their own guidance). This was published around 2pm on 4^th October. How is it then that two days later the Daily Mail’s front page article offers a story exclaiming “Truth about Tory catfight: Judge DID rule migrant’s pet was a reason he shouldn’t be deported”? It is the capitals that catch the attention. Much like Mrs May’s “and I’m not making this up”, it is almost as if they feel if they emphasise their mistake it will make more people accept it as truth.

Are we to believe that the piece, which actually credits three authors, was a genuine mistake? That not one of the three established journalists picked up on the accurate story? Or is it that they just preferred their story, as it fit into a wider narrative about the Human Rights Act being something with which criminals are somehow able to cheat the system and remain in this country, no doubt in a 6 bedroom council mansion complete with giant flatscreen tv.  The same goes for Mrs May. Did nobody in her camp check the facts? Or is it a case of throwing enough mud and seeing what sticks.

I haven’t the time or the inclination to check every story the tabloids publish, but I’ve followed immigration stories with interest. Here are some recent examples:

“Nigerian rapist who can’t be deported because European judges say it would violate his right to family life” ­This article appeared in on 20^th September 2011. It was an account of Akindoyin Akinshipe, “24, who was due to be sent home after losing appeal after appeal in the British courts over his jailing for an attack on a girl of 13”. While I’m not disputing that a terrible crime took place, the article wilfully misleads the reader, the crime having taken place when Akinshipe was 15. Rape is a serious crime (a crime for which he was punished), but the paper’s take on it adds a paedophilic dimension, creating an image of the individual as a sexual predator. Again, I’m not trivialising the crime, which was extremely serious, but the individual was sentences for his crime and he served his sentence. The newspaper in question or the readership may take issue with the sentence but that is an entirely different debate, and has little to do with Article 8 of the Human Rights Act. As the paper points out, ‘the probation service said there was a low risk of him committing further offences”, and in the time the Home Office took to decide to attempt to deport him “he had obtained three A-levels, and he was about to finish a degree in economics and banking”. Leaving aside the various moral arguments around bankers and economists, this individual had by most accounts turned his life around. That the newspaper should try and hold him up as a poster boy for their campaign against the Human Rights Act is depressing.

On 14^th September 2011, the same paper had a story with the headline “98,000 asylum seekers have been ‘lost’ by bungling immigration workers”. Part way through the article it explains that “Many have been told they must leave but are mounting human rights or other legal challenges to escape deportation.” This is painted in a negative light. It entirely ignores the fact that many of these asylum seekers would not be mounting human rights or other legal challenges to escape deportation if there wasn’t an argument to be made. Many of these people have been here for over a decade, waiting for the Home Office to sort themselves out. A lot have been given permission to work and do so, paying taxes, contributing to society while unable to leave the country until their claim is decided. There is also an entirely separate article to be written about the tabloid’s liberal interchanging of ‘asylum seekers’ , ‘refugees’ and ‘illegal immigrants’. Refugee Council for one offer training on this sort of thing. Suggest one or two editors take them up on it.

“Most migrants on a marriage visa have never visited the UK before”, appeared on 15^th September 2011. This is probably just me, one of those liberal elites that the government have talked about, but I can’t see how this is a problem. I’ve found that generally marriages aren’t about countries, they’re about the two people getting married. Really, this kind of thing should probably be encouraged by these anti-immigration espousers.  I suspect a lot of spouses upon getting here and seeing the kind of headlines spewed out by our most popular newspapers will feel unwelcome and leave again, taking their partner with them, providing more room for the rest of us. It should also be pointed out that there isn’t a requirement in the rules for spouses to have visited here (possibly because it would make courtships unnecessarily expensive), as the Immigration Rules are more focused on important things like ensuring the marriage is genuine and subsisting. In addition the article raises concerns that “many of those coming here to marry or to join partners have little knowledge and understanding of British culture.” I’m 25 years old, have spent most of my life in the UK, and I’m not sure what British culture it is that they’re talking about. Is it the binge drinking culture I read so much of in the same papers? Is it the films or music? I suspect a lot of applicants have heard of Keira Knightley, Ian McKellen and the Beatles. Realistically our best bits are exported, you don’t ever need to have been to this country to enjoy The Office, our cricket team or our cuisine.

On 22^nd February 2011 the same paper produced an article headed “Immigration fears of the young as almost three-quarters say it is a problem.” Is it any wonder that this is the case when the young are fed such irresponsible journalism on such a regular basis.

As we’ve been told by our political leaders countless times, there needs to be a debate about immigration but we cannot have one while so many, the Home Secretary included, are so badly misinformed.

Alex Mik

Asylum seeker fell from balcony after taunts

An asylum seeker, who climbed on to a balcony of a Nottingham tower block after his claim was refused, fell to his death after a ‘baying’ crowd urged him to jump, an inquest has heard.

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Source: BBC News

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