Asylum deportation flights need rights monitors, EU says
March 16, 2010 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
The Guardian
The bigger picture on asylum
March 16, 2010 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
The Gauardian
Systemic evidence of torture ignored
March 15, 2010 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
The Observer
Government ramps up passenger screening
March 15, 2010 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
UKBA – The UK’s latest weapon in the fight against terrorists, known criminals and would-be illegal migrants was opened today by the Home Secretary Alan Johnson.
The national border targeting centre is the UK Border Agency’s hi-tech hub where watch-list checks on passengers entering and leaving Britain will be carried out.
Same day removals condemned
March 15, 2010 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
Free Movement – Further to my alerter post on this last month, the judgment is now available in the damning Third Country removals case on children. It is called R (on the application of T) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] EWHC 435 (Admin).
New long residence case
March 12, 2010 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
Free Movement – In the case of MD (Jamaica) & Anor v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] EWCA Civ 213 the Court of Appeal has dismissed two appeals against refusals under the long residence immigration rules.
In both cases the immigrants had short gaps in their lawful residence and had been refused under the ten years rule. One of them had a gap of just 38 days on one occasion. The Court followed a strict interpretation of the rules and also dismissed the appeals under Article 8, upholding the decisions of the tribunal below.
This is not the first time long residence has featured on this blog and in recent case law. UKBA have been changing their approach to the rules quite significantly over the last few years, scrapping a fairly generous policy then re-introducing a less generous version of it more recently. However, the Court of Appeal is quite clear: the rules mean what they say and to succeed under the rules the residence must be continuous and lawful.
New route to citizenship for refugees in Britain
March 12, 2010 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
UKBA – The UK Border Agency has announced that refugees and migrants with humanitarian protection in the UK will be allowed to apply for settlement and British citizenship under the current rules if their initial five-year permission to stay here will end between August 2010 and the date when the ‘earned citizenship’ system comes into force (scheduled for July 2011).
If you are granted refugee status or humanitarian protection in the UK, we initially give you permission to stay here (also known as ‘limited leave to remain’) for five years. Under the current rules, you can apply for permission to settle here permanently (also known as ‘indefinite leave to remain’) when your initial permission to stay ends. When you are given indefinite leave to remain, we say that you are ‘free of immigration time restrictions’. If you have been free of immigration time restrictions for one year, and you meet certain other requirements, you can apply for British citizenship. The Leave to remain and Can I be naturalised as a British citizen? sections of this website contain more information.
The UK government is now changing the way that migrants progress to British citizenship. We expect that the new system of ‘earned citizenship’, which includes a stage of ‘probationary citizenship’, will come into force in July 2011.
UK: Legacy cases and children
March 12, 2010 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
New Zimbabwe – MANY of the so called “legacy cases” are being resolved by the United Kingdom Border Agency. Figures published this week show that the UKBA is dealing with approximately 5,000 cases per month.
Not all of the cases are resulting in the granting of leave to remain, but the vast majority are being granted Indefinite Leave to Remain in the UK. (Please see previous posts on legacy cases).
With the granting of ILR comes a set of new challenges for many migrants living in the UK. Many people left Zimbabwe for political and economic reasons. It was difficult to travel as a family due to financial constraints or the uncertainty of life in the UK. As a result, many families were separated by the move to the diaspora in the early 2000’s.
The separation between parents and children has been heartbreaking for both parents and children. The purpose of this post is to highlight the difficulties that can be encountered in making an application for children to join their parents in the UK. It is not a straightforward issue.
The immigration rules in summary require that the applicant (child) meet the following criteria:
They must be under 18 years of age, and show that they cannot support themselves financially, are not married or in a civil partnership and are not living independently away from your parents.
A child cannot normally go to live in the UK if one parent is living abroad, unless the parent in the UK has sole responsibility for the child, or if there are special reasons why the child should be allowed to join the parent in the UK
Parents must live in the UK legally, with no time limit on their stay.
One parent is living and settled in the UK or is applying for settlement at the same time as applicant, and has had sole responsibility for looking after the applicant
Parents can support applicant without help from public funds
Parents have enough accommodation, which they own or live in, where you can live without help from public funds, and
The applicant is the child of those seeking to come to the UK.
The difficulties that may be faced by many parents will be that they may find it difficult to show that they can support their children without recourse to public funds. Many have been out of work for many years waiting for their cases to be resolved.
It is also difficult to obtain employment during this recession. It may, therefore, take several months for parents that have been granted Indefinite Leave to Remain to be reunited with their children.
The “sole responsibility” rule causes such applications to be very complex, as the meaning of the term cannot be precise. Every family’s situation is unique. For example, sole responsibility is not the same as legal custody, even though the question of who has legal custody will be a relevant consideration in deciding whether a parent has sole responsibility.
How is the term understood by the Border and Immigration Agency (BIA) of the Home Office, and by courts and tribunals in the UK?
The parent based in the UK is known as the “sponsor” of the application and will be the motivating force behind it. The child overseas is known as the “applicant”.
To meet the sole responsibility requirement, it is necessary to satisfy the Home Office that the sponsoring parent has, usually for a substantial period of time, been the chief person exercising parental responsibility for the child. This means that the sponsoring parent has had and still has the ultimate responsibility for the major decisions relating to the child’s upbringing and provides the child with the majority of the financial and emotional support it requires.
The sponsoring parent must show that he or she has had, and continues to have, care and control of the child.
It has been accepted by the courts that many parents would find it impossible to establish literal or absolute “sole responsibility”, since in the majority of situations the other parent has at least some responsibility for their child’s upbringing. Moreover, there will be many situations in which the parents are separated and the sponsoring parent has left their child in the care of other relatives and gone to the UK without the child.
The Home Office instructions to BIA caseworkers, in the form of internal guidance, states that they expect that where the child is being looked after by relatives, they should be the relatives of the sponsor rather than of the child’s other parent. In such a case, the sponsoring parent must still show that she or he has retained the ultimate responsibility for the child’s upbringing and provides the majority of the emotional and financial support needed.
The guidance to BIA caseworkers suggests that an application should normally be refused where, for example, the child is being cared for by the father’s relatives but it is the mother who has applied for the child to join her in the UK.
The fatal failings of the UK asylum system
March 10, 2010 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
The Guardian – Last weekend, three members of a family jumped together to their deaths from a Glasgow tower block. It’s said that they were Russians whose asylum claims had been rejected. However, most deaths among asylum seekers don’t make national news, as is made clear by a report compiled by Harmit Athwal for the Institute for Race Relations in 2006.
Driven to Desperate Measures catalogued the deaths of 213 asylum seekers, refugees and migrant workers who had been murdered in racist attacks or died in accidents since 1989; 57 had killed themselves, and – a little-known, appalling fact – nine of these had set themselves on fire, mostly in public places; and 11 died at their own hands in immigration detention centres or holding centres. But most of the suicides took place in the community, which can be a cold place for fugitives from horrors most of us will never have to face.
I rang Athwal to ask if there had been more suicides since her grim dossier came out. She opened a file and counted up to 39, although this, she said, wasn’t a comprehensive figure. She is the only person keeping count, getting details from asylum seeker and refugee networks, NGOs, charities, campaigners, social workers and local papers.
Glasgow deaths raise concern over treatment of asylum seekers
March 9, 2010 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
Ekklesia – A charity has expressed concern at the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers after three people plunged to their deaths from the 15th floor of a block of flats in Glasgow.
The tragic incident took place on Sunday morning, 7 March 2010.
Police have been investigating the deaths of two men and a woman at the Red Road block of flats in the Springburn area of Glasgow, reports Independent Catholic News (http://www.indcatholicnews.com/).
The identity of the three has not been confirmed, but neighbours believe they may be asylum seekers from Kosovo whose applications were rejected.
Robina Qureshi, the director of Positive Action in Housing (PAH), said: “The Red Road flats has housed hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers. We are concerned because [many] of our clients who are from refugee communities were living in the area. They live their daily lives under extreme pressure for years because their lives are on hold while they wait to hear if they will be granted leave to remain by the UK Borders Agency.”
Qureshi added: “As staff, we are daily confronted with the reality of asylum seekers coming into the office crying and upset because they have just been told they must leave the country and their money and housing is stopped a week later. It’s a big shock, having nowhere to live, no money for food, and being forbidden to work, and it’s like this for years, then they are faced with their biggest terror, destitution, disappearing or being detained.”
