The Rwanda Bill must not succeed

22 February 2024: Think-Film: Oscar-nominated film “Io Capitano”

Oscar-nominated film “Io Capitano” is a vital story that shows why the Rwanda Bill must not succeed! People who risk everything for a better life deserve safety and human rights protection. We urge Parliament to exercise compassion and vote against the Bill.

Watch this impactful and urgent film in UK cinemas on April 5th!

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/rioxz4qag6wqkawkvq33i/h?rlkey=mg3ahcb7pyc68o0w5y2stc390&dl=0

Think-Film: https://tfip.org/

QARN Leaflets: Download them here

8 February 2024: Please note that in our leaflet: ‘QARN – What do Quakers hope for, after the 2024 General Election‘, we mention a model letter for MPs. We have instead produced a crib sheet to highlight the concerns raised in the leaflet, in the hope that people can use this to write to/ speak with prospective MPs or wherever it is useful.

Please feel free to download, print off and distribute this one page cribsheet, and use it in the coming months as appropriate.


August 2023: New leaflets available:

  • About QARN
  • QARN – What do Quakers hope for, after the 2024 General Election **
  • QARN – Britain’s Hostile Environment
  • QARN – Immigration Detention
Continue reading “QARN Leaflets: Download them here”

QARN next meetings

QARN meetings: next planned meeting dates: on Zoom on Saturdays: April 13th 2024, July 6th to include the AGM which will be a blended meeting held face-to-face between 11am and 4pm at Bradford-on-Avon Meeting as well as on Zoom,   October 12th, and January 11th 2025.

We usually meet quarterly using Zoom and all Quakers are welcome. We plan to start at 10.30am to manage the technical aspects of a Zoom meeting, falling quiet at around 10.45am, and beginning business at 11am; and we aim to end around 12.30pm. The meeting link will  be available to those who receive our emails, but for other people, please contact us via info@qarn.org.uk giving your name, and the Quaker Meeting to which you are attached. Thank you.

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Together with Refugees – show your support

QARN is a signatory to Together With Refugees: please get involved in their campaigns.

30 January 2024: Fair Begins Here Valentine’s Day action – campaign toolkit

With the government pushing its inhumane Rwanda scheme back through Parliament, our new campaign Fair Begins Here couldn’t be more urgent or important. Fair Begins Here puts the theme of fairness at its heart – because now is the moment for a fairer and more compassionate approach towards refugees in the UK. To learn more about the context and aims of the campaign, you can watch back our online briefing session here. 

This Valentine’s Day on February 14th we invite you to stand up for fairness for refugees by launching Fair Begins Here in your community and joining thousands of people sending messages of kindness to refugees across the country. The Valentine’s Day action will kickstart the biggest ever call for political leaders of all parties to introduce a fair new plan for refugees in the UK. 

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Your stories of Sanctuary

We want to collate stories to explain how the hostile environment impacts on people seeking asylum

Are you involved with people who have been granted a positive decision, but then find themselves homeless because of the short notice they are given to leave their asylum accommodation?

We seek to bring together some of the observations that our Meetings of Sanctuary have made regarding the recent ramping up/harshening of the hostile environment. We would like to include both the good things that Meetings of Sanctuary and others are doing and the bad things they might have witnessed locally.

We ask that information does not put anyone at increased risk, and we do not need to know the names of people in a vulnerable situation.  

Please send stories to Sheila Mosley – info@qarn.org.uk . Stories received will appear below:

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Urgent notice: Home Office offers of ‘voluntary departure’ to Rwanda

14 March 2024:We have received reports that the Home Office is calling people to offer ‘voluntary departure’ to Rwanda. 

This scheme is separate to the initial Rwanda policy (which was defeated in the Supreme Court), the Rwanda Treaty which was recently signed by the Home Secretary, and the Safety of Rwanda Bill which is currently being rushed through Parliament. 

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Working together to end immigration detention

15 March 2024: PICUM: Working together to end immigration detention: A collection of noteworthy practices

Executive Summary
This briefing presents noteworthy practices at the national and European Union (EU) level related to safeguarding the rights of people in immigration detention and ultimately ending detention for migration purposes, by focusing on a wide range of actors spanning from civil society to national governments. It focuses on three advocacy objectives:

  1. raising the visibility of detention and its harms,
  2. ending the detention of children in the context of migration, and
  3. implementing community-based solutions that can ultimately prevent and contribute to ending detention.

The first chapter of the briefing explores civil society efforts aimed at unveiling what happens in immigration detention centres as well as the harmful impact of immigration detention itself. Ensuring that people in detention speak to the outside world and giving NGOs access to detention centres have been identified as the most important tools in this
regard. It is also contended that further research, as well as litigation and advocacy, related to the right to communicate is needed. NGOs in the Netherlands and the UK have set up hotline systems to establish contact with individuals in detention, most of whom do not have access to their mobile phones. In Italy, strategic litigation has challenged the state’s denial to grant NGOs access to detention facilities. Both activities – phone communication and civil society visits – can be seen as part of a wider advocacy strategy advocacy to end immigrant detention, as exemplified by the work of civil society coalitions and organisations in Belgium, Italy and the United Kingdom, among others.

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People seeking asylum in London face malnutrition, but there is scope for local action

12 March 2024: Sustain: People seeking asylum in London face malnutrition, but there is scope for local action

New report finds food insecurity and malnutrition are commonplace for people seeking asylum in London, and outlines key areas for local action.

New report, Food experiences of people seeking asylum in London: areas for local action, published today by Sustain, finds serious issues with food access for people seeking asylum in London. Key areas for local action are outlined, with recommendations of how councils can work with local actors to improve the situation.

Serious concerns were raised about food provided in catered accommodation, with evidence of poor food safety and lack of provision for people with medical conditions and allergies, in some cases leading to hospitalisation. Key issues were raised around unsafe infant feeding with parents lacking access to equipment to sterilise and store bottles, and food being inappropriate for children, who were losing significant amounts of weight. People want to have choice over what they eat and be able to cook their own meals. This was particularly important to mothers, who were deeply impacted by not being able to provide for their children, who were becoming malnourished.

Sustain worked with Jesuit Refugee Service UK and Life Seekers Aid to conduct the research between October 2023 and February 2024. This included focus groups with people with lived experience of the asylum system, interviews with local authorities, healthcare providers and voluntary and community sector organisations, and a workshop with local authorities.

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International Women’s Day – 8 March 2024

International Women’s Day: International Women’s Day 2024 campaign theme is ‘Inspire Inclusion’

The campaign theme for International Women’s Day 2024 is Inspire Inclusion.

When we inspire others to understand and value women’s inclusion, we forge a better world. And when women themselves are inspired to be included, there’s a sense of belonging, relevance, and empowerment.

Collectively, let’s forge a more inclusive world for women. Read more about a definition of what it means to inspire inclusion here.

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Looking tough on migration is eroding human rights

6 March 2024: Politico: Looking tough on migration is eroding human rights

Curtailing migrant rights may help score quick political gains, but electoral success doesn’t give governments carte blanche to place themselves above the law.

Europe’s insistence on looking tough on migration is endangering rule of law across the Continent.

Pursuing ever more stringent asylum and migration policies, European countries are not only perpetuating human rights violations against asylum seekers and migrants; they are also dismantling collective human rights safeguards, as well as eroding wider legal and democratic checks and balances that protect all our rights.

The upcoming adoption of the United Kingdom’s Safety of Rwanda Bill, currently working its way through the House of Lords, is perhaps the starkest illustration of this dangerous trajectory.

Continue reading “Looking tough on migration is eroding human rights”

6 March 2024: Guardian: Von der Leyen’s EU group plans Rwanda-style asylum schemes

Centre-right European People’s party says it wants to create deportation deals with non-EU countries to head off rise of far right

The European Commission chief, Ursula von der Leyen, has given her support to controversial migration reforms that would involve deporting people to third countries for asylum processing and the imposition of a quota system for those receiving protection in EU countries.

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The chief inspector of borders and immigration angered ministers by exposing an ineffective, cruel system

4 March 2024: Hansard: Dame Diana Johnson  (Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Office if he will make a statement on the publication of 13 reports by the former independent chief inspector of borders and immigration on 29 February and how the inspectorate will now operate in the absence of a chief inspector or deputy?

Read more: https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2024-03-04/debates/97CB98BE-699C-408F-8B53-1CA4500848D6/IndependentChiefInspectorOfBordersAndImmigration


3 March 2024: Guardian: The Guardian view on asylum failures: David Neal was sacked for telling the truth

The chief inspector of borders and immigration angered ministers by exposing an ineffective, cruel system

here is a role in public life, for sure, for people who speak truth to power,” said David Neal, the sacked UK borders inspector, at a hearing of the home affairs select committee last week. It is a role that Mr Neal, who once commanded the 1st Military Police Brigade, did his best to perform. Independent inspectorates play a vital role in upholding standards – particularly when their job is to inspect places otherwise hidden from view. Often, they reveal problems that make ministers uncomfortable. But the truths unearthed by Mr Neal about the borders and asylum system are ones they do not want even to hear.

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Children left adrift on small boats

4 March 2024: Guardian: Fears UK coastguards left children adrift on small boats before Channel tragedy

Children heard crying on 999 calls from boats in days before mass drowning, records suggest, yet logs contain no record of rescue attempts

Children – including babies – are feared to have been left adrift in small boats in the Channel by overwhelmed UK rescue agencies days before a mass drowning in 2021, prompting the former children’s commissioner to call for an investigation.

In at least nine incidents in coastguard logs, obtained by the Guardian and Liberty Investigates, no attempt to establish the safety of small boats containing children is recorded after calls for help.

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Child asylum seekers in UK made to play game about who gets foster care places

1 March 2024: Guardian: Child asylum seekers in UK made to play game about who gets foster care places

Home Office inquiry opens after ‘insensitive, upsetting’ treatment of children in hotel, who had to guess who would be next to leave

The Home Office has launched an inquiry after staff made unaccompanied asylum-seeking children play a game in which they had to guess who would be the next one to be placed in foster care, a watchdog’s report has disclosed.

The report, one of 13 written by the borders inspectorate and released on Thursday, also found that agency workers employed to look after children as young as nine had received “insufficient” background checks and training.

The findings from David Neal were set out in stark terms finally published by the Home Office on Thursday after months of delays.

Continue reading “Child asylum seekers in UK made to play game about who gets foster care places”

Publication of correspondence: Letter to Home Secretary following David Neal session

29 February 2024: Home Affairs Select Committee: The Home Affairs Committee has written to the Home Secretary, James Cleverly, with questions following its evidence session with former Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI), David Neal.

The letter highlights key concerns raised in the session and request further information on an number of issues, including the role of ICIBI and the impact of the post remaining vacant; outstanding ICIBI reports and their publication; the situation at Wethersfield asylum accommodation centre; and UK border operations.

Chair’s comment

Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, Dame Diana Johnson said:

“We were deeply troubled by what we heard at yesterday’s session with David Neal. Irrespective of the whys and wherefores of his dismissal, we are left with yet another Home Office mess. The ICIBI is a vital part of scrutinising border operations but it is left without leadership for months. 15 reports remain unpublished by the Home Office and we have to wonder how far the Home Office will have taken on board their findings to improve border operations. We have asked them to set out how they intend to restore the authority and effectiveness of this vital role.

“We are also concerned about the conditions at Wethersfield and have asked the Home Office to allow us to see for ourselves what is going on here.”

https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/83/home-affairs-committee/news/200152/