QuakerQARN – Page 3

March 4, 2024March 4, 2024

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.

March 1, 2024

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.

March 1, 2024

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/

March 1, 2024March 1, 2024

New reports from ICIBI and Home Office responses

Dave Neal, who has been ICIBI was sacked – see this report: https://qarn.org.uk/its-scandalous/. He has complained throughout his time as ICIBI that the Home Office was slow, sometimes very slow to publish his Department’s reports. They have now published 13 of them all at once. In his absence the ICIBI team will be unable to act until there is a new appointee.

The role of the Independent Chief Inspector is to help improve the efficiency, effectiveness and consistency of the Home Office’s border and immigration functions through unfettered, impartial and evidence-based inspection.

His findings and recommendations for improvement to the Home Office are captured in inspection reports. They are submitted to the Home Secretary and laid before Parliament before publication.

The Independent Chief Inspector has developed a set of expectations against which his staff conduct inspections.

The Home Office publishes official responses to the ICIBI reports.

29 Feb 2024: Inspection reports by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI) 12 long-awaited reports have now been released by the Home Office. The publication of some of these reports has been delayed by the Home Secretary for many months past the agreed time scales.

March 1, 2024March 1, 2024

ICIBI: How a sacked official blew the whistle on new lows in the asylum system

28 February 2024: Guardian: Wednesday briefing: How a sacked official blew the whistle on new lows in the asylum system

In today’s newsletter: Why David Neal lost his job, and what he had to say about the faltering immigration system

Good morning. When then-home secretary Priti Patel appointed David Neal as the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration in 2021, the Commons home affairs committee refused to endorse the decision. They were worried that the recruitment process had been inadequate and said they had seen no evidence that he was “confident to challenge performance publicly”. Well, they’ve seen it now.

Last week, David Neal was sacked from his job by James Cleverly, now the home secretary, just a month before he was due to stand down. Neal’s crime was to disclose unauthorised information to the media – a tactic that he appears to have resorted to after 15 reports he wrote uncovering problems with the immigration system went unpublished, instead gathering dust on a Home Office shelf. Now Neal has told the same parliamentary committee of “shocking leadership” at the Home Office and said he was “sacked for doing my job” – and his testimony paints a grim picture of the state of the accommodation centres where the government houses asylum seekers.

February 22, 2024April 8, 2024

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/

February 20, 2024February 21, 2024

It’s scandalous

Updated 20 February 2024: The Government is really angry with Dave Neal for speaking out: BBC: Immigration watchdog sacked after critical news stories

Mr Neal, whose tenure was due to end on 21 March, told the Times on Tuesday that he had not made the decision to speak to the media “lightly”. He added: “But I’ve been forced into this because my reports aren’t being published.”

“I’ve spent all my working life protecting this country, I’ve identified a security failing and I’ve brought it back to the Home Office,” he is quoted as saying.

“There’s a strong public interest here and that’s why I’ve done what I’ve done. The border is there to keep us safe, it’s critical that there are clear auditable risk decisions made to protect every one of us in the country.”

February 9, 2024February 9, 2024

Concerns about the use of barges, army barracks, hotels, offshoring etc etc. continued 2023

This post follows on from the initial post which became very long, but can be found here: https://qarn.org.uk/concerns-about-the-use-of-army-barracks-etc/. Here we update the post with reports of atrocities around the army camp accommodation and hotels, and other Home Office plans to accommodate people in new sites. These are the consequences of the hostile system that leaves people languishing without a decision for long periods of time.

See also posts regarding ‘Detention Centres‘ such as such as Hassockfield/Derwentside and also the post regarding plans to export people seeking asylum to Rwanda

Re: children: https://qarn.org.uk/article-39-seeks-legal-protection-for-highly-vulnerable-children-housed-in-home-office-hotels/

9 February 2024: BBC: Bibby Stockholm: Government to investigate migrants’ baptisms

The home secretary is investigating how the asylum system deals with migrants who have converted to Christianity.

It follows claims from a Weymouth church that Muslim men living on board the Bibby Stockholm barge, which is moored off Portland in Dorset, were preparing for Christian baptism.

Sussex MP Tim Loughton raised the issue in Parliament on Wednesday.

Weymouth Baptist Church insisted the requests for baptism were genuine.

People can apply for UK asylum based on religion if you have a well-founded fear of persecution in your home country because of your religious beliefs.

January 30, 2024April 8, 2024

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 14^th 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.

January 29, 2024January 31, 2024

Court, Parliament and Rwanda

29 January 2024: Joint statement on Rwanda Bill for Lords 2nd reading

Joint civil society statement on the Rwanda Bill for Second Reading in the House of Lords

The Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill is a constitutionally extraordinary and deeply harmful piece of legislation.

It threatens the universality of human rights and is likely in breach of international law, striking a serious blow to the UK’s commitment to the rule of law.

It was not a Government manifesto commitment – on the contrary, it will hinder the UK’s ability to “continue to grant asylum and support to refugees fleeing persecution”.

As a coalition of more than 260 organisations working in and across the UK, we call on Peers to reject the Bill at Second Reading.

The Rwanda Bill undermines the principle that human rights are universal – that they apply to all of us, regardless of where we are from.