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Quaker response to UK Borders Agency review of detention of children

Review into ending the detention of children for immigration purposes

1. We welcome the Government`s commitment to ending the detention of children for immigration purposes and this opportunity of making a submission to the UK Border Agency’s review. We hope that this may be a first step to reducing the reliance on immigration detention for adults.

2. We welcome also the recognition that this review will take place within a framework of international EU and human rights obligations and the duty of the UK Borders Agency to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in carrying out its functions under section 55 Borders Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009. Continue reading “Quaker response to UK Borders Agency review of detention of children”

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Medical Justice welcomes the announcement to close the facilities to detain children at Yarl’s Wood.

Press release : Nick Clegg’s announcement on ending detention of children today

We agree with Nick Clegg that detaining children at Yarl’s Wood is a “moral outrage”. So too is the continued indefinite and arbitrary detention of vulnerable women at Yarl’s Wood, including torture survivors, pregnant women, victims of trafficking and women with serious medical conditions, some of whom are denied adequate medical care. We believe that the harm being caused by Yarl’s Wood is so extensive that the only solution is to close it down. We therefore call on the government to close Yarl’s Wood in its entirety today. Continue reading “Medical Justice welcomes the announcement to close the facilities to detain children at Yarl’s Wood.”

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SERCO contract continues with Yarls Wood until April 2013 – £32m

Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre contract extension

Our contract to operate, manage and maintain the Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre on behalf of the UK Border Agency has been extended for a further three years from April 2010 to April 2013. The extension is valued at around £32m.

http://www.serco.com/media/pressreleases/contractnewsupdate10.asp

Private Eye: OTHER TOP STORIES IN THE LATEST ISSUE: – ASYLUM CENTRES:
The coalition vows to stop locking up child asylum seekers – but, after some serious schmoozing, hands Serco another £32m to keep running Yarl’s Wood. http://www.private-eye.co.uk/sections.php?section_link=in_the_back

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ECDN record of campaign against detention of children

End Child Detention  Now press campaign: http://claresambrook.com/campaign-page/campaign-page.html

Through the Summer of 2009 six friends helped a small family who had been split up and imprisoned simply because they had exercised their legal right to claim asylum in this country.

One family’s story
The father was separated from his wife and toddler for nine months. The two year old child was left parentless for 4 days. This traumatised family was reunited by uniformed guards in a car-park, then locked up in Yarl’s Wood for 26 days.

The 31st solicitor we called agreed to represent them. Eventually they were released and permitted leave to remain here. There had never been any reason to detain them.

We know this family. We felt furious and ashamed about what our government did to them. So we launched what we hoped would be the shortest campaign in British political history. We called it End Child Detention Now. This page is about our press campaign, led by Clare Sambrook. You can read more about the full campaign here. Continue reading “ECDN record of campaign against detention of children”

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Trees only move in the wind – A study of unaccompanied Afghan children in Europe

6. Conclusion and recommendations [see full report UNHCR AFGHAN CHILDREN JUNE 2010]

233. The interviews conducted in the preparation of this study indicate that unaccompanied Afghan children who make the long trip to Europe are deeply and negatively affected by their experience. As well as the hardships and abuses of the journey, after arrival they are confronted with the prospect of forced return to Afghanistan, coupled with continuing pressure from family members to send remittances home, so that the debts incurred to pay for the journey can be paid off.
234. As stated by a recent study of asylum seeking children in the Netherlands23, “their vulnerability … is increased by the problems they are likely to develop as a result of the lengthy, uncertain and deprived circumstances of their stay in the host country.” Continue reading “Trees only move in the wind – A study of unaccompanied Afghan children in Europe”

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Sample letter in support of suspension of forced removals to Baghdad, Iraq

Letter to:

Lord Navnit Dholakia
House of Lords
Westminster
London SW1A 0PW

Dear Navnit Dholakia,

As a member of the Quaker Asylum and Refugee Network I am writing to support your recent call for the suspension of deportations of Iraqis to Baghdad (22 June 2010, House of Lords). I deplore the fact that this call did not receive the response it deserved from the Foreign Ministry spokesman, Lord Howell.

It is heartening that you and your fellow Liberal Democrat peers are in favour of the moratorium, as are a number of peers of other persuasions.

However, the Coalition Government policy on this is surely unacceptable. It seems that deportations are to continue irrespective of the concerns raised over both the immediate and the long-term safety of many of the deportees. These concerns continue to be raised by no lesser authority than the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, supported by Amnesty International, Oxfam and others.

Recently, the government has shown itself capable of accepting enlightened positions, notably the decision of the Supreme Court on Gay asylum seekers. Should you not be pressing it further on the matter of the Iraqi deportees? Can any self-respecting government be allowed systematically to oppose the UNHCR and the humanitarian organisations?

Yours sincerely,

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Permission to Work

We’ve teamed up with Still Human Still Here to urge the government to get behind more sensible rules for asylum seekers which allow them to work if they’ve been in the UK for more than six months.

E-mail your MP now in 2 minutes and ask them to sign a declaration which supports asylum seekers being allowed to get jobs to pay their own way if they’ve been in the UK for over six months. If they change the rules, taxpayers won’t be paying benefits to support people who are able to work, but aren’t allowed to. It means that asylum seekers won’t be relying on charity to get by. And those who are allowed to stay in the UK will find it much easier to become part of British society if they’ve already been given a chance to work.

Just enter your postcode to get started – it will only take 2 minutes.

http://www.38degrees.org.uk/page/speakout/PermissionToWork

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Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit – Urgent: We need your help

On 28th June 2010 we received news of the decision by the Legal Services Commission to cut our legal aid contract to provide immigration legal advice and representation from October 2010. See our statement below.

It amounts to a 70% cut in the amount of legal aid we can provide.

We will not take this lying down, and we need you to help us to fight this.

We work with some of the most vulnerable people for whom the asylum system has already done an injustice. Daily we see people who have been un-represented because they weren’t able to get legal advice, or they got advice for their asylum claim but when it came to appeal their legal representative turned them away – because the work isn’t profitable.

This is what you can do Continue reading “Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit – Urgent: We need your help”

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BECOMING VULNERABLE IN DETENTION: Jesuit Refugee Service -Europe

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The objective of the DEVAS project was to investigate and analyse vulnerability in detained asylum seekers and
irregular migrants: both the way in which pre-existing vulnerable groups cope with detention, and the way in which detention can enable vulnerability in persons who do not otherwise possess officially recognised vulnerabilities and special needs.

In partnership with NGOs in 23 EU Member States, JRS-Europe oversaw the collection of 685 one-on-one interviews with detainees. The size and scope of the sample reveals that, despite the diversity of personal circumstances of the detainees, detention does have a common negative effect upon the persons who experience it. In addition to detainees, project partners interviewed detention centre staff and other NGOs operating within the centres, and conducted a survey of asylum and immigration laws in their respective countries. This data is included within each of the 22 national reports that are published in the full DEVAS report.

This study builds on previous reports and projects that investigated vulnerability in detention. It analyses the situation of individuals and groups that possess officially recognised special needs, such as minors, young women with children, the elderly and persons with medical illness. But this study also analyses the situation of detainees who often go unnoticed: young single men, persons without stated physical and mental health needs, and persons in prolonged detention. Most importantly, this study pushes the discussion on vulnerability and detention one step further because its results are based exclusively on the voices of detainees. Thus the understanding of vulnerability that emerges from this study characterises the experiences of detainees as they told it themselves.

Full report here: JRS-Europe_BecomingVulnerableInDetention June 2010

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Destitution in Leicester 2010

Launched during Refugee Week, June 2010

Executive summary

Between 1 and 26 February 2010 six organisations (Refugee Action, British Red Cross, the ASSIST Surgery, LASS, the Leicestershire Congolese Mutual Group and the Welcome Project) from within the LVSF collaborated to conduct a snapshot survey of destitute asylum seekers and refugees seeking help and assistance from each of the projects.
• A total of 225 individual asylum seekers presented who were destitute at the time they were surveyed.
• 24 reported that they had slept rough the previous evening.
• 37 confirmed that they were ‘sofa surfing’ between friends’ houses on an ongoing basis.
• 131 had been technically destitute for more than a year.
• 145 did not have an HC2 at the point of survey.
• 48 had been destitute for a period of more than five years; the longest of which was 13 years.
• 96 became destitute as a result of their asylum applications being rejected (and any rights of appeal having been exhausted).
• Seven had become temporarily destitute because of delays in receiving housing and benefit support after receiving a positive decision on their asylum applications. Continue reading “Destitution in Leicester 2010”