5 January 2026: The Guardian: UK’s plans to seize asylum seekers’ phones condemned by campaigners

People who are sent to Manston processing centre will be eligible for searches for electronic devices from Monday

Home Office plans to immediately begin seizing asylum seekers’ mobile phones and sim cards without the need for an arrest have been condemned by a solicitor and anti-torture campaigners.

People who arrive by small boat and are sent to Manston processing centre in Kent will from Monday be eligible for searches for electronic devices, a minister has said, with technology on site to download data.

Officials will be allowed to search inside the mouths of detainees for hidden technology, but have so far declined to confirm whether they will also be allowed to search children.

Continue reading “UK’s plans to seize asylum seekers’ phones condemned by campaigners”

31 December 2025: Quaker Asylum and Refugee Network (QARN): An end to the right to sanctuary, and a stop to integration?

An end to the right to sanctuary, and a stop to integration?

In November 2025, the Home Secretary announced a swathe of new policies regarding claims for asylum and applications for settlement.

There is still a great deal of detail to be clarified, but this is some of what we know so far.

The proposals for refugees

Now: If your asylum claim is accepted, you are given 5 years leave to remain as a refugee.

Proposed: You will receive 30 months (2.5 years) leave to remain (called core protection). Every 2.5 years, you will have to apply for more leave. Each time, the government will decide whether it is safe to return to your original country. You will be expected to pay a fee for each visa renewal, including the Immigration Health Surcharge, unless you can prove that you qualify for a fee waiver.

Continue reading “An end to the right to sanctuary, and a stop to integration?”

10 December 2025: BBC: UK Asylum System Hit by Inefficiencies and Wasted Funds

The UK’s asylum system is affected by inefficiencies, “wasted public funds” and a succession of “short-term, reactive” government policies that have moved problems elsewhere, the National Audit Office (NAO) has said.

As part of its analysis, the spending watchdog looked at a sample of 5,000 asylum claims lodged almost three years ago, in January 2023. Since then, 35% (1,619) of those asylum seekers had been given some sort of protection such as refugee status, and 9% (452) had been removed from the country. But 56% (2,812) still did not have a final outcome in their case.

The Home Office welcomed the analysis, which it said supported “the case for fundamental reform of the asylum system”.

Most of the cases in the remaining group (2,021 out of the 2,812) remained in a sort of “limbo”, with no appeal lodged.

Read more: BBC news, Daniel Sandford, https://shorturl.at/3h1Zl

3 December 2025: Joint Public Issues Team – JPTI: Supporting churches to respond to the co-option of Christmas by the Far Right

Local churches across the UK will already have well-developed plans for celebrating Christmas – both in our church buildings and with our wider communities. Each of us will have had a lifetime of sharing the message at the heart of Christmas, ‘good news of great joy… for all’.

But this year, we have seen a ‘turning up of the volume’ of Far Right politics and the co-option of Christian language and symbols – including Christmas – for a nationalist agenda, overtly hostile to asylum-seekers and Muslims, and more covertly threatening to many more of us in our churches and neighbourhoods. 

This includes an event planned for central London on 13^th December, led by ‘Tommy Robinson’ and ‘Unite the Kingdom’, with the explicit aim of ‘putting Christ back into Christmas’, but associated closely with aggressive patriotism, xenophobia and Islamophobia. We’ll be all too aware that within our church communities, and our wider neighbourhoods, there will be some people who find these events threatening or scary, some who will want to fiercely reject them, others who will be drawn to them for a variety of reasons, and still many others who will feel confused and bewildered by the mixed messages that they find themselves having to make sense of.

We offer here a ‘rapid response’ resource for local churches wanting to navigate these complexities and discern faithful ways forward: to celebrate Christmas with a clear message of love for all our neighbours and (in small but significant ways) resisting agendas of division and hostility, while recognising that even within our own church communities there will very likely be a wide diversity of experiences, hopes and fears, and political views.

Continue reading “Good news of great joy… for all”

26 November 2025: We are called to love our neighbour.

Instead, the Home Secretary has announced further harsh restrictions on the right to sanctuary in the UK.

Our faith and common humanity demand we recognise that all people are precious, unique, a child of God. Instead, we are told our country can no longer afford mutual aid or shared humanity and must rely on punishment and exclusion.

Quakers across Britain, many working alongside refugees and people seeking asylum, utterly reject these inhumane, divisive and unworkable measures. The cost of such cruelty is far too high for our communities, our economy and the wider world.

Continue reading “Quakers in Britain reject inhumane and divisive new asylum restrictions”

25 November 2025: Dear Friends,

We are asking you to help Quaker Asylum and Refugee Network to find out what Friends are doing alongside refugees and people seeking sanctuary in the UK.

We hope to learn more about activities by individual Friends and our Local Quaker Meetings, so that we can put people in touch with each other and strengthen our collective witness. We will also be sharing a report drawing on the responses next year. We’re keen to hear about any type of activity – from one-time learning sessions, to running larger projects.

Please complete this short questionnaire: https://forms.gle/7mo31mrYobeSgZZp8

If you have any questions, please contact Ginny Baumann of the QARN steering group: ginnybaumann15@gmail.com.

After the statement in Parliament on Monday, the Home Office released a consultation document which you can access via the Free Movement website (see below), and also the Government website, at the end of this post.

Please read and complete the consultation document. Our voices must be heard!

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Free Movement: Home Secretary opens consultation on “earned settlement”

The consultation on extending the period people in certain immigration routes will need to wait before being able to apply for settlement (also referred to as indefinite leave to remain) has been opened. The Home Secretary also made a statement in the House of Commons. The changes were first trailed in the immigration white paper in May.

The consultation document is called “A Fairer Pathway to Settlement: A statement and accompanying consultation on earned settlement”. The consultation is open until 11.59pm on 12 February 2026. The Home Secretary said today that the intention is to start implementing the changes in the April 2026 statement of changes.

In the foreword, the Home Secretary says that “It is clear the pace and scale of migration in this country has not just been unprecedented but also destabilising” and refers to an “open border experiment” and says that “Fraud, as any constituency Member of Parliament can tell you, was rife”. Putting aside these inaccurate and offensive comments, let’s move on to the proposals.   

Continue reading “Government consultation – ‘earned settlement’”

Together With Refugees: Communities Together With Refugees

Build mass visibility through thousands of posters and creative community actions across the UK on 5th-7th December

There’s no doubt: the government’s chilling new plans to erode asylum rights are devastating to those seeking sanctuary in the UK.  People who have fled the horror of war and persecution, suffering terrible trauma, need support to get back on their feet. Instead, this Government is choosing cruelty over compassion. 

The majority of the people in the UK are welcoming. We see every day how communities across the country show warmth and kindness to refugees.  And we know when given a chance, refugees do so much to enrich our communities. From our high streets to our hospitals, from our schools to our community spaces, Britain is stronger because of those who’ve come here seeking safety. 

The Government’s new plans do not represent us.  It isn’t who we are as a country. That is why it is more important than ever to show that not only are refugees welcome here, but that our communities stand wholeheartedly together. 

This winter, as part of Communities Together With Refugees, we are coming together to demonstrate unignorable public support for refugees and asylum seekers. We will:

Read more: https://togetherwithrefugees.org.uk/communities-together-with-refugees/

22 November 2025: JPTI Response to asylum reforms

Leaders of the Baptist, Methodist and United Reformed Churches have issued the following statement in response to the government’s announcements this week on proposed changes to its asylum and returns policy:

“Let us keep loving our neighbours.

Public debate around migration has increasingly been shaped by voices that trade in fear, resentment, and the scapegoating of those who already carry heavy burdens. We fear that the tone and content of the Home Secretary’s recent announcement on asylum policy reform risks deepening these fractures rather than healing them.

What threatens our social fabric is not the presence of vulnerable people seeking sanctuary, but rhetoric and policy that sets neighbour against neighbour and encourages suspicion instead of solidarity. The solution is not to try and appease those who seek to divide us, but to build a fair, compassionate and well-managed asylum system, that reflects Britain’s values and responsibilities.

Read more: https://jpit.uk/response-to-asylum-reforms

18 November 2025: Migrant Voice: The downward spiral of political hostility.

The downward spiral of hate and hostility against those seeking asylum and other migrants did not start with this government, it didn’t even start with the previous one, however it has been turbocharged with the current rhetoric.

During party conferences in September and October, and in interviews since, we have seen politicians from different parties try and outdo each other on the levels of inhumanity they can throw at us. Talk of mass deportations for those who already living and working here have been effectively “normalised” in some quarters.

With its hostile anti-asylum proposals yesterday, this government has thrown more petrol on the fire . We know from our experience working with other migrants how the current 20-year-route, which those who have “fallen out of status” have to go through, increases the risks of exploitation, along with causing significant mental and physical harm.

Continue reading “The downward spiral of political hostility.”