Their Lordships speak out: deportations to Iran must end

Britain must radically change its immigration policy and end immediately the deportation of failed asylum-seekers who fear persecution in Iran, a group of leading peers will tell the Government today.

The call for a moratorium on asylum removals is a direct response to the plight of Mehdi Kazemi, a gay Iranian teenager facing execution if he returns to Iran, whose case has been taken up by The Independent. (more…)

Removals down 25%, asylum applications up 19% on the same period in 2007

Detention:

There were 2,095  Persons recorded as being in detention in the United Kingdom solely under Immigration Act powers as at 29 December 2007.

Of these: 1,455 had claimed asylum at some stage 69%

1,435 were held at Immigration Service Removal Centres, and 20 at Immigration Short Term Holding Facilities.   (more…)

8 February 2008 To mark Ash Wednesday leaders of Christian faith traditions in West Yorkshire issued a statement of support for asylum seekers, calling for a more humane asylum system, for the right to work for asylum seekers and for better legal representation. The church leaders also praised the great work many people in West Yorkshire do supporting refugees and asylum seekers, noting that it demonstrates that “at a community level Britain shows a welcoming face to people fleeing persecution, in contrast to the Government’s approach which has become a cause for national shame.” The church leaders statement was reported in the Yorkshire Post, Yorkshire Evening Post, Huddersfield Examiner, BBC Radio Leeds, BBC Radio York, BBC Look North, ITV Calendar and Radio Aire.

See also

To see the full list of church leaders and their statement see http://www.wyec.co.uk/

More than 19,000 asylum seekers, some of whose cases date back more than 10 years, have finally been told they can stay in the country, the Home Office said last night.

They are among the first tranche of 52,000 cases that have been looked at as part of a Home Office “legacy” drive to clear a backlog of between 400,000 and 450,000 files.

The disclosure was made as the Home Office embarrassingly announced that urgent immigration background checks on all its private security guards had been ordered after an illegal migrant was identified last Friday working at the department’s Marsham Street headquarters in London. (more…)

Even though the HRA has now come into force in the UK it is still possible to make an application to the ECHR. There are three key requirements that you must meet:

1. You must be a victim of a violation of one or more of the articles of the Convention. Generally, this means you must be directly affected by a breach of the Convention. In some cases it will be enough to show you are likely to be affected by a breach or that you belong to a group of people, some of whom are likely to be affected. For example, gay men were permitted to challenge laws that criminalized gay sex even though it was unlikely that the individual applicants would ever be prosecuted because the laws were rarely enforced.
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6 December 2007A proposal to use a new Government Bill to simplify immigration law has received positive feedback, the Home Office revealed today. (more…)

5 December 2007The countdown to the transformation of the immigration system began today when the Home Secretary announced new rules for highly skilled foreign workers applying to come to the UK. (more…)

Quarterly asylum, accession monitoring and citizenship statistics published today Britain’s tougher border controls have led to the lowest level of asylum applications in 15 years, according to statistics published by the Home Office today.At the same time, the Border and Immigration Agency (BIA) revealed it has removed a record 3,500 foreign national prisoners so far this year, and this quarter (July to September) has overseen a 15 per cent increase in all enforced removals and voluntary returns (to 6,330) compared to the same period last year.Altogether this year 45,000 people have been removed from the UK, as quarterly enforced returns matched the all time high of 2003. (more…)

19 November 2007 Refugee Council calls on the UK government to halt all deportations to Iraq immediately and do more to address the growing refugee crisis.Two years to the day from the first forced removals flight to Iraq (20 November 2005), the Refugee Council today condemns this practice and urge the UK government to address the growing refugee crisis as a matter of urgency. (more…)

Refugee Action is dismayed that a court decision at the House of Lords on 14 November (see link below) has cleared the way for the forced return of Darfuri refugees to the Sudanese capital.

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