HAVE YOUR SAY on the New Home Office Plans for Asylum and Immigration.
New Home Office Plans for Asylum in the UK
HAVE YOUR SAY!!!!
ZOOM CONSULTATION EVENT TUESDAY MAY 4th 6.30-8pm
With special guest Erfan, former resident of Napier Barracks, now working with Care4Calais – see https://care4calais.org/far-from-fair/
The Home Office has announced proposed legislation for fundamental changes in immigration and asylum law. There is widespread concern that the proposals in effect will remove the right to asylum for a majority of those seeking it, ultimately calling into question our country’s legal commitment to the Geneva Refugee Convention. People will be detained for long periods in what will amount to refugee camps, and many would be denied any chance to apply for asylum at all, no matter the strength of their claim to it.
The Home Office has published a CONSULTATION document on these plans, which closes on 6th May.
Many refugee and immigration support organisations are responding in their respective groups, while individuals may also respond to a specific individual version of the consultation.
HASTINGS COMMUNITY OF SANCTUARY IS HOLDING A COLLECTIVE ZOOM CONSULTATION EVENT FOR INDIVIDUALS TO RESPOND TO THE HOME OFFICE PROPOSALS
On TUESDAY 4TH MAY, 6.30-8.00PM
YOU CAN REGISTER HERE: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/have-your-say-tickets-152974293229
We will work through the consultation document enabling each participant to respond to relevant questions. Careful and clear guidance will be provided to facilitate this, and the process is anticipated to take one hour.
Here is a summary, adapted from Asylum Matters, of what the Home Office plans would bring about.
- There will be a two-tier system where refugees are granted different rights and status entirely due to how they have entered the UK.
- People who have entered the UK irregularly will be considered ‘inadmissible’ to the UK’s asylum system, and the Home Office will make all attempts to return them to another ‘safe’ third country (although this is ‘contingent on securing returns agreements’ with these countries). Only if the Home Office is unable to return someone to another ‘safe’ third country, will people who have entered irregularly be allowed to access the UK’s asylum system.
- Those who have arrived irregularly and are then recognised as refugees will be granted ONLY ‘temporary protection status.’ Those with ‘temporary protection status’ will have no recourse to public funds and limited family reunion rights. Leave will last no longer than 30 months, after which they will be regularly reassessed for removal, and never able to gain full refugee status, and this to rebuild their lives in our communities. This would by definition include many women trafficked into the country, and many people who have suffered violence and persecution.
- However, refugees who are resettled to the UK through government resettlement schemes will have enhanced levels of protection, including receiving indefinite leave to remain on arrival and enhanced family reunion rights.
- The current asylum accommodation model where people seeking asylum placed in basic accommodation within communities around the UK while their asylum claim is processed, will be replaced with mass reception centres. At present, people typically wait for their asylum decision for long periods – this can be several years. During this time, despite an extremely low level of financial support from the Government, and no right to work, they have support within the community networks. However, the new proposals would remove this provision and place people in the kind of mass accommodation we have seen recently in the military barracks.
- The proposals also intend to facilitate the use of offshore processing facilities in the future if deemed necessary by the Government.
More information here: https://www.freemovement.org.uk/a-first-look-at-the-new-plan-for-immigration/
And see Care4Calais’s brilliant campaign here: https://care4calais.org/far-from-fair/