Asylum

"Civil rights solicitor Fiona Murphy has condemned new Labour for failing to comply with its own policies on the detention of children seeking asylum."
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/86211
‘Ms Murphy, who works for specialist London-based law firm Bhatt Murphy, said children involved in asylum cases were being held in "prison-type" conditions.’

The case referred to was the result of a family being detained five years ago in 2004 in Oakington IRC. This centre has since been designated a male only centre and women, children and families are no longer detained there. It is an old facility and very prison like, being ex RAF barracks.
http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/managingborders/immigrationremovalcentres/oakingtonremovalcentre

There are currently three centres in the UK suitable for families: Tinsley House, Dungavel and Yarl’s Wood. As you can see from the links, these are more open detention centres and have facilities that are suited to families.

http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/managingborders/immigrationremovalcentres/dungavel
http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/managingborders/immigrationremovalcentres/tinsleyhouse
http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/managingborders/immigrationremovalcentres/yarlswood

Conditions have improved immensely in detention centres where families and children are held and since spaces are so few and far between, they are now only used for imminent removal cases. In total in the UK there are only about 3,000 detention places. Less than 320 of those are family spaces.

This is not the only case where the government has had to fork out large amounts of money for detaining children in these conditions, although to be fair, it is not just the detention that allows them to sue the government. In these cases there were alternatives available to detention or the parents had not exhausted the legal asylum process and so were not subject to removal, or there was mistreatment as in this case. They are not suing on the basis of detention alone.

Detention should only be used when status or identity has to be confirmed or there has been a breach of immigration rules or refusal of asylum and removal is imminent.

Here’s another case from last year about another family detained in 2006 who were awarded £150,000..
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/asylum-detainees-win-record-payout-1608207.html

An extract from Chris Cleave’s website:

In 2001 an Angolan man named Manuel Bravo fled to England and claimed asylum on the grounds that he and his family would be persecuted and killed if they were returned to Angola. He lived in a state of uncertainty for four years pending a decision on his application. Then, without warning, in September 2005 Manuel Bravo and his 13-year-old son were seized in a dawn raid and interned at an Immigration Removal Centre in southern England. They were told that they would be forcibly deported to Angola the next morning. That night, Manuel Bravo took his own life by hanging himself in a stairwell. His son was awoken in his cell and told the news. What had happened was that Manuel Bravo, aware of a rule under which unaccompanied minors cannot be deported from the UK, had taken his own life in order to save the life of his son. Among his last words to his child were: “Be brave. Work hard. Do well at school.”"

Chris was commenting on the real life story behind a scene in his book The Other Hand.

The subject of detention is about far more than removing illegal immigrants. It’s not a black and white issue, nor is it a one-sided issue.

I am not a left-wing, liberal do gooder, far from it. I don’t in any way condone illegal immigration BUT I do believe that our compassion and humanity in the way we treat these people, especially children who are the innocents in this, marks us as as a nation.

Like once they arrive in the uk and are granted asylum or if they are allow to stay here,Are they allowed to stay here forever or do they go back when the situation in the country of their origin has been resolved?

How long have you got?!

Asylum-seekers are usually housed and accommodated by the Home Office while awaiting a decision on their claims. They are not allowed to work or get mainstream benefits. This was often years, but now is usually a few months.

If their claims are accepted, often after appeal to the courts, they are usually given five years residency, at the end of which their situation should be reassessed to see if it is safe for them to return. During the five years, they have the same rights to work and benefits as UK citizens. If it is decided that they should remain, they would eventually be able to apply for UK citizenship.

If their claims are refused, unless they have children, they are evicted from the Home Office accommodation and their support is stopped. They are still not allowed to work. The Home Office in theory sends them back, but in practice there are many countries to which returns are very difficult, there is a huge backlog, and also having evicted the people it is then hard to find them.

All this is a great simplification. The rules have changed countless times in response to tabloid pressures, so there are many other situations that arise.

In general, the life of asylum-seekers is pretty miserable, unlike what people read in the papers. People also often confuse asylum-seekers with other types of migrants, for example East European workers. The term refugee is generally reserved for asylum-seekers who have been given a positive decision.

Hope this helps.

This article will explain it.~
PDF] Financial Aid Handbook
618k – Adobe PDF – View as html
If you receive a loan, your payment schedule and disclosure document … "Asylum Granted" • "Indefinite Parole" and/or "Humanitarian-Parole" …

Australia detains all migrant seeking admission on refuge/asylum rort in secure detention facilities. This ensure no detainee is actually an incorrigible criminal attempting to subvert Australian hospitality of allow the foreigner to reside in their nation- despite Australian taxpayer having no obligation to them or their purported ‘persecutor’ nation to do so.

Why does the UK not adopt these same laws as fellow Commonwealth country?

Even your refuge advocate’s conservative estimate is that one in four ‘refugee’ is criminal.

From perspective of non-signatory to refuge agreement (Indonesia)- why does the UK believe it morally superior to host subversives, provocateurs, seditionists, traitors, minorities and such vile social undesirable- most especially at the cost of the blameless UK citizen-taxpayer?

I do not understand why one would seek to import social undesirable upon your own people.
Surely-it is not beneficial to UK native people and their taxes better spent on them.
Albert I invite you to Indonesia- wher you can witness these ‘persecuted’ who are actually white-collar criminal evading justice, extremist or subversive.
The latter two are dealt with most effectively by military marksmanship.

are you saying that you think the Brits should come first – that tax payers should get value for money and not have to foot the bill for unwanted arrivals – are you implying that it’s unreasonable to have foreign criminals on our streets- YOU ARE!!!! -well would you consider starting your own party because i would definitely vote for you matey until then after decades of voting Tory and then labour – I’m voting bnp

have a star for a valid point well made

"Immigration minister Phil Woolas has attacked lawyers and charities working on behalf of asylum seekers, accusing them of undermining the law and "playing the system". In an interview with the Guardian, Woolas described the legal professionals and NGO workers as "an industry", and said most asylum seekers were not fleeing persecution but were economic migrants."

Is Woolas right?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/nov/18/immigration-policy-health-politics

To dam right he is. Spot on.

The United States immigration attorneys at SRIS Law Group, P.C., handle visa, deportation law, naturalization law, citizenship and asylum law issues for individuals. Our US immigration lawyers are familiar with the wide variety of concerns (legal and otherwise) that you face. Free initial inquiry with no obligation. Ask your question. http://www.usimmigrationattorneys.biz

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WELFARE AND LEGAL RIGHTS OF ASYLUM SEEKERS IN FOCUS

An appreciation by Phillip Taylor MBE and Elizabeth Taylor of Richmond Green Chambers

Publications from the Legal Action Group (LAG), particularly the handbooks for advisers, are becoming increasingly well known to the wider public. They are admired for their rigorously high standards of thorough research, as well as for their plain speaking, practicality, ease of use and, importantly, the sense of compassion that lies at their heart which we rely heavily on as professional when giving advice.

So, Support for Asylum Seekers and Other Migrants continues in this vein in this 3rd edition which, as the LAG notes, is the only handbook that focuses exclusively on the welfare and legal rights of asylum seekers. Additionally, the third edition has been expanded to cover the welfare needs of other migrants, in particular refused asylum seekers at the end of the process and EU nationals.

The authors view with dismay, if not alarm, the current situation in which asylum seekers typically find themselves, observing that little has changed since publication of the last edition of the handbook in 2004. Alison Harvey, General Secretary of the Immigration Law Practitioners Association refers in the foreword to the combination of poor administration and punitive policies that view destitution as a means of immigration control that have long dogged this area of law. Muddle and misery, she says, quoting Helen Bambers preface to the first edition of the Handbook in 2002, will do just as well to describe the situation in 2009.

All the more reason, imply the authors, for asylum seekers — vulnerable and desperate as they usually are to be able to access representation and advice from advocates possessing a sound understanding of applicable national and international law. In this extremely vexed area of advocacy, legal representatives must be able to grasp and utilize expertise not just across immigration, but across other areas of law, particularly welfare benefits, community care and housing; all against a backdrop of a frequently changing legal aid system.

This handbook, which has extended its scope to include other migrants – including those whose claims for asylum have failed but who cannot be returned to their country – is of immense help to the practitioner who needs to navigate the troubled waters of immigration.

Therefore, if youre an advocate or adviser involved with, or specializing in immigration law, make sure you add this invaluable handbook to your professional library, especially in view of the relevant provisions of the Borders Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009, anticipated for July 2011. The contents of the Handbook reflect the law as at August 2009 and put this emotive subject very much in focus.

ISBN: 978-1-903307-72-4

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Or should the law require they dress up like clowns and do pratfalls for our entertainment? If they’re genuine i want them to prove to me they’re genuine, i want to see them smack each other in the face with custard pies just to get statushood, statesship, starship enterprise or whatever. Or would it be cruel to suggest they take part in no holds barred bare knuckle boxing to the death?

No.

There is an arugment that there are many skilled professionals amongst asylum seekers who would be an asset to our nation, doctors, teachers and the like, but to do so would blur the boundaries between asylum and immigration.

As for the body of your question, I will ignore that.

For the first time, a camera unrestrictedly penetrates into the universe of a Swiss reception centre for asylum seekers. It presents a human gaze at an austere transition place, where 200 men, women and children, torn between doubt and hope, are awaiting the state’s decision on their behalf. Empathy and distrust punctuate the exchanges between the residents and the staff of the centre in charge of applying the most restrictive asylum law in Europe. With emotion, though also with humour, LA FORTERESSE (THE FORTRESS) immerses us into the heart of this daily sorting process of human beings.

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Hastert is saying he will not allow the defense funding bill to the floor of the House for a vote unless certain provisions are added including the Community Protection Act passed in the House overwhelmingly last week, 328 to 95.

"It would allow the indefinite detention of some illegal immigrants who are protected from deportation by political asylum laws. That provision has garnered interest in the Washington area, with its large community from El Salvador and violence among Salvadoran gangs. The bill also would expedite the removal of immigrant criminals, denying them some court access, and would broaden the definitions of gang violence to facilitate detention and deportation."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/24/AR2006092400861.html?nav=rss_nation

What do you think?

I think it’s incredible!!! FINALLY someone in Washington has convinced others to remove their heads from their posteriors.