National demo against Hassockfield detention centre
At the start of 2021, news emerged that a new Immigration Removal Centre was to be opened in County Durham. It soon came to light that this was to be a site for women, and was to replace [...]
Alternatives to Detention
At our recent members' meeting we heard updates from the two Home Office funded pilot projects on alternatives to detention. After all the bleakness surrounding the Nationality and Borders Bill, it was very uplifting to hear from colleagues [...]
Say no to the Rwanda asylum plan
We were really concerned to hear of the government’s recent announcement of their intention to send people seeking asylum and arriving in the UK to Rwanda. After the horrors of the Second World War, the UK was one [...]
APPG report on quasi-detention
At our recent members' meeting we heard from Elspeth MacDonald from Medical Justice, who had played a key role in the report from the APPG on detention into the use of quasi-detention. She was also able to update [...]
Cruel asylum policy is costing us more than money
Not only is the government going to spend £2.7bn on implementing the dreadful nationality and borders bill (Refugee group warns of ‘astonishing’ cost of new Home Office policies, 14 February), but it is already spending more than it [...]
Nationality and Borders Bill
As a network of now 50 independent organisations, we continue to be highly concerned about the future impact of the Nationality and Borders Bill as it works its way through Parliament. We stand in full support of the [...]
The UK’s ‘Hostile Environment’ Reality
By Freya Wainstein, René Cassin intern, November 2021 (This blog can also be accessed as a PDF document ) When in 2012, then-Home Secretary Theresa May announced she wanted “to create here in Britain a really hostile environment for [...]
Afghanistan
Alongside so many people in the country and across the world, we are appalled at the human tragedy which is rapidly unfolding in Afghanistan. As a result of the great work that many of our members are doing [...]
APPG inquiry into ‘quasi detention’
We are delighted to see that the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Immigration Detention has launched an inquiry into the UK Government’s use of large-scale institutional sites, such as former military barracks and a temporarily ‘de-designated’ Immigration [...]
Our statement on the Home Office New Plan for Immigration
Asylum and detention We believe that the inhumane practice of detention should have no part in the asylum process (or indeed in a humane and just immigration system). We firmly believe that we should not lock up people [...]