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 Yarl's Wood as the main IRC for women in the UK. In [...]
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 who were talking so positively about a government funded initiative which was [...]
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 of the early signatories to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention. This [...]
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 us on a recent visit that members of the APPG had made [...]
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 needs on existing policies. There are billions that could be saved if [...]
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 broader campaign being led by Together with Refugees. We support the opposition [...]
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 illegal migration”, I wonder whether she was envisaging no reduction in net [...]
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 in detention centres across the UK, we know that there are people [...]