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Category: refugees

  • Just when you thought Britain couldn’t get any more racist, the Tories bring the Illegal Migration Bill

    Rishi Sunak has announced that refugees arriving into the UK by small boats will be permanently banned from re-entering the country. Ahead of Tuesday’s unveiling of the racist Illegal Migration Bill, the government told the Daily Mail:

    This new Bill, if passed by Parliament, will mean that if you come here illegally, not only will you be swiftly removed from the UK, but you will never be able to come back.

    The measures will ensure that anyone who has risked their lives in the Channel’s perilous waters, and has made it to England, will be deported. However, the home secretary could also send them to Rwanda, or a “”safe” third country”, as soon as possible. Refugees will also be unable to apply for British citizenship. Nor will they be able to come to the country as a visitor in the future. In summary, if someone has arrived in the UK in a small boat, their asylum claim will be inadmissible.

    Refugees and people seeking asylum in the UK currently have the right to apply for protection. This is under the UN’s Refugee Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights. However, as the Mail reported:

    New laws will also restrict Channel migrants from using human rights laws to avoid removal from Britain, it is understood. The Bill is likely to severely limit the way claims under Labour’s Human Rights Act can be used by asylum seekers who arrive by irregular routes.

    Yes, that’s right: our government is so desperate to stop brown and Black people from living in the UK that it’s seeking to circumvent human rights laws.

    Racist, ransacking Britain

    The government official told the Daily Mail:

    It is bad enough that illegal migrants currently abuse our asylum system to frustrate their removal. But it is far worse that they can currently settle here permanently and apply to become a citizen. The ability to settle in this country and become a British citizen is not a human right, it is a privilege – which is why we will ban illegal migrants from ever coming back to the UK after we have removed them.

    Of course, the government doesn’t actually say how refugees are abusing the system to “frustrate their removal”. Rather, it assumes that the public will swallow these baseless racist statements without questioning them. And it’s probably a fair assumption, judging from the recent uptick in far-right activity against refugees.

    The deluded Tories still cling to the idea of Britain as a world-dominating empire. To them, it is the greatest of countries: a place where brown or Black people should be “privileged” to be granted space. Meanwhile, just like in the time of the Empire, the government believes it’s Britain’s given right to continue to ransack other countries.

    Let’s not forget that it is this country which was instrumental in wrecking Afghanistan. It is our government – albeit under Labour’s Tony Blair – that lied about Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction in order to begin an illegal war. And it is this country that has bombed Syria, as well as causing carnage in Libya. Meanwhile, our arms companies – which have links to government officials – are laughing, cashing in on the billions made in profits from never-ending war. Britain’s role has been essential for destablising the Middle East and northern Africa. Yet our government washes its hands of any responsibility. Worse than this, it treats the very people whose lives it has ravaged as sub-human.

    Scapegoating refugees

    It is a time-tested method for governments to find scapegoats to blame for their own terrible messes. The government hopes that if it blames ‘outsiders’, this will distract people from the real facts. As Sunak harps on about “illegal migration” not being “fair on British taxpayers”, he hopes we won’t notice that it’s his government that is to blame for soaring inflation, the cost of living crisis, and a failing NHS. Meanwhile, energy giants such as Shell reap billions in profits while we literally die in our homes.

    As for Sunak, he’s one of the richest people in the whole country. He’s likely the wealthiest person ever to have graced the halls of Number 10. He features on the Sunday Times Rich List with a net worth of £730 million. The Sunaks’ main home (yes, they have three) in Kensington is worth £7 million alone. With their obscene wealth, they look down on those who want a life without war and poverty.

    It’s likely that if Sunak found himself aboard a packed dinghy on a choppy English Channel, he wouldn’t last five minutes. And if he fell overboard, I’m not too sure I would save him.

    Featured image via YouTube/screenshot

    By Eliza Egret

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The far-right have increased their anti-refugee activity – but what of the left’s response?

    The far-right mobilised at least five anti-refugee protests in the past week. Fortunately, they were met by anti-fascist resistance at most of them. However, one of the demonstrations clearly showed the tactics that groups like Patriotic Alternative use to infiltrate local communities. It also served as a lesson in what anti-fascists should not be doing.

    The far-right: posing as “locals”?

    As the Canary previously reported, on Saturday 25 February far-right anti-refugee protests took place in Newquay and Skegness. Now, fascists have upped the ante.

    On Monday 27 February, an anti-refugee demo took place in Kegworth, Leicestershire. Here, the Home Office is housing refugees in a local hotel. The media reported that a local resident organised this demo. However, left-wing groups disputed the claim on social media, with some saying the far-right had organised it:

    However, other groups said the far-right infiltrated the protest:

    Anti-racism protesters came out and were trying to persuade any local residents to think again about their opinions:

    The far-right also gathered on Friday 3 March in Bangor, in the North of Ireland:

    Then come the weekend, at least two far-right protests took place on Saturday 4 March. One was in Dover, where around 100 fascists came out, but they were countered by anti-fascists:

    Predictably, some on the far-right were claiming the protest was organised by “residents”. But a quick scan of social media shows this wasn’t the case – with far-right groups from Portsmouth and as far away as Yorkshire represented. Images online show some of the fascists doing Nazi salutes after the protest. However, anti-fascists mobilised well, with various groups like Stand Up To Racism, Care 4 Calais, and Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL) coming out.

    It was a similar story in Carlisle on 4 March. The organised far-right were out protesting about refugees, while claiming it was locals marching – and anti-fascists were there to stand up to them:

    Infiltrating communities and exploiting racist sentiment

    Then, on Sunday 5 March, fascist group Patriotic Alternative mobilised in Erskine, Scotland. Again, the protest was about the Home Office housing refugees in hotels. As the Morning Star reported, the group was:

    led on the site by the ex-British National Party activist Simon Crane, [and] were accompanied by a handful of local residents after it characterised the refugees in the hotel as “200 fight-age men” on social media.

    What the Morning Star crucially noted, though, was just how groups like Patriotic Alternative infiltrate local protests and feed racist sentiment:

    Local residents on both sides began a dialogue about their mutual concerns during the gatherings, discussing worries about local housing, education and service provision.

    As dialogue broke out, it was interrupted and shouted over by PA members… PA activists began to make their way to their cars when the meeting in the middle took place.

    The point being that this age-old tactic from the far-right doesn’t change – except in the age of social media, fascists have another platform to promote their agendas. The far-right exploits the fact that the UK is inherently racist and colonialist, in an attempt to turn protests into violence.

    Refugees welcome – but the left must involve themselves in communities, too

    Meanwhile, anti-racists are trying to build constructive dialogues with locals:

    This is not the end of the far-right marches either. One is happening in Staffordshire on Saturday 11 March, with a counter-protest set to take place:

    Fascists also have trans people in their sights on 11 March. Another anti-Drag Queen Story Time protest will be countered by anti-fascists:

    Getting on the streets and opposing the far-right is crucial, wherever they mobilise in the UK. However, it is also important that left-wing activists don’t just bus themselves in, wave some placards, and then walk away again. There needs to be engagement with local communities at the grassroots.

    Local residents need to see that there’s an alternative to the fascist rhetoric of groups like Patriotic Alternative. This will only happen if anti-racists involve themselves in local communities. Otherwise, busloads of left-wingers descending on communities is hardly likely to create lasting change – and will only end up weakening anti-fascist arguments.

    Featured image via Stand Up To Racism – screengrab

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The Observer view on cruel schemes to relocate refugees | Observer editorial

    The government should speed up asylum seekers’ claims instead of focusing on costly and unworkable deterrents

    Last weekend, at least 67 people drowned when a wooden boat carrying about 150 people ran into trouble on rocks off the coast of Calabria, Italy. There were 20 children, including a newborn baby, among the dead. It is an appalling reminder of the risks some people are willing to take to flee desperate circumstances – often including conflict and torture – in their home countries.

    This movement of people across borders is age old and governments have never been able to fully control it despite developments in border enforcement and technology. It is driven primarily by patterns of conflict and economic deprivation and will increasingly be shaped by the climate crisis. It is a relatively small issue for the west: because the majority of refugees prefer to stay close to their home country to maximise their chances of returning, three-quarters of the world’s refugees live in low- and middle-income countries and seven in 10 in countries that neighbour their country of origin.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Event 3/2: Webinar on The Courts, Climate Change, Migrant and Refugee Rights

    On March 2, 2023, from 4:00PM to 5:30PM EST, join the American Society of International Law’s International Refugee Law Interest Group (IRLIG), the Migration Law Interest Group (MILIG), and their co-sponsor, the Global Strategic Litigation Council for Refugee Rights (GSLC)…

    This post was originally published on Human Rights at Home Blog.

  • Once again, Eurovision shows the hypocrisy of racist Britain

    The UK is gearing up to host the Eurovision Song Contest on behalf of 2022 winner Ukraine. On 25 February, the UK announced that it will allocate 3,000 tickets to displaced Ukrainians, as well as ensuring that the event “truly showcases Ukrainian culture” with millions of pounds in funding.

    Culture secretary Liz Frazer said:

    Today’s announcement means that thousands of tickets will be offered to those displaced by war, so that they can take part in a show honouring their homeland, their culture and their music.

    As always, we stand together with the Ukrainian people and their fight for freedom.

    Hypocrisy and racism

    The UK government is adept at gaslighting the British public. It tries to persuade us that it stands for “freedom” and supports those “displaced by war”. However, this is while the UK is instrumental in curtailing freedoms around the world and displacing millions through its support of multiple wars.

    It suits the Tories to show their allegiance to those escaping Russia’s bombs. After all, it can then rally the British population to unite in hatred against a common enemy – Russia – which is always good for a government’s popularity which might otherwise be waning. It’s also very convenient that Russia’s victims are mostly white. After all, racist Britain won’t just open its doors to anyone. If you’re Black or brown, the government will leave you to die – either in our very own English Channel or in our detention centres. And if those things don’t kill you, you’ll be faced with racist attacks from white supremacists.

    Of course, it isn’t just the UK that will be flying its racist flag on Eurovision night. In fact, other European nations – which are just as culpable – will be taking part in the entire, hypocritical charade.

    Europe’s blood-stained policies

    Europe has blood on its hands, whether at its land borders or its sea borders.

    Let’s take the Poland-Belarus border, for example. Millions of Ukrainians have crossed the border into Poland. The EU has freely welcomed them into the Schengen area, as has the UK government into our country. Thousands of other refugees, from countries such as Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan and Iran, have also tried to cross the border to Poland. However, they have experienced the most appalling conditions, and Europe has treated them with contempt.

    People hate these refugees so much that Poland even completed its own sinister border wall to keep them out. Security forces have raped, beaten, stolen from, extorted, and suffered inhuman treatment upon refugees on the Poland/Belarus border, while a number of them have died.

    Now, let’s take Europe’s Mediterranean sea borders. Since 2014, more than 25,000 people have died after trying to reach Europe in dinghies unfit for the perilous journey. And what has the EU done? Pushed back refugees and actively strengthened laws to ensure that people drown.

    And in the wake of the Turkey earthquake which killed thousands, Greece has fortified both its sea and land borders to prevent Turkish, Kurdish and Syrian refugees from crossing into Europe. Greece, too, has its own racist border wall to prevent people from seeking refuge, which it seeks to enlarge.

    We’re to blame

    Of course, it’s vital to remind ourselves just who is to blame for the largest ever worldwide displacement of people. No, it’s not just Russia. The UK was an instrumental force in the military coalition which wrecked Afghanistan. The Canary‘s Joe Glenton has previously reported on:

    the legacy of human rights abuses carried out in Afghanistan by the West and its allies… the bombings, the night raids, the drone attacks or the Western-trained death squads…

    It was also our government that lied about so-called weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in order to begin an illegal war. Ex-prime minister Tony Blair should be tried for war crimes, yet he received a knighthood instead. He remains untouched and unaccountable for the untold number of Iraqi deaths he’s caused and the trauma and deaths of the British soldiers who were forced to fight.

    Then there’s Yemen. The UK has been a crucial ally for the Saudi-led coalition in its annihilation of the country. The war has killed hundreds of thousands, while millions are suffering from extreme poverty, hunger and malnutrition. A United Nations (UN) 2021 report stated that 1.3 million people would die by 2030.

    Meanwhile, British arms companies have made billions in profits as the government grants them export licences to sell arms to Saudi Arabia. The UK – and the private arms companies around the country creating the weapons – are complicit in every Yemeni death since.

    Israel and Eurovision

    Finally, let’s talk about the people of Palestine. Their lives have been torn apart by the UK’s staunch ally, Israel, since Zionist forces ethnically cleansed 750,000 Palestinians from their land in 1948. Eurovision fans across Europe showed either their apathy or their contempt for Palestinian lives when they voted for Israel to win the contest in 2018. Palestinians and their supporters called for an international boycott of Eurovision when Israel hosted it in 2019. However, Palestinian lives were not deemed worthy enough by white Europeans, of course.

    I previously wrote:

    Since 1973 – the year that Israel joined the contest – there has never been an all-out ban on the country participating. Not even after Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s assault on Gaza in 2008, in which it murdered around 1,400 Palestinians. And not after 2012’s Operation Pillar of Defense, which saw tens of thousands fleeing their homes. In fact, Israel hosted Eurovision 2019 at the same time as its depraved snipers were gunning down Palestinians who were protesting in the Great March of Return.

    Once again, it’s British arms companies that are profiting from the never-ending cruelty that Israel inflicts on Palestinian people.

    Time to self-reflect

    So if, like me, you’re white, and you’re planning to enjoy Eurovision, please take some time to reflect on the possible racism inside of you. Why, as the British public, do we see nothing wrong with locking up Black and brown people, yet condone war when it displaces white people? Let’s ask ourselves: what is the difference between Ukrainian refugees and the people left to rot on the Poland-Belarus border, or in our own Manston detention centre? Why do we show our compassion for people fleeing from one country, yet show contempt for others? The answer is, of course, because of the skin colour and religion of those we’re choosing to either support or leave to die.

    The Canary‘s Maryam Jameela previously summed up the mentality of people in Britain when she wrote:

    It’s almost as though people in the UK don’t value and respect the lives of Black and brown people. They merely tolerate us. They don’t value us as human beings; they see us as cockroaches to keep out of the way. Ukrainian people are considered as a whole – their culture, their traditions, their communities. Black and brown people don’t get that luxury. This is because white people only consider fellow white people to have inalienable rights.

    Of course, the Canary isn’t against the housing of Ukrainian refugees, nor are we against the celebration of Ukrainian culture. But these levels of hypocrisy among the British public can’t go on. If we stand with the Ukrainian people, then we need to stand with every single person who is displaced by war – no matter what their skin colour or religion.

    Featured image via YouTube

    By Eliza Egret

  • Leftist Elly Schlein—’Italy’s AOC’—Elected to Confront Far-Right Giorgia Meloni



    Calling her victory “a clear mandate for real change,” left-wing Italian politician Elly Schlein on Sunday was named the new leader of her country’s Democratic Party after winning against a centrist supported by the political establishment.

    Schlein, a member of Parliament who temporarily defected from the Democratic Party (PD) in 2015 due to her opposition to a jobs act that made it easier for employers to fire workers and give them less job security, won with 54% of the vote to become the party’s new secretary.

    Stefano Bonaccini, president of the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy, won just 46% of the vote after being projected to win easily. His support was mainly concentrated in the conservative southern regions of the country.

    Schlein will now lead the PD in opposing the government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose Brothers of Italy party has neofascist roots and who has been condemned for pushing discriminatory education policies and penalizing humanitarian groups that rescue migrants in the Mediterranean Sea.

    The new PD leader addressed the latter issue on Sunday, as her victory came the same day dozens of refugees, including 20 children, died when their overcrowded boat capsized in the sea—days after Italy’s parliament passed a new law imposing restrictions on rescue boats, making it more difficult for charities to save asylum-seekers.

    The refugees’ deaths weigh “on the conscience of those who only weeks ago approved a decree whose only goal is to hinder rescues at sea,” said Schlein on Sunday, calling for migrants to be permitted to legally apply for entry into all European nations and for the E.U.’s government to strengthen search-and-rescue efforts in the Mediterranean.

    Schlein promised that under her leadership, the PD “will be a problem” for Meloni’s government.

    “She’s a force to be reckoned with,” said journalist Andrea Carlo. “I imagine Meloni & Co. won’t be sleeping too well tonight.”

    The 37-year-old former member of European Parliament has been called “Italy’s AOC” by some news outlets—referring to U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)—for her support for a minimum wage law and a Green New Deal to create jobs and help the country drastically reduce its fossil fuel emissions.

    Last year, she announced her campaign to lead the PD as one that would be “progressive, environmentalist, and feminist.”

    Schlein’s victory represents “a genuine moment of hope in the fight against the far right in Italy, and across Europe,” said socialist activist Michael Chessum.

    At one point Schlein was polling 18 points behind Bonaccini. Her surprising margin of victory was secured largely thanks to the support of women and young voters, according to the Associated Press.

    “The Democratic Party is alive and ready to stand up,” said Schlein. “We did it, together we made a small big revolution, even this time they didn’t see us coming.”

    Schlein’s victory came as trade unions across Italy demanded better safety protections and job security for port workers, holding a nationwide maritime port strike Saturday. In December, the PD and unions organized street protests over Meloni’s proposed budget, which they said targeted the poor by cutting the country’s “citizen’s wage” for unemployed people and not addressing rising costs of essentials.

    “We will put the battle against every type of inequality and precariousness center-stage,” said Schlein on Sunday.

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • As another refugee boat sinks off Italy’s coast, Giorgia Meloni is criminalising civilian search and rescue

    At least 62 refugees died after their boat sank early on 26 February in stormy seas off Italy’s southern Calabria region. A rescue centre in the city of Crotone said 12 of the 62 victims were children. A further 33 were women, according to AGI (Agenzia Giornalistica Italia) news agency.

    Italian coastguards said violent waves off Crotone broke up the overloaded vessel. One officer reported that a suspected people smuggler had been arrested by the security forces. Rescue workers told AFP (Agence France-Presse) that the vessel had been carrying “more than 200 people”.

    This comes just days after a similar disaster killed 73 refugees off the coast of Libya. United Nations (UN) Secretary General António Guterres wrote on Twitter:

    ‘We must redouble our efforts’

    On Sunday, the UN and the European Commission chiefs urged countries to agree fairly on ways to share out responsibility for people escaping conflict and poverty. As refugees flee their homes for what they hope will be a better life in Europe, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said that it is:

    Time for states to stop arguing and to agree on just, effective, shared measures to avoid more tragedies.

    Moreover, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen tweeted that the deaths were a “tragedy” that left her “deeply saddened”:

    She also called for progress on a stalled reform of EU asylum rules in relation to the tragedy. However, only last week, Giordia Meloni’s Italian right-wing coalition government pushed through parliament a new law to the contrary. It forces migrant aid charities to perform only one life-saving rescue mission at a time.

    UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk said:

    The law would effectively punish both migrants and those who seek to help them. This penalization of humanitarian actions would likely deter human rights and humanitarian organisations from doing their crucial work.

    By cutting the number of rescue ships able to operate, the law will likely result in more people drowning in the central Mediterranean. This is already considered the most dangerous crossing for people seeking asylum in Europe.

    Of the refugees seeking to reach European shores, a large proportion cross the Mediterranean from Africa to Italy. According to the interior ministry, nearly 14,000 people have arrived in Italy by sea so far this year. This is more than double the 5,200 over the same period last year.

    Charities rescuing people in danger at sea bring only a fraction of migrants ashore. Most of those who are rescued are plucked from the dangerous waters by Italian coastguards or the navy. Despite this, Meloni’s government claims that rescue charities encourage migrants to attempt the crossing and boost the fortunes of human traffickers.

    ‘Punished for saving lives’

    On Thursday, Italian authorities impounded a migrant rescue vessel belonging to medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) for allegedly breaking the new law on life-saving missions in the Mediterranean. MSF said that it was considering a possible legal challenge, adding:

    It’s unacceptable to be punished for saving lives.

    The European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) offered its solidarity:

    Regarding MSF, SOS Mediterranee also said:

    Once again, the central Mediterranean is emptied of a vital rescue asset

    Civil rescue ships are only filling the deadly gap left by E.U. States in the central Mediterranean. Criminalization of search and rescue at sea must end.

    As the climate crisis and wars continue to create refugees desperately fleeing their homes, attempted crossings will keep taking place. However, increasingly far-right governments are more invested in ‘tough on immigration’ posturing than saving human lives. More than this, as Meloni has shown, they are criminalising civilian rescue efforts that plug the gaps left by governments.

    The lives of (overwhelmingly Black and brown) refugees hold no value at European borders. It is therefore imperative that we stand together to speak out against the callous disregard for human life shown by European governments.

    Additional reporting via Agence France-Presse 

    Featured image via Quirinale/Wikimedia Commons, resized to 770*403

    By Alex/Rose Cocker

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Patriotic Alternative had a bad weekend, despite the Guardian amplifying its views

    Far-right group Patriotic Alternative was out on Saturday 25 February in Newquay and Skegness, stoking racist and fascist sentiment under the guise of ‘protesting’ against refugees. Fortunately, anti-fascists were also out to counter the group.

    However, the Guardian was seemingly unconcerned about the fascist group’s Nazi leanings. This is because it managed to give a platform to Patriotic Alternative to voice its hateful rhetoric.

    Newquay: no room for fascists

    First, in Newquay far-right mob Patriotic Alternative had organised a protest over refugees staying at a local hotel. However, grassroots coalition Cornwall Resists organised itself to come and show solidarity with the refugees:

    The predictable corporate media appeasement of the far-right ensued. ITV News reported the situation as “rival groups” protesting. It failed to mention that Patriotic Alternative had organised the racist protest. Cornwall Live did the same, saying:

    The original protest was organised because some residents of Newquay claim they feel unsafe with some 200 asylum seekers staying in one of the town’s hotels.

    Again, this is literally not true, as Cornwall Resists has evidence that the far-right group organised the protest. However, the far-right failed to achieve anything with the ‘protest’, and eventually left:

    Cornwall Resists said:

    This was effective grassroots resistance and was an amazing and emotional display of solidarity and strength…

    Protesters passed flowers to the residents through the doors, and a very emotional moment was shared with the people in the hotel, with lots of smiles and tears!

    Once the fash had gone, a spokesperson came out of the hotel to speak to us. They said that the residents had been advised not to leave the hotel for their safety, but that they wanted to come and give us all a hug. They said emotions had been high in the hotel, and there was a feeling of joy and solidarity on the day.

    Patriotic Alternative: mainstreamed by the Guardian

    Meanwhile, Patriotic Alternative had also mobilised in Skegness on 25 February – but so did the anti-fascists:

    However, the Guardian managed to legitimise Patriotic Alternative by quoting one of its supporters.

    Of course, the outlet has form on mainstreaming the far right. A research paper looked at a Guardian series on “populism” in politics. Researchers Katy Brown and Aurelien Mondon concluded that, among other things, the Guardian “trivilaised” and “amplified” the far right – exactly what it did with its article about the Skegness protest.

    With Patriotic Alternative, the Guardian is also literally amplifying Nazi sympathisers. As even Kent Live managed to report, the founder of Patriotic Alternative Mark Collett has described:

    himself as a “Nazi sympathiser”. In his book The Fall of Western Man, Collet wrote that he would have been proud to have been part of Hitler’s Nuremberg rallies.

    He was captured on camera saying how thinks 1930s Germany would be better to grow up in than modern day Britain…

    He appeared in a 2002 documentary called ‘Young Nazi and Proud’…

    Yet still, the Guardian thought it was okay to platform the group’s views.

    Oppose at all costs

    While the anti-fascists dampened the far-right in Newquay and Skegness, this isn’t the end of Patriotic Alternative’s actions. There’s one in Dover on 4 March and another one Llantwit on 25 March. However, so far the corporate media has done little to call the group out for what it is: a far-right group led by a literal Nazi. As Brown and Mondon summed up in their research paper:

    As the coverage of far-right politics has been both euphemised and amplified through its coverage as populist, and its origins deflected onto the people qua working class, we have witnessed a move towards accepting the diagnosis offered by the far right not only as inevitable but in fact democratic.

    That is, corporate media outlets like the Guardian are legitimising the far-right and strengthening it by giving it column inches. All the more reason for everyone who opposes fascism to get out in communities and show people that there is another way.

    Featured image via Cornwall Resists 

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Maintenance failures sparked Heathrow detention centre disturbances, FoI reveals

    Freedom of information responses reveal damning findings of internal investigations into power cuts at Harmondsworth in 2022

    A catalogue of maintenance failures over more than a decade caused power cuts that triggered disturbances at Europe’s largest immigration detention centre last year, the Guardian has learned.

    The disturbances at Harmondsworth, the 676-bed centre near Heathrow, led to elite prison squads and the Metropolitan police being called to the scene to quell the protest. As a result of the power failure the centre had to be closed for several weeks and detainees relocated to other detention centres and prisons around the UK.

    No evidence of maintenance of air circuit breakers since installation and one had been tripping multiple times since June 2022

    Some equipment still at risk of failure because it is obsolete and no longer manufactured

    Switching strategy on some equipment not operational since 2008/9

    Excessive heat buildup in the electrical switch room

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Ukraine a year on – how the invasion changed NZ foreign policy

    ANALYSIS: By Alexander Gillespie, University of Waikato

    One year to the day since Russian tanks ran over the Ukraine border — and over the UN Charter and international law in the process — the world is less certain and more dangerous than ever.

    For New Zealand, the war has also presented a unique foreign policy challenge.

    The current generation of political leaders initially responded to the invasion in much the same way previous generations responded to the First and Second World Wars: if a sustainable peace was to be achieved, international treaties and law were the mechanism of choice.

    But when it was apparent these higher levels of maintaining international order had gridlocked because of the Russian veto at the UN Security Council, New Zealand moved back towards its traditional security relationships.

    Like other Western alliance countries, New Zealand didn’t put boots on the ground, which would have meant becoming active participants in the conflict. But nor did New Zealand plead neutrality.

    It has not remained indifferent to the aggression and atrocities, or their implications for a rule-based world.

    The issue one year on is whether this original position is still viable. And if not, what are the military, humanitarian, diplomatic and legal challenges now?

    Military spending
    While New Zealand has no troops or personnel in Ukraine, it has given direct support.

    Defence force personnel assist with training, intelligence, logistics, liaison, and command and administration support. There has also been funding and supplied equipment worth more than NZ$22 million.

    This has been welcomed, although it is considerably less on a proportional basis than the assistance offered by other like-minded countries. However, the deeper questions involve how the war has affected defence policies and spending overall internationally.

    While New Zealand’s current Defence Policy Review is important at the policy level, the implications affect all citizens and political parties. Specifically, most countries — allies or not — are increasing military spending and collaborating to develop new generations of weapons.

    For New Zealand, this calls into question the longer-term feasibility of its relatively low spending of 1.5 percent of GDP on defence. And Wellington is increasingly being left out of collaborative arrangements (AUKUS being just one example), which in turn reinforce alliances and provide pathways to technology.

    This is tied to the largest question of all: whether New Zealand wishes to relegate itself to becoming a regional “police officer” or wants to carry its fair share of being part of an interlinked modern military deterrent.

    Diplomacy and domestic law
    New Zealand also needs to reconsider its commitment to humanitarian assistance. So far, almost $13 million has been spent and a special visa created allowing New Zealand-Ukrainians to bring family members in for two years. With the war showing no sign of ending, this will likely need to extend.

    But New Zealand’s non-neutral status also means it has other responsibilities, and should consider greater assistance with the Ukrainian refugee emergency. This would require going beyond the current visa scheme, and opening and expanding the refugee quota programme’s current cap of 1500.

    Diplomatically, New Zealand also has to start considering what peace would look like. This raises hard questions about territorial integrity, accountability for war crimes, reparations and what might happen to populations that do not want to be part of Ukraine.

    New Zealand has enacted a stand-alone law to apply sanctions on Russia. But because this now sits outside the broken multilateral UN system, a degree of caution is called for, given the door is now open to sanction other countries, UN mandate or not.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin
    Russian President Vladimir Putin used his state-of-the-nation speech to announce Moscow was suspending participation in the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty. Image: Getty Images/The Conversation

    Preparing for the worst
    Finally, New Zealand needs to prepare for the worst. The war is showing no sign of calming down. Weapons and combatant numbers are escalating unsustainably.

    Nuclear arms control is in freefall, with Russian President Vladimir Putin suspending participation in the New START Treaty, the last remaining agreement between Russia and the United States.

    At the same time, the US has ramped up the rhetoric, suggesting China might supply arms to Russia, and declaring unequivocally that Russia has committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine.

    Were China to go against Western demands and provide weapons, countries like New Zealand will be in a very difficult position: its leading security ally, the US, may expect penalties to be imposed against its leading trade partner, China.

    While Putin may be able to live with the rising death toll of his own soldiers (already over 100,000), at some point the Russian population won’t be. As the US discovered in Vietnam, it was not the external enemy that ultimately prevailed, it was domestic unrest, as more people turned against an unpopular war.

    How Putin will respond to a war he cannot win conventionally, while risking losing popularity and position at home, is impossible to predict.

    Everyone might hope his nuclear threats are a bluff, but New Zealand’s leaders would be wise to plan for the worst.

    Whether a small, distant, non-neutral South Pacific nation might be a direct target or not is conjecture. What is not speculation, however, is that if the Ukraine war spins out of control, New Zealand would be in an emergency unlike anything it’s witnessed before.The Conversation

    Dr Alexander Gillespie, professor of law, University of Waikato. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

  • New Article: Refugeehood Reconsidered: the Central American Migration Crisis

    Macedo, Stephen, Refugeehood Reconsidered: the Central American Migration Crisis (Jan. 18, 2023). Abstract below. “Who is a refugee?” This essay explores the lively debate on this question in ethics, political theory, and international law. The world now has more refugees…

    This post was originally published on Human Rights at Home Blog.

  • ‘Ireland For All’: Tens of Thousands March in Dublin to Support Refugees



    Demanding an “Ireland for All,” tens of thousands of Irish people on Saturday marched through Dublin to make clear their opposition to recent violent attacks on migrants and rallies claiming the country “is full” and can’t accept refugees.

    Carrying signs reading, “Protect Lives, Not Borders” and “Everyone Is Welcome,” the demonstrators on Saturday called on the federal and city government to ensure there is enough housing for everyone and to address the cost-of-living crisis—which advocates said the far-right is exploiting to drum up anti-immigration sentiment.

    A rise in racism across Ireland “has been deliberately been stoked up by organizers of the far-right,” Bríd Smith of the ecosocialist group People Before Profit told The Independent. “We had [cost-of-living] crises long before refugees came, long before the Ukrainian war.”

    The rally was organized by the rights coalition Le Cheile, along with groups including United Against Racism, National Women’s Council of Ireland, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, and the Union of Students Ireland.

    Many participants spoke out about the need for public and affordable housing, which they said should be prioritized over expensive new developments.

    “All around the city we see cranes building more offices, hotels, and flash apartments for rental only as our government welcomes vulture and hedge fund capitalists into Ireland,” said musician Christy Moore. “What we need is social housing.”

    Housing and rental prices have more than doubled in the past decade in Ireland. A poll commissioned last month by Aldi Ireland found that 77% of people in the country are concerned about affording essentials as the price of food, electricity, and fuel skyrocket.

    Late last month, a group of Irish men attacked an encampment inhabited by several migrants from India, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, and Scotland. They descended on the camp with baseball bats, sticks, and dogs and shouted, “Get out… Pack up and get out now.”

    Also in January, the far-right applauded rallies that broke out in Dublin and surrounding towns, with attendees declaring Ireland is “for the Irish.”

    Paul Murphy, a People Before Profit-Solidarity politician who represents Dublin South West, called Saturday’s rally “a powerful response to the attempts to spread division and hate.”

    “There are enough resources in this country for everyone to have a decent home, job, and services and welcome refugees,” said Murphy. “We need to unite against those who currently hoard that wealth.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • Europe and Italy continues its criminal role as 73 refugees are presumed dead in the Mediterranean

    On 15 February, the United Nations (UN) said dozens of refugees are believed to have died in a shipwreck off the coast of Libya. So far, there are only seven survivors of the wreck that was seemingly trying to reach Italy. The UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) said:

    At least 73 migrants are reported missing and presumed dead following a tragic shipwreck off the Libyan coast yesterday.

    The boat carrying 80 people had departed Qasr Al-Akhyar, some 75km (46 miles) east of the capital, Tripoli, and was heading to Europe. So far, the Libyan Red Crescent and local police have retrieved 11 bodies. The UN migration agency said that:

    seven survivors who made it back to Libyan shores in extremely dire conditions are currently in the hospital.

    ‘The deadliest border in the world’

    The central Mediterranean remains the world’s deadliest migratory sea crossing. Sea-Watch, which conducts rescue missions in the central Mediterranean, said:

    The Mediterranean Sea is the deadliest border in the world. More than 25,000 people have died crossing it since 2014. To find protection in Europe and claim their right to a fair asylum procedure people are forced to cross in unseaworthy boats.

    Instead of organizing sea rescue and ensuring that lives are saved, the European Union continues to shield itself and lets people drown in the Mediterranean in a calculated manner.

    Indeed, rather than rescuing people escaping from Libya, European countries dehumanise them. They do all they can to prevent civil society organisations such as Sea-Watch from rescuing them. The EU would rather see people drown than allow people to reach Italy. Deadly pushbacks are used where authorities force refugees back into non-European waters, rather than rescue them. These are far too common, even though they’re illegal under international law. Groups like Channel Rescue say that EU pushback policies have caused thousands of deaths.

    The IOM said that since the beginning of this year there have been 130 deaths while attempting this crossing between Libya and Italy. The agency’s Missing Migrants Project recorded more than 1,450 migrant deaths on that route in 2022.

    Italy is deliberately leaving refugees to drown

    The news of these latest deaths comes after Italy introduced a new decree. It is one that will leave more refugees to drown at sea – yet the Italian parliament voted it into law on 15 February. Among the new rules, the Italian government requires all civil rescue ships to bring those rescued straight to an Italian port. But Sea-Watch has stated that:

    This delays further lifesaving operations, as ships usually carry out multiple rescues over the course of several days. Instructing SAR [search and rescue] NGOs to proceed immediately to a port, while other people are in distress at sea, contradicts the captain’s obligation to render immediate assistance to people in distress, as enshrined in the UNCLOS [UN Convention on the Law of the Sea].

    Furthermore, the Italian authorities are frequently assigning distant ports to the ships, which can take up to four days to reach. Sea-Watch said:

    Both factors are designed to keep SAR vessels out of the rescue area for prolonged periods and reduce their ability to assist people in distress. NGOs are already overstretched due to the absence of a state-run SAR operation, and the decreased presence of rescue ships will inevitably result in more people tragically drowning at sea.

    The law comes despite the fact that on 6 February 2023, a court in Sicily found that the issuance of another decree was unlawful. This one “imposed a ban on the rescue ship Humanity 1 on November 4, 2022, from stopping in territorial waters”. SOS Humanity said:

    As a result, only a selection of the 179 survivors whom the search and rescue organisation SOS Humanity had rescued from distress at sea were allowed to disembark in the port of Catania… the judge highlighted Italy’s duty to assist people in distress at sea.

    But, Italy’s immorality doesn’t stop there. On 2 February, it renewed an agreement with Libya for another three years. Human Rights Watch reported that:

    Since it was signed in 2017, the financial and technical support Italy provides to Libyan authorities has been key in facilitating the interception of thousands of people crossing the Mediterranean Sea to reach Italy, forcing them back to Libya. There, migrants faced “murder, enforced disappearance, torture, enslavement, sexual violence, rape, and other inhumane acts … in connection with their arbitrary detention”, according to a June 2022 report by the UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Libya.

    As Al-Jazeera reported, in September 2022 the International Criminal Court said that crimes committed against migrants in Libya:

    may constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes.

    Countless calls of distress

    Meanwhile, the group Alarm Phone receives calls from refugees in distress at sea. It continues to receive constant calls for help from people at risk of drowning. Alarm Phone’s latest report states that:

     In 2022, the Alarm Phone was alerted to 673 boats in distress in the central Mediterranean region. In view of 27 distress cases in 2018, 101 in 2019, 173 in 2020, and 407 in 2021, 2022 was by far the busiest year the Alarm Phone has experienced in this region.

    The organisation said that:

    About 105,000 people have arrived through the central Mediterranean route [in 2022]… despite European efforts to build up, finance, and equip the so-called Libyan coastguard over recent years, and despite intensifying cooperation between European and Tunisian authorities, people continue to succeed in escaping across the sea.

    It continued:

    tens of thousands of people were not able to reach Europe, being abducted at sea and returned to the places they tried to escape from. Tunisian coastguards have repeatedly engaged in dangerous interception operations, some of which have ended deadly.

    Alarm Phone’s social media feed is an illustration of just how frequently refugees are getting into trouble as they try to reach Europe. And instead of showing any ounce of humanity, Italy and its immoral European counterparts are doing all they can to ensure that those in distress are more likely to drown than be rescued.

    Featured image via Al Jazeera English -YouTube

    Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

    By Eliza Egret

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Coalition demands politicians take a ‘clear stand’ against attacks on asylum seekers

    Nearly 200 charities on 14 February urged the UK’s political leaders to “take a clear stand” against attacks on asylum seekers. It came days after an anti-immigrant protest descended into violent disorder. The open letter was co-ordinated by coalition campaign Together With Refugees and signed by 180 charities. It condemned the “horrifying” scenes on 10 February outside the Suites Hotel in Knowsley, near Liverpool.

    The open letter described the events outside Suites Hotel as “horrifying”, and went on to say:

    With the high risk of more premeditated extremist attacks around the country, leaders of all parties must now take a clear stand and condemn any further violence against those who come here to find safety.

    The letter also urged political leaders to “set out the action they will take to prevent” further attacks.

    Rhetoric against asylum seekers comes from the top

    People have criticised home secretary Suella Braverman for her inflammatory rhetoric over immigration and asylum seekers. In particular, many have criticised her description of the growing number of refugees crossing the Channel. Opponents accuse her of demonising asylum seekers and fuelling hostility towards people seeking sanctuary.

    A Home Office spokesperson noted that Braverman had condemned the “appalling scenes outside the hotel and violence toward police officers” seen outside Suites Hotel.

    However, Braverman’s actual response to the riots in Knowsley wasn’t such a ‘clear stand’ against what happened. After highlighting a tweet by the home secretary in which she said that the “alleged behaviour of some asylum seekers is never an excuse for violence“, the Canary‘s Steve Topple wrote:

    There are no grounds for Braverman’s claim about refugees’ “behaviour” in Knowsley – except right-wing lies on social media.

    Braverman essentially covered for the far-right by victim-blaming refugees

    Many others made similar points, too

    As the Canary noted, the police and BBC News also repeated similar rhetoric in their response to the riot.

    No safe haven

    Clashes broke out in Knowsley when racist troublemakers disrupted a pro-refugee gathering outside the Suites Hotel on 10 February. The building was housing asylum seekers. The far-right group Patriotic Alternative had protested outside the hotel earlier in February, but it denied organising the latest rally.

    The open letter called attention to failures of the Home Office and the UK’s asylum system, which have served to place asylum seekers at greater risk. It said the lives of asylum seekers:

    are in limbo as they wait, sometimes for years, for a decision on their asylum claim.  And it is clear that these massive delays are directly leading to the use of hotels for people seeking asylum – a completely inappropriate form of accommodation and a glaring confirmation that the system is broken.

    Featured image via Together With Refugees/YouTube

    Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

    By Glen Black

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Labour, Tories, cops and the BBC united in promoting fascist, anti-refugee rhetoric

    After the fascist attack against refugees in Knowsley, Liverpool, you’d expect our toxic home secretary Suella Braverman to play down the fact that it appeared to be intentionally organised by the far-right. Of course, Braverman also isn’t about to acknowledge that she herself enabled the attack.

    Unfortunately, Labour and the BBC did similar – meaning that refugees are once again being demonised, while the establishment appeases racists and fascism.

    Tories, cops and the BBC: propping-up fascists in Knowsley

    First, Braverman tweeted that:

    There are no grounds for Braverman’s claim about refugees’ “behaviour” in Knowsley – except right-wing lies on social media. The Independent reported that chief constable of Merseyside police Serena Kennedy said people had been circulating “rumours and misinformation” on social media about the refugees at the Knowsley hotel. She went further, saying:

    Following inquiries, a man in his 20s was arrested on Thursday in another part of the country on suspicion of a public order offence.

    A file was submitted to the CPS and on their advice he was released with no further action.

    That doesn’t let Kennedy off the hook, though. She previously did the same as Braverman – blaming refugees while intentionally playing down the fact that this was clearly an organised, fascist attack. As the website DuckSoap noted, the BBC did the same, too. DuckSoap wrote that:

    In its authorless report the day after (11th February) BBC began by making sure readers were not informed who were the wrongdoers. The sentences below (second and third in the report) were designed to make it ambiguous regarding which group set the van on fire and threw missiles.

    “A police van was set on fire after a rally against refugees and a counter-protest by pro-migrant groups took place near the Suites Hotel, Knowsley. Police said missiles were thrown at officers but there were no injuries.”

    So, Braverman essentially covered for the far-right by victim-blaming refugees, and the cops did similar. Then the BBC tied the whole, fascist-appeasing mess up with a bow. Not that any of this should be a surprise, given Braverman’s use of racist, far-right language, the BBC‘s historical right-wing coverage of refugees, and the cops being, well, cops.

    So, what does Labour do in the face of far-right violence and Tory far-right incitement followed by appeasement? It doubles down on the racist, anti-refugee rhetoric.

    Labour: more of the same

    Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper couldn’t bring herself to show solidarity with the refugees the fascists targeted in Knowsley. Instead, she pointed to social media – not even mentioning Braverman and the Tories’ own far-right rhetoric:

    Also, Cooper missed out another group of culprits in British society’s continuing racism towards refugees: the corporate media:

    Plus, as people were pointing out, Cooper and her wing of the party have a history of playing into far-right language about refugees. Then, enter deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner to prove that she, too, is willing to sell out in the hope of getting racists and the far-right to vote for her party.

    On Good Morning Britain (GMB) on Monday 13 February, Rayner said she agreed with Keir Starmer that the state should tag some asylum seekers – albeit she dressed it up with some sympathetic-sounding platitudes about “supporting” refugees:

    As the Canary previously reported, the Home Office can currently electronically tag refugees, anyway – because Labour introduced the law in 2004. However, the Tories want to expand this law’s use.

    Refugees are welcome here. Fascists aren’t.

    So, exactly who is standing with refugees? As always, it’s down to communities and groups. For example, anti-fascists are organising ahead of a far-right mobilisation in Cornwall:

    Meanwhile, Care4Calais has been back to Knowsley. The group said in a report that:

    The mood was muted. People were naturally disturbed. The most common things we heard were “We just want to be safe” “we haven’t done anything wrong” and “Please, can you help us move to another town?” The saddest thing I heard was a man from Afganistan who said “I wasn’t safe in my country and I’m not safe here.”

    However, as the group also noted:

    But underlying it all they are trapped in that hotel. They can’t leave. They can’t go to the shop to buy a snack or cigarettes. So many told us they can’t sleep.

    The situation is overwhelmingly sad. Every person in that hotel has had to leave their homes and their loved ones behind because of situations that they cannot control and did not ask for. No one does that by choice. We met people from Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Iraq – these are some of the most dangerous places in the world. Their homes have been bombed, villages ransacked. Their children have been persecuted. Some have been horribly tortured. They came here to ask for our help, believing the UK to be a place of sanctuary. And they have been met with hostility and fear.

    This is the reality for refugees coming to the UK. Meanwhile, if it walks like a fascist and talks like a fascist – then, it’s probably a fascist, as the organisers of the Knowsley attack clearly were. To say otherwise, while negatively framing refugees, is doing nothing more than appeasing the far-right in the UK.

    Featured image via Channel 4 News – YouTube

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Liz Truss says it is ‘unfair’ to blame her mini-budget for interest rate hike and rules out being PM again – as it happened

    UK’s shortest-serving prime minister says she ‘learned a lot’ from time in government but does not want top job again. This live blog is now closed

    Sharon Graham, the Unite general secretary, has also criticised ministers again for refusing to engage in meaningful talks on pay. She told PA Media this morning:

    This government has not at any time in this dispute come to the table about the substantive issue on pay, and that is the real issue. There isn’t going to be any other way to end this dispute until they come to the table and talk about pay.

    They said on many occasions that they’re in constructive talks; first of all, I don’t know what those constructive talks are – they are certainly not on pay.

    Nobody wants to see these strikes, nobody wants to be on strike – the last thing nurses want to do is to be on strike.

    What they do want is a government that can show leadership, get around the negotiating table and settle this dispute.

    Continue reading…

  • Revelations about human rights abuses at Manston underscore the UK’s colonial immigration regime

    A Freedom of Information (FOI) request has revealed that the Home Office ignored warnings over the Manston refugee detention centre. Specifically, the local council had told the Home Office it had concerns over conditions at the centre in Kent relating to the health of detainees. Yet the Tory government ignored the council’s warnings, leading to a man’s death. However, while shocking, this is unsurprising given that our entire immigration system has its roots in colonialism.

    Manston: disease and death

    As the Canary previously reported, the Manston detention centre encapsulates the Home Office’s racist and inhumane approach to refugees. In late 2022, it was holding around 4,000 people – when the Home Office only designed it to accommodate 1,600. The Canary‘s Sophia Purdy-Moore noted that:

    The Home Office is only supposed to hold people on the site for up to 24 hours. However, a prison watchdog warned that authorities are detaining people on the site for a much longer period, without beds, proper healthcare, or access to fresh air and exercise. The watchdog noted reports of cases of contagious diseases such as scabies, diphtheria and MRSA within the centre.

    One man, Hussein Haseeb Ahmed, eventually died after becoming ill with diphtheria at Manston. At the time, the Home Office denied refugees were catching it at the centre. We now know the opposite is true – and moreover, that the council warned the Home Office something like this could happen.

    Home Office: ignoring warnings

    The Guardian reported that it had obtained FOIs from Thanet district council. They revealed that the council’s public health officials repeatedly contacted the Home Office with concerns over Manston. Specifically, the Guardian reported that:

    • Handwashing was advised as a key infection control measure but there was a shortage of sinks and access to running water and some toilets had no handwashing facilities at all.
    • Some toilets were blocked and overflowing with excrement.
    • The chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, became involved in the crisis and ordered UKHSA officials to produce a rapid assessment of infectious disease risk on the site.
    • [There was] confusion surrounding the release of people from Manston who may have had infectious conditions.

    The FOIs also showed that the Home Office’s claim that refugees were bringing diphtheria with them to Manston was probably not true. Officials said a “small number” of cases were likely to have been transmitted in the UK – that is, at Manston. Crucially, the Guardian also noted that:

    A risk assessment rated the risk of gastrointestinal disease, measles, diphtheria, scabies and other skin diseases as “very high”.

    Thanet district council raised all its concerns with the Home Office before Hussein died on 19 November. Yet the Home Office failed to act. Meanwhile, all this comes as the Independent and human rights organisation Liberty released an investigation into conditions at Manston.

    Human rights abuses?

    The investigation found that whistleblowing staff at the site reported:

    • Thousands of people sleeping on mats on the floor inside a makeshift marquee while being held for indefinite periods with nothing to do
    • Incidents of detainees being pinned to the ground and beaten after hitting their heads against a wall
    • Migrants being forcibly restrained after asking for food
    • A man injured in a fight receiving “unacceptable” medical care because it was assumed he was “faking it”

    The sheer level of human rights abuses at Manston perpetrated by the Home Office is shocking – but not surprising. As Purdy-Moore wrote last year:

    This goes beyond Manston. This is about challenging the entire inhumane border regime which surveils, polices, detains, deports and dehumanises people seeking safety in the UK and globally.

    However, this is also goes beyond the border regimes of states.

    Colonialism: alive and well in the UK

    Governments like the UK’s have an approach to refugees and borders that is inherently colonialist – and laws surrounding immigration have their roots in Britain’s colonial history. Those in power and, by default, society more broadly, view foreign nationals arriving in the UK as lesser human beings – barely even guests, treated with greater contempt than animals. As academic Nadine El-Enany wrote, the very fact that refugees have to ask permission to stay in the UK via our legal system sums up this colonial mindset:

    The traditional acceptance of legal categories as defined in international and domestic law… has the effect of concealing law’s role in producing racialised subjects and racial violence. It further impedes an understanding of law as racial violence.

    Moreover, El-Enany noted that:

    Legal status does not alter the way in which racialised people are cast in white spaces as undeserving guests, outsiders or intruders – as here today but always potentially gone tomorrow. Immigration law is, after all, the prop used to teach white British citizens that what Britain plundered from its colonies is theirs and theirs alone. Understanding that immigration law is an extension of colonialism enables us to question Britain’s claim to being a legitimately bordered, sovereign nation-state.

    Manston encapsulates this attitude – where the state persecutes refugees without recourse, and the staff at the centre then follow its lead. This pervades government institutions and society more broadly – and it will not change overnight. The sad yet damning likelihood is that another Manston is on the cards, somewhere in the UK.

    Featured image via Sky News – YouTube

    By Steve Topple

  • Sunak ‘plans to stop deportation appeals’ for people who reach UK in small boats

    Home Office reportedly proposed two options to try to prevent those crossing Channel from claiming asylum

    Rishi Sunak is proposing to stop asylum seekers who cross the Channel in small boats from appealing against their deportation, according to reports.

    The Home Office, led by Suella Braverman, had put forward two options for the prime minister’s consideration as he attempts to automatically prevent those arriving in Britain from claiming asylum, the Times reported.

    Continue reading…

  • AOC Leads Nearly 80 Democrats Urging Biden to Drop Proposed Title 42 Expansion

    Arguing that the Biden administration’s expansion of the Trump-era Title 42 anti-asylum policy is not only immoral but also illegal, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is leading nearly 80 of her fellow Democratic lawmakers in calling on President Joe Biden to instead keep his earlier promise to end the policy that’s expelled more than 2.5 million migrants since 2020.

    The New York Democrat joined Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) in spearheading a letter signed by a bicameral coalition of lawmakers to “applaud the creation of new legal pathways for Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans” that the Biden administration announced earlier this month, while expressing “great concern” over the restrictions that were paired with those pathways.

    “Last year, we welcomed your administration’s announcement that it would move to end Title 42, and we continue to support your efforts in the courts to ensure a timely end to the policy,” wrote the lawmakers in the Thursday letter. “We are therefore distressed by the deeply inconsistent choice to expand restrictions on asylum-seekers after your administration determined it was no longer necessary for public health. Title 42 circumvents domestic law and international law.”

    “We urge the Biden administration to engage quickly and meaningfully with members of Congress to find ways to adequately address migration to our southern border that do not include violating asylum law and our international obligations.”

    The letter was sent three weeks after the administration announced that under Title 42—which was first used by former Republican President Donald Trump to refuse entry into the U.S. to migrants at the southern border during the Covid-19 pandemic, with Trump claiming the policy was needed to protect public health—30,000 migrants from Nicaragua, Cuba, and Haiti will be able to enter the country legally each month through a humanitarian parole program and U.S.-based financial sponsors.

    If people from those countries try to enter the U.S. without going through an official port of entry, they will face immediate expulsion to Mexico, with the Mexican government committing to accept 30,000 deported refugees per month.

    At a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, Ocasio-Cortez said by expanding the Title 42 program, Biden is violating human rights that are “enshrined in domestic and international law.”

    “We have sought and aspired to be an example, to uphold international law,” said the congresswoman. “Instead the administration is making it effectively impossible to seek refuge at our border.”

    The lawmakers also raised alarm about a rulemaking process the Biden administration said it would begin to require migrants to first apply for asylum in a third “transit country” instead of exercising their legal right to asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border.

    The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that Trump’s “third country transit ban” violated U.S. asylum laws which prohibit the government from turning people away if they are not “firmly resettled” in another country where they are safe.

    “At the time of this ruling, countries across the Western Hemisphere were unable to meet such requirements,” wrote the lawmakers. “There does not appear to be evidence to show that country conditions in transit countries have improved since the relevant appellate decision was rendered as to justify a new third country transit [ban].”

    Title 42 was also struck down by a district court in November, but the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the policy to continue for the time being last month. The court is set to hear arguments on the case in February.

    The Democrats called on the president to work closely with Congress, which passed the Refugee Act of 1980 and affirmed that people fleeing persecution on “account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion” are legally permitted to seek asylum in the United States.

    “We urge the Biden administration to engage quickly and meaningfully with members of Congress to find ways to adequately address migration to our southern border that do not include violating asylum law and our international obligations,” said the lawmakers. “When Congress established the right to asylum, it did so without such requirements on where people may have previously traveled through or other pathways available. It is, in fact, necessary that asylum must be maintained and strengthened to ensure that safety is within reach, particularly for the most vulnerable.”

  • Hours After Killing Palestinians in Refugee Camp Raid, Israeli Forces Bomb Gaza

    Israeli forces launched their latest bombing campaign in the occupied Gaza Strip early Friday morning just hours after killing at least nine Palestinians in a raid on a West Bank refugee camp — resulting in the deadliest single day in the besieged territory in more than a year. The airstrikes came after the Israeli army said two rockets fired from Gaza were intercepted by Israel’s missile defense…

    Source

  • Immigration detainee not given new food because maggots ‘just on the vegetables’, report finds

    Advocates say ombudsman’s findings lay bare ‘inhumane’ treatment in Australia’s detention centres

    An immigration detainee served a contaminated meal was not offered an alternative because the maggots were “just on the vegetables”, a report by the federal watchdog has found.

    The claims by the commonwealth ombudsman – which are denied by the Australian Border Force – come in a report into conditions inside federal detention centres as part of Australia’s obligations under a UN anti-torture treaty – the optional protocol to the convention against torture (Opcat).

    Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • We Must Stop Thinking of About This as a “Border Crisis”



    Most of us agree that the U.S. immigration system is in dire need of reform. But inflammatory rhetoric and policies designed to keep immigrants away won’t get us there.

    When I was in law school, I witnessed firsthand the difficulties faced by asylum seekers.

    These desperate people had already endured terrifying conditions in their home countries and harrowing journeys to reach the U.S. border. Then they had to navigate a vastly complex immigration system that seemed bent on sending them away.

    I’ve listened to asylum seekers in immigration jail speak about their fears of persecution if returned back to their home countries. I’ve accompanied them during their asylum interviews. And I’ve observed judges in immigration court hear nearly 100 cases in a single day.

    Politicians and media pundits quickly reduce this mounting humanitarian crisis to “border security.” That narrow focus puts real solutions out of reach — and imperils the universal right to seek refuge from danger.

    Even President Biden, who promised to break from his hardline predecessor, has doubled down on the assault on immigrants. Faced with a surge of asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border, the Biden administration expanded the use of Title 42 this January to restrict people from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Venezuela from entering the United States.

    Title 42 is a rarely used provision of U.S. health law first invoked by President Trump to prevent asylum seekers from applying for legal protection at the U.S.-Mexico border under the pretext of preventing COVID-19. Biden has continued using Title 42 to carry out thousands of expulsions each month, sending people back to countries where they face harm and humanitarian disaster.

    We do need efforts to manage border migration efficiently, but not at the expense of fairness, humanity, and our own laws and values.

    The administration has also announced an enhanced use of “expedited removal,” which allows Border Patrol agents to quickly deport arriving migrants without adequate asylum screenings. Another proposed regulation would make people seeking asylum ineligible if they failed to seek protection in a third country before reaching the U.S.

    Accompanying Biden’s expanded expulsion policy is a new “parole” program that will bring temporary relief to Nicaraguans, Haitians, and Cubans, similar to one created for Venezuelans. This program will allow the entry of up to 30,000 individuals from the four countries each month as long as they have obtained financial sponsorship in the U.S. and satisfied other requirements.

    These individuals will be permitted to remain in the U.S. for two years with work authorization. But those who attempt to seek asylum at the border will be expelled and ineligible for the parole program.

    While helpful, this parole program offers limited legal pathways for just a tiny percentage of people. Its requirements impose major barriers to asylum seekers without access to resources, perpetuating inequities within the U.S. immigration system.

    The right to seek asylum at our borders regardless of one’s nationality is recognized under both international and U.S. law. Yet more than ever, that right is in danger. As political and economic conditions continue to deteriorate in Haiti, Venezuela, and throughout Central America, displacing ever more people, we need to fix this broken system.

    We do need efforts to manage border migration efficiently, but not at the expense of fairness, humanity, and our own laws and values. In tandem, the root causes of forced migration must be confronted, which requires re-examining U.S. policies toward our neighbors in Latin America and the Caribbean.

    We are a proud nation of immigrants with an immigration system that has not always lived up to America’s highest ideals. Until Congress finally passes comprehensive immigration reform, President Biden must commit to respecting our asylum laws and do more to build an immigration system that fundamentally recognizes dignity and respect for all people.

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • ‘New Zealand, get me off this island,’ pleads 9-year Iran refugee on Nauru

    By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist

    A second group of refugees detained in offshore Australian detention camps have arrived in New Zealand.

    Four people touched down on a flight yesterday.

    “I’m happy for them that they can get their freedom,” a friend of the recent arrivals who is still detained on Nauru, Hamid, said.

    Their arrival is part of an offer made by the New Zealand government to resettle up to 150 people who are or have been detained on Nauru each year for three years starting from 2022.

    The Australian federal government accepted the offer in March last year and the first six refugees arrived in November.

    The total arrivals of 10 is out of 100 refugees who have had their cases for resettlement submitted to Immigration New Zealand (INZ).

    ‘Kia ora’ Aotearoa, I’m Hamid’
    Hamid is from Iran and has been detained for almost a decade.

    “The situation here on this island is really hard — not just for me, but for everyone.

    “I cannot stand any more time on this island.

    “Please help! please help! please help! I need my freedom, I need my life, I need my family!” Hamid said.

    He arrived on Christmas Island in 26 July 2013 with his eldest daughter and son. He left his wife and youngest daughter, who was only nine at the time, in Iran.

    “In Iran, a lot of people already die, she [my wife] is tired. My daughter, I always worried about her. I give them hope,” he said.

    Hamid dreams of being reunited with his family in New Zealand. He dreams of living in Queenstown and having a big Iranian barbecue.

    Scattered family
    He said his case had just been sent to INZ by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

    While he waits for New Zealand to decide on his future, his wife and youngest child remain in Iran, his son is in Australia and his eldest daughter is in the US.

    A family that has gone through so much is now scattered around the world.

    “My family, I love them and the time and the day they join me, I cannot wait to be with them, to hug them and give them my love.

    “I love them, they are my only love, my one and only, my wife, she is my one and only,” he said.

    It takes around six to nine months to assess and process each case, a wait he said is going to be gruelling.

    “All cases under the Australia arrangement are subject to having refugee status recognised by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and being submitted to New Zealand for resettlement. The UNHCR refer these cases to INZ who conduct an interview process with the individuals,” an INZ spokesperson said.

    While Hamid was not on yesterday’s flight, INZ said it, “will be in contact with [him] about his situation once his arrangements are finalised”.

    Until then, Hamid said he was scrubbing up on his te reo Māori while dreaming of his new life in New Zealand.

    He cannot wait to greet people with “Kia ora”.

    “I know New Zealand, I love the people,” Hamid said.

    A group of refugees at the airport in Nauru.
    A group of refugees at the airport in Nauru. Image: Refugee Action Coalition/RNZ Pacific

    ‘Bereft of hope’
    While Hamid did have hope, Amnesty International said others did not.

    It is calling on the New Zealand government to speed up the resettlement process.

    “The Australian government’s offshore detention regime in Nauru and PNG has destroyed so many lives,” Australia refugee rights campaigner Zaki Haidari said.

    “Many people are now so broken they can’t make a decision for themselves and are bereft of hope.”

    An Immigration New Zealand spokesperson said it currently had 90 applications to process.

    Interviews are underway for the remaining cases.

    But the process was simply too slow, Haidari said.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • ‘A Sigh of Relief’ as Hundreds of Rohingya Refugees Rescued After Harrowing Sea Journeys



    The rescue of hundreds of Rohingya refugees by fishers and local authorities in Indonesia’s Aceh province was praised Tuesday as “an act of humanity” by United Nations officials, while relatives of around 180 Rohingya on another vessel that’s been missing for weeks feared that all aboard had perished.

    The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said that “Indonesia has helped to save 472 people in the past six weeks from four boats, showing its commitment and respect of basic humanitarian principles for people who face persecution and conflict.”

    “We feel like we got a new world today… We could see their faces again. It’s really a moment of joy for all of us.”

    “UNHCR urges other states to follow this example. Many others did not act despite numerous pleas and appeals for help,” the Geneva-based agency added. “States in the region must fulfill their legal obligations by saving people on boats in distress to avoid further misery and deaths.”

    Ann Maymann, the UNHCR representative in Indonesia, said in a statement that “we welcome this act of humanity by local communities and authorities in Indonesia.”

    “These actions help to save human lives from certain death, ending torturous ordeals for many desperate people,” she added.

    The Syndey Morning Herald reports residents of Ladong, a fishing village in Aceh, rushed to help 58 Malaysia-bound Rohingya men who arrived Sunday in a rickety wooden boat, many of them severely dehydrated and starving.

    The following day, 174 more starving Rohingya men, women, and children, were helped ashore by local authorities and fishers after more than a month at sea.

    Mohammed Rezuwan Khan, whose 27-year-old sister Hatamonesa was aboard the boat with her 5-year-old daughter, told Pakistan’s Arab News that “we feel like we got a new world today.”

    “We could see their faces again. It’s really a moment of joy for all of us,” he said of his family. Speaking of his sister, he added that “she thought that she would die in the voyage at sea.”

    Babar Baloch, the UNHCR regional spokesperson in Bangkok, stated that 26 people had died aboard the rescued vessel, which left Bangladesh a month ago.

    “We were raising alarm about this boat in early December because we had information that it was in the regional waters at least at the end of November,” he said. “So when we first got reports that it was somewhere near the coast of Thailand, we approached authorities asking them to help, then when it was moving towards Indonesia and Malaysia we did the same.”

    “After its engine failure and it was drifting in the sea, there were reports of this boat being spotted close to Indian waters and we approached and asked them as well and we were also in touch with authorities in Sri Lanka,” Baloch continued.

    “Currently as we speak, the only countries in the region that have acted are Indonesia, in big numbers, and Sri Lanka as well.”

    According to the BBC, the Indian navy appears to have towed the boat into Indonesian waters after giving its desperate passengers some food and water. The boat drifted for another six days before it was allowed to land.

    “Currently as we speak, the only countries in the region that have acted are Indonesia, in big numbers, and Sri Lanka as well,” Baloch said. “It is an act in support of humanity, there’s no other way to describe it.”

    Relatives of around 180 other Rohingya who left Bangladesh on December 2 said Tuesday that they fear the overcrowded vessel has sunk in the Andaman Sea. Mohammad Noman, a resident of a Rohingya refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, told The Guardian that his sister was aboard the boat with her two daughters, who are 5 and 3 years old.

    “Every day we called up the boat two or three times on the boatman’s satellite phone to find out if my sister and her two daughters were all right. Since December 8, I have failed to get access to that phone,” he said. “I know some other people in Cox’s Bazar who made phone calls to the boat every day and stayed in contact with their relatives there. None of them has succeeded to reach the phone after December 8.”

    The captain of another vessel transporting Rohingya refugees said he saw the distressed boat swept up in stormy seas sometime during the second week of December.

    “It was around 2:00 am when a strong wind began blowing and big waves surfaced on the sea. [Their] boat began swaying wildly, we could gauge from a flashlight they were pointing at us,” he told The Guardian. “After some time, we could not see the flashlight anymore. We believe the boat drowned then.”

    More than a million Rohingya Muslims are crowded into squalid refugee camps in southern Bangladesh after having fled ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and other violence and repression in Rakhine state, Myanmar, which is ruled by a military dictatorship. Since 2020, thousands of Rohingya have fled the camps by sea.

    Hundreds have died during the perilous journey. If the sinking of the boat with 180 aboard is confirmed, it would make 2022 the deadliest year for Rohingya at sea, according to UNHCR.

    UNHCR’s Baloch stressed that “countries and states in the region have international obligations to help desperate people.”

    “We have been calling on states to go after people smugglers and human traffickers as they are responsible for putting people on those death-trap boats, but victims have to be saved and saving human life is the most important act,” he told the Morning Herald.

    “The refugee issue and saving lives cannot just be left to one country, it has to be done collectively, together in the region,” he added.

    Tun Khin, a Rohingya activist and refugee who now heads the Burmese Rohingya Organization U.K., took aim at regional power Australia, which has been criticized for decades over its abuse of desperate seaborne asylum-seekers, nearly all of whom are sent to dirty, crowded offshore processing centers on Manus Island and Nauru to await their fate.

    “Australia has too often set a shameful example for the region through its treatment of refugees,” he told the Morning Herald.

    “These people are facing genocide in Burma,” Khin added, using the former official name of Myanmar. “It is a hopeless situation for them in Bangladesh, there is no dignity of life there.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • Will Britain’s Migrant Deportation Plan Get Off the Ground?



    The UK’s plan to deport migrants to Rwanda is lawful, the High Court ruled on Monday.

    The policy, which involves Britain forcibly sending tens of thousands of migrants to Rwanda in an alleged effort to tackle the record number of refugees and asylum seekers arriving in the UK on small boats, has been mired by controversy.

    Many asylum seekers have had a lack of access to legal representation and advice and no access to translated documents from the Home Office.

    “People who have suffered the horrors of war, torture, and human rights abuses should not be faced with the immense trauma of deportation to a future where we cannot guarantee their safety. We believe that sending refugees to Rwanda will breach our country’s obligations under International Treaties and we continue to believe this policy is unlawful,” Care4Calais said after the court ruling.

    The ruling came as a relief for newly appointed Prime Minister Rishi Sunak who has made a high-stakes political promise to tackle the ‘migration problem’ in Britain.

    However, the plan has attracted criticism from opposition parties and human rights organizations in the UK, as well as across the international community, including the UN. “UNHCR remains firmly opposed to arrangements that seek to transfer refugees and asylum seekers to third countries in the absence of sufficient safeguards and standards. Such arrangements simply shift asylum responsibilities, evade international obligations, and are contrary to the letter and spirit of the Refugee Convention,” the UNHCR’s Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Gillian Triggs, announced back in April.

    A report published by Medical Justice condemns the UK government’s deportation plan, claiming that Rwanda deportees include victims of torture and human trafficking. It adds that many asylum seekers have had a lack of access to legal representation and advice and no access to translated documents from the Home Office relating to their imminent removal and deportation to Rwanda.

    For many, the deal represents a crisis of responsibility, rather than a “migration crisis”. It ignores the UK’s international commitments and sets a dangerous precedent for other countries looking to leverage migration for political ends. Denmark is one of the countries considering a similar deal with Rwanda.

    However, for the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda, the deal adds unnecessary pressure on the small African state. “Rwanda is a small country. We are also not economically a rich country, like the UK. So we still have many economic challenges, issues of water, distribution, scarcity, issues with electricity, and issues of gas. So we are not anywhere [near] ready to receive people coming from the UK,” Frank Habineza, a politician from the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda, told MEMO.

    In spite of the court’s green-lighting of the plan, there is currently no airline willing to carry asylum seekers to Rwanda, with the last company pulling out following pressure from activists. Having already spent £120 million on the deportation scheme, the coming year will see the British government wrangle new ways to make the plan – and its effort to reduce migrant numbers – a success. With only two years before the next general election, a lot is at stake. So far, in spite of the risk of being deported, more asylum seekers have crossed the Channel to the UK in 2022 than in previous years, this has brought into question the effectiveness of the plan and whether or not the “unlawful” policy can really get off the ground.

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • Nearly 200 Rohingya Refugees Adrift at Sea Desperately Seek Rescue

    A United Nations refugee advocate on Friday joined human rights defenders in imploring South and Southeast Asian nations to rescue nearly 200 Rohingya refugees “on the verge of perishing” after drifting on the Andaman Sea for weeks — an ordeal that’s already reportedly claimed around 20 lives aboard the vessel. The refugees — who are fleeing ethnic cleansing and other severe state repression in…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • ‘We’re Dying Here’: SOS Issued for Rohingya Refugees Desperately Adrift at Sea



    A United Nations refugee advocate on Friday joined human rights defenders in imploring South and Southeast Asian nations to rescue nearly 200 Rohingya refugees “on the verge of perishing” after drifting on the Andaman Sea for weeks—an ordeal that’s already reportedly claimed around 20 lives aboard the vessel.

    The refugees—who are fleeing ethnic cleansing and other severe state repression in their native Myanmar—have been packed aboard the unseaworthy boat for as long as a month without adequate food or water, the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a statement.

    “While many in the world are preparing to enjoy a holiday season and ring in a new year, boats bearing desperate Rohingya men, women, and young children, are setting off on perilous journeys in unseaworthy vessels.”

    “It is devastating to learn that many people have already lost their lives, including children,” Indrika Ratwatte, UNHCR’s Asia and Pacific director, said on Friday, lamenting that the refugees’ plight has been “continuously ignored” by countries in the region.

    “This shocking ordeal and tragedy must not continue,” Ratwatte continued. “These are human beings—men, women, and children. We need to see the states in the region help save lives and not let people die.”

    Using his phone, the captain of the stranded boat told Mohammed Rezuwan Khan, whose sister and 5-year-old niece are on the vessel, that “we’re dying here.”

    Khan told The Washington Post on Friday that he has lost contact with his relatives aboard the vessel and that he is “very concerned” for their well-being.

    “I ask the international community to not let them die,” Khan added. “Rohingya are human beings. Our lives matter.”

    According to UNHCR:

    Since the first reports of the boat being sighted in Thai waters, UNHCR has received unverified information of the vessel being spotted near Indonesia and then subsequently off the coast of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India.
    Its current location is reportedly once more back eastwards, in the Andaman sea north of Aceh.
    UNHCR has repeatedly asked all countries in the region to make saving lives a priority and requested the Indian marine rescue center earlier this week to allow for disembarkations.

    While the Sri Lankan navy and local fishers acted rapidly to rescue over 100 Rohingya from a boat in distress in the Indian Ocean last weekend, no such assistance has been rendered to the vessel drifting in the Andaman Sea.

    “International humanitarian law requires the rescue of people at sea when they are in distress, and their delivery to a place of safety,” Amnesty International stressed in a tweet Thursday. “Further delays to alleviate this suffering or any attempts to send Rohingya back to Myanmar where they face apartheid are unconscionable.”

    Two weeks ago, a Vietnamese commercial ship en route to Myanmar rescued 154 Rohingya refugees from a sinking boat before turning them over to Burmese authorities, who reportedly arrested the migrants.

    On Thursday, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Myanmar Tom Andrews said that nations in the region “should prevent any loss of life and urgently rescue and provide immediate relocation” to the stranded Rohingya.

    “Too many Rohingya lives have already been lost in maritime crossings.”

    “Too many Rohingya lives have already been lost in maritime crossings,” asserted Andrews, a former Democratic U.S. congressman from Maine. “Increasing numbers of Rohingya have been using dangerous sea and land routes in recent weeks, which highlights the sense of desperation and hopelessness experienced by Rohingya in Myanmar and in the region.”

    UNHCR has reported a 600% increase of mostly Rohingya people endeavoring perilous sea journeys from Myanmar and Bangladesh in 2022. The agency says at least 119 people have died or gone missing this year.

    “While many in the world are preparing to enjoy a holiday season and ring in a new year, boats bearing desperate Rohingya men, women, and young children, are setting off on perilous journeys in unseaworthy vessels,” Andrews said.

    “The international community must step forward,” he added, “and assist regional actors to provide durable solutions for the Rohingya.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • Discussing the Right to Asylum This Holiday Season

    For the past several years, a patchwork of policies have illegally restricted people fleeing persecution from seeking safety at the U.S.-Mexico border. The ACLU recently won a critical lawsuit when a federal judge ordered an end to Title 42, one of the most restrictive policies, but multiple states and members of Congress are trying to keep the policy in place. At the same time, the federal government is reportedly considering resuscitating other inhumane Trump-era policies that would continue restricting access to asylum, rather than focusing on real solutions to a more fair and efficient immigration system.

    As we gather together with loved ones this holiday season, and as the U.S.-Mexico border continues to make headlines, this topic may come up in conversations. To restore humanity to U.S. asylum policy, we need to center human dignity, truth, and justice in our conversations. This guide will help you do just that.

    The basic facts you need to know:

    Seeking asylum is a human right protected under international and U.S. laws.

    People may come to the U.S. or the border to seek asylum and must prove their cases to be granted permanent protection.

    Many policies threaten the human and legal right to seek asylum from persecution, but none succeed in deterring people from trying to seek protection at the border.

    Despite obstacles, asylum seekers become integral members of our communities.

    Money spent policing the border can be better spent establishing a fair, orderly, and welcoming asylum process.

    First-hand stories of courage and survival

    For those who aren’t already interested in these issues, our laws might seem abstract or arcane. One of the best ways to understand and convey their importance is by sharing the stories of people who are fighting for their right to seek asylum and are directly impacted by the policies that make headlines.

    My Family Came to Seek Asylum, But Found Danger Instead

    Searching for Peace: The difficult and dangerous journey to seek asylum in the United States, Part I

    Searching for Peace: The difficult and dangerous journey to seek asylum in the United States, Part II

    The history of asylum law and why it’s still critical

    The right to seek asylum — or safety from persecution — in another country was born out of the tragedies of World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust. In its aftermath, dozens of nations committed to never again slam the door on people in need of protection. The right to asylum was enshrined in 1948’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights and then again in the Refugee Convention of 1951 and its 1967 Protocol.

    The United States is a party to the Refugee Protocol and passed the Refugee Act of 1980 to comply with its international obligations. The Act protects people who are fleeing persecution on “account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”

    The Refugee Act is meant to ensure that people who seek asylum from within the U.S. or at its border are not sent back to places where they face persecution.

    These protections are just as critical today. More people have been forcibly displaced from their homes due to conflict, violence, and human rights violations in recent years than at any other time since World War II.

    All people fleeing persecution are allowed to seek asylum under our laws. Period.

    What you need to know about policies that restrict people from seeking asylum

    The “Remain in Mexico” policy, first implemented by the Trump administration, forced people to wait in dangerous conditions in Mexico while their asylum cases proceeded in the U.S. The Biden administration attempted to end this policy, and the U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that it has the authority to do so.

    Title 42, first implemented by the Trump administration under the guise of public health, has been used for more than two-and-a-half years to expel people fleeing violence and persecution, rather than considering their claims. Expulsions under Title 42 have led to more than 10,000 documented cases of violent attacks, including rape, torture, and abduction, and have subjected Black and LGBTQ asylum seekers to particular risks. A federal judge recently ordered its end, but some politicians are fighting to keep it in place.

    So-called “deterrence” policies aim to stop people from exercising the right to seek asylum through the threat of harm or punishment, such as family separation, mandatory detention, and criminalization.

    Other policies aim to prevent people from requesting asylum to begin with, such as through severe metering or unlawfully denying asylum to people entering the U.S. at the Southern border who did not first apply for asylum in Mexico or another third country they transited through.

    American Civil Liberties Union

    Five Things to Know About the Title 42 Immigrant Expulsion Policy | News & Commentary | American Civil Liberties Union

    Since March 2020, the government has misused the order to kick out people seeking asylum more than 1.7 million times.

    What you need to know about the impact of these restrictive policies

    These policies subject people who have already endured violence and persecution to further harm, including rape, torture, and abduction in many cases, by denying them the chance to seek safety and sending them back into harm’s way.

    Although elected officials have claimed these policies discourage migrants from coming to the border, evidence shows they do not stop people from seeking safety and ultimately create more disorder.

    Expulsions under Title 42, for example, have the opposite effect of deterring people. They have encouraged people seeking protection to repeatedly attempt to cross the border to find safety.

    Even after imposing the strictest and most punitive rules against asylum seekers, President Trump faced sharp increases in the numbers of migrants at the border, at that time the highest numbers in over a decade.

    How fear-mongering is used to win support for these policies

    Anti-immigrant politicians continue to peddle falsehoods and racist tropes about an “invasion” to instill fear and win support for harmful policies. Ahead of the midterms, America’s Voice, an immigration advocacy organization, identified over 3,200 different paid communications that employed anti-immigrant attacks.

    Governors of Florida, Arizona, and Texas have used asylum seekers as political props, placing them on flights and buses to communities like Martha’s Vineyard, to make headlines and perpetuate a fear-based narrative around the border.

    Despite these attacks, the vast majority of Americans support asylum rights. According to a new poll conducted by the U.S. Immigration Policy Center at the University of California, San Diego, nearly three-quarters of Americans (73.4 percent) agree that the United States should provide access to the U.S. asylum system to people fleeing persecution and/or violence.

    What we really need at the border, and how to fund it

    A group of migrant children and parents in a grassy setting.

    (Credit: John Lamparski/NurPhoto via AP)

    We need a more efficient, humane, and welcoming system at the border for people seeking asylum.

    Much of the money Congress now spends on a bloated Border Patrol police force should be spent instead on humane reception and screening of people at the border and on making sure our immigration agencies and federal courts have enough employees and judges to decide asylum claims in a fair, orderly, and timely manner.

    This money could also be used to support people in reaching family members or sponsors in the locations where they will wait for the government to decide their claims and to more quickly process work permits for asylum seekers so they can support themselves and contribute to their communities. One recent study estimated that on average, an asylum seeker contributes over $19,000 per year to the U.S. economy, and that a 25 percent reduction in the number of all people seeking asylum in the country would cause an economic loss of $20.5 billion over a five-year period.

    How you can join the fight to protect the right to seek asylum

    The policies discussed in this guide present a serious threat to the future of asylum rights, but we’ll continue to fight back through our ongoing litigation, in the halls of Congress, and through public education. And we’re not stopping there. We’re fighting for a fundamentally more humane and welcoming system at the border for people seeking asylum — and you can, too.

    Here are four ways you can join the fight to protect the right to seek asylum no matter where you live.

    Use this guide to speak to your friends and family and educate them on the importance of protecting asylum rights.

    Share why you support welcoming people with humanity and dignity on Soapbox and tag your members of Congress.

    Send a message to Congress telling them not to extend Title 42.

    Visit the ACLU Border Humanity Project — a campaign to fight for humane border policies — for other ways to get involved.

  • El Paso Declares Emergency Over Influx of Asylum Seekers Amid Freezing Weather

    The Democratic mayor of El Paso, Texas, has declared a state of emergency over concerns the city won’t be able to provide shelter and resources to the thousands of asylum seekers arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border. This comes as the Biden administration is expected on Wednesday to stop enforcing Title 42, the Trump-era pandemic policy that has been used by the U.S. government to block over 2…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Braverman says she wants to deliver Rwanda deportations at scale as soon as possible – as it happened

    This live blog is now closed. You can read our full report here:

    And here is the key quote from the summary of the judgment.

    The court has concluded that, it is lawful for the government to make arrangements for relocating asylum seekers to Rwanda and for their asylum claims to be determined in Rwanda rather than in the United Kingdom. On the evidence before this court, the government has made arrangements with the government of Rwanda which are intended to ensure that the asylum claims of people relocated to Rwanda are properly determined in Rwanda. In those circumstances, the relocation of asylum seekers to Rwanda is consistent with the refugee convention and with the statutory and other legal obligations on the government including the obligations imposed by the Human Rights Act 1998.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.