Archive for the ‘UKBA’ Category

Mashal released by judge pending new age determination investigation

Campaigners for the release of young Afghani orphan Mashal Jabari were delighted to hear that following a judicial review being lodged the judge agreed the following interim measures: until another full age assessment is completed, Mashal is to be considered 14 years of age and placed with a foster family in Wales where he has some support.
After being [...]

Welsh Refugee Council urgent call to stop detention and removal of 14 year old Afghan orphan

A recent photo of Mashal Jabari (right) with his 16 year old brother Zaki.

A 14 year old orphan has been arrested & detained in Campsfield Immigration Removal centre near Oxford, which exclusively holds adult males, and is due to be deported because the authorities claim not to believe he is under 18. His older brother has [...]

More than half of all children are released after detention

In an adjournment debate called by  the Conservative MP for Bedfordshire North-East, Alastair Burt, the Home Office Minister, Meg Hillier, told the House of Commons that in the financial year 2008-09, 1,116 children entered detention. She went on to report that ’some 539 of those children, slightly fewer than half, were removed, and 629 were [...]

Guardian reveals shocking mistreatment of asylum claimants by UKBA

The Guardian newspaper in its online edition, carries a report by Diane Taylor and Hugh Muir highlighting the shocking allegations of a former caseworker, at the UKBA office in Cardiff. The former UKBA employee, Louise Perrett, claimed that asylum seekers were mistreated, tricked and humiliated by staff working for the UK Border Agency. Ms Perrett reveals how

staff [...]

Judge slams UKBA for unlawful detention of family seeking asylum from Cameroon

Re-posted from the Stoke-on-Trent Sentinel, January 23 2010.
“..the handling of this case as a whole, both prior to and following the bringing of judicial review, fails in several respects to meet the requirements of both the public interest in an efficient immigration system and the protection of individual rights”.
- Judge David Elvin

A FAMILY of asylum [...]

Major expansion of family detention facilities planned by UKBA

No Borders Brighton is urging Crawley Borough Council to reject plans to turn the Mercure Hotel on Povey Cross Road into a removal centre, writes Miranda Wilson in IRR News.  The group claims the design of the 254-bed hotel means it could only be converted to house families. It strongly opposes the detention of children [...]

Roll calls, body searches and sex games

END CHILD DETENTION NOW exposes UKBA’s misleading claims to parliament on damning medical report.
This piece was written by Clare Sambrook and first appeared at OpenDemocracy
Back in October, a study by NHS paediatricians and psychologists, Lorek et al, found that babies and children were being harmed at Yarl’s Wood detention centre.
The doctors recorded children’s ‘increased [...]

Miep Gies: The courage to resist injustice

News of the death of Miep Gies reminds us that an ordinary Dutch family summoned extraordinary courage to shield German refugees, the Franks, from the Gestapo.
Until the Nazis invaded Holland, Anne Frank’s family had been able to find work and safety in their adoptive country.
If they had fled to present day Britain, the Franks might [...]

Persecution begins at home

BRUTAL attacks on African migrant workers in the southern Italian town of Rosarno in recent days prompted the Pope to make a rare comment on contemporary events. Condemning the racial discrimination against and exploitation of immigrants in Italy, Pope Benedict XVI said, ‘Every migrant is a human being different because of provenance, culture and tradition [...]

End Child Detention Now candle lit vigil in York 30 December 2009

Campaign supporters gathered outside St Martin le Grand Church in the centre of York just before New Year  to protest the detention of children in immigration removal centres over Christmas and to call for an end to all detention of children by the UK immigration authorities.
The government’s Border Agency imprisons between 1,000 and 2,000 children each [...]

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