News & Views Monday 4th June to Sunday 10th June 2018  


US to Send 1,600 Immigration Detainees to Federal Prisons

The Trump administration has for the first time begun transferring suspected illegal immigrants to federal prisons, following additional demand for beds. The transfer of 1,600 detainees underscores the surge in detentions under the President Trump's "zero tolerance" immigration policy. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said it was a temporary measure until other facilities could be found. Some 1,000 of the detainees will go to a single prison in California.  Union leaders at prisons in California, Texas, and Washington state told the Reuters news agency they had little time to prepare for the large intake of detainees, and raised concerns about staffing and safety. ICE is enacting a policy that requires federal prosecutors to criminally charge everybody caught illegally crossing the border.

Read more: BBC News, https://is.gd/U3gr8p



Home Office Policy Leaving Refugees Homeless Within Days of Being Granted Asylum

A Home Office policy is leaving newly recognised refugees homeless within days of them being granted asylum, charities have warned. A new report seen exclusively by The Independent suggests more than one in four homeless people using night shelters are refugees, with some going to shelters as early as one week after being evicted from asylum accommodation. The research, carried out by charity the No Accommodation Network (NACCOM), finds that 28 per cent of guests in a sample of night shelters had been granted refugee status. Although some of the shelters catered only for immigrants, the figure shows a large number of refugees are being affected. The findings identify a direct link between the Home Office policy of giving newly recognised refugees only 28 days to vacate asylum accommodation – known as the “move-on” period – and the high prevalence of homelessness among refugees in the UK.

Read more: May Bulman, Independent, https://is.gd/Pl7e9n



Home Office Spend £8,895,027 on Charter Flights in 2017

1,664 people, 1,565 males and 99 females, were forcibly removed on 42 Charter Flights, January through December 2017.

Destination countries were:
Albania 15 flights, 681 people
Pakistan 11 flights, 489 people
Nigeria/Ghana 7 flights, 261 people
Germany 5 flights, 120 people
Nigeria 2 flights, 57 people
Jamaica 1 flight, 32 people
Bulgaria/Czech Republic/France 1flight, 24 people

49.5% of those removed were to European Union countries

Average cost to remove each individual £5,345.56

Data source, Freedom of Information Requests to the Home Office



Legal Challenge Says ‘Right To Rent’ Rules Discriminate Against Non-UK Nationals


Plans to force landlords across Britain to check the immigration status of potential tenants will be challenged in court this week after claims that they are causing serious discrimination.

Landlords, politicians and immigration lawyers have all raised concerns about the “right to rent” policy, a key branch of the government’s attempt to create a “hostile environment” for illegal immigrants.

Under the rules landlords face fines, or even prison, should they house people with no right to be in the country. However, there is now evidence that landlords are ignoring tenancy applications from people with “foreign-sounding” names, from ethnic minorities, and from those without British passports. Choosing someone with a British passport means landlords do not have to carry out additional online checks.

Read more: Michael Savage, Guardian, https://is.gd/roHOPU




Asylum Research Consultancy (ARC) COI Update Vol. 172

This document provides an update of UK Country Guidance case law, UK Home Office publications and developments in refugee producing countries (focusing on those which generate the most asylum seekers in the UK) between 22 May and 4 June 2018.

Download the full document: https://is.gd/hZiAPp  


 

CPIN: Zimbabwe: Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

    1. Basis of claim
    2.  

1.1.1 Fear of persecution or serious harm by the state and/or non-state actors due to a person’s actual or perceived sexual orientation/gender identity.

1.2.1 For the purposes of this note, sexual orientation or gender identity means gay men, lesbians, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) persons although the experiences of each group may differ.

Published on Refworld, 08/06/2018
http://www.refworld.org/docid/5b1a40d44.html





Home Office Prevented Asylum Seeker's Urgent Cancer Treatment

A 38-year-old woman with advanced breast cancer was denied potentially life-saving chemotherapy for nearly six weeks after the Home Office deemed her ineligible.  Kelemua Mulat, who has metastatic breast cancer in her abdomen and bone cancer in her spine, was refused urgent hospital treatment on 27 April after a Home Office official decided her asylum claim did not meet strict criteria. Doctors at the internationally-renowned Christie hospital in Manchester were extremely concerned by the decision, the Guardian has learned, as consultants believed chemotherapy was “immediately necessary”.

The mother-of-one, who fled Ethiopia during political violence in 2010, began chemotherapy on Thursday after the Christie took the rare step of applying to treat her on the grounds that she requires urgent treatment, making her exempt from charges for overseas patients. The treatment started six weeks after she had been due to have her first consultation at the hospital. In an interview with the Guardian, Mulat said she felt she had been “left to die”.  “There’s too many unlucky people on Earth but I feel like the worst one,” she said through tears. “I came here for a better life but it’s not happened. I’ve no hope. I just wait to die. Anybody at the age of 38, waiting for death – how can you feel?” Jeremy Bloom, Mulat’s solicitor at the law firm Duncan Lewis, said: “We are delighted that our client will be receiving the life-saving cancer treatment that she so urgently needs, but it is shocking this treatment was delayed by nearly six weeks.”

Read more: Guardian, https://is.gd/fGUgHa



CJEU: 'Spouse' Includes Those of the Same Sex For Freedom of Residence Rights Purposes


The term ‘spouse’ within the meaning of the provisions of EU law on freedom of residence for EU citizens and their family members includes spouses of the same sex, the Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled. Although the member states have the freedom whether or not to authorise marriage between persons of the same sex, they may not obstruct the freedom of residence of an EU citizen by refusing to grant his same-sex spouse, a national of a country that is not an EU member state, a derived right of residence in their territory.

The court notes that, in the directive on the exercise of freedom of movement the term ‘spouse’, which refers to a person joined to another person by the bonds of marriage, is gender-neutral and may therefore cover the same-sex spouse of an EU citizen. Nevertheless, the court states that a person’s status, which is relevant to the rules on marriage, is a matter that falls within the competence of the member states, and EU law does not detract from that competence, the member states being free to decide whether or not to allow homosexual marriage. The court also observes that the EU respects the national identity of the member states, inherent in their fundamental structures, both political and constitutional.

Source: Scottish Legal News, https://is.gd/KbNhc7



Continuing Conflicts That Create Refugees - June 2018

Deteriorated Situations: Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Somalia, Somaliland, Mali, Niger, Taiwan Strait, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Israel/Palestine, Syria, Iran ,Yemen

Conflict Risk Alerts for June , Cameroon, Somalia, Somaliland, Iran, Yemen

May saw Cameroon’s Anglophone conflict escalate and new clashes between Somaliland and Somalia’s Puntland over disputed territory – in both cases, fighting could increase in June. Intercommunal violence rose in the Central African Republic and on both sides of the Mali-Niger border. In Burundi, President Nkurunziza pushed through changes to the constitution, entrenching his increasingly authoritarian rule. In Yemen, both sides intensified their campaigns and the Saudi-led coalition’s offensive on Hodeida could mean more bloodshed in coming weeks. Israel killed over 60 Palestinian protesters in one day, and Israel-Iran tensions climbed in Syria. President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal could ramp up confrontation between the U.S. and Iran or their respective allies. Fighting intensified in Afghanistan, while Indonesia faced ISIS-linked terror attacks. In North East Asia, China and Japan established a crisis management hotline, tensions flared over the Taiwan Strait, and a planned summit between Trump and Kim Jong-un in June could advance denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.

Read more: International Crisis Group, https://www.crisisgroup.org/crisiswatch


 

CPIN: Zimbabwe: Opposition to the Government

Basis of claim

1.1.1 A fear of persecution or serious harm by the state or its proxies because of the person’s actual or perceived political opposition to the government.

1.2 Points to note
1.2.1 Persons involved in actual or perceived opposition activities include members or supporters of political parties, protestors, journalists, civil society activists and teachers.

1.2.2 People who may be considered as proxies of the state include the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association (‘the War Veterans’), the Youth Brigades and Zimbabwe African Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF).

Published on Refworld, 08/06/2018
http://www.refworld.org/docid/5b1a43044.html