Palestinians register: doing research with refugees

Most research on refugees is conducted by people who are not refugees. This is not necessarily a problem and much of this work is of great value due to its rigour and ethical approach. But another way to do research on refugees is to do the research along with refugees, identifying refugee researchers or training [...]

Asylum update – 25th January 2008

UNHCR
UNHCR’s parliamentary briefing on the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill
Older Refugees
A working paper from the Refugee Council on the older refugees programme – a literature review and interviews with refugees
Section 4 support
The Immigration and Asylum (Provision of Services or Facilities) Regulations 2007 will come into force on 31st January. They cover needs not connected [...]

A bill of rights and responsibilities?

A couple of weeks back, this blog discussed a piece by Julian Baggini on the libertarian and communitarian approaches to rights, which describes the two as providing the new cleavage in politics but suggests that the way forward is to borrow from both traditions. The communitarian argument, as Baggini points out, has always been an [...]

Displacement and Iraq

To get a sense of the extent and magnitude of the displacement crisis unfolding and reproducing in Iraq, take a look at this briefing from MPI. In addition to providing a statistical breakdown by region and religion of the estimated more than 4.5 million people displaced from Iraq, the report also suggests that a number [...]

Asylum update – 18th January 2008

UNHCR
UNHCR’s Statistical Yearbook 2006, published December 2007

Home Office
Ten point plan for border protection and immigration reform. Read a recent Refblog entry on the plan.

Women’s Asylum News
Latest edition of Women’s Asylum News, January 2008

Events
Colloquium – ‘Other Europes’: Agents of Transformation
Institute for the Study of European Transformations
London Metropolitan University
31 January – 1st February 2008 9.30-6pm
INVITED [...]

BIA’s priority is protection, but of what?

The ten point plan for reforming asylum and immigration, released in a speech this week by Immigration Minister Liam Byrne, was largely predictable: Police-like powers for border forces, deportations of illegal immigrants and foreign prisoners, removals of failed asylum seekers, e- and biometric border control. The press release lists countless targets met in recent months, [...]

Asylum update – 14th January 2008

Audit of race relations across the immigration detention estate
An audit report of race relations across the immigration detention estate conducted by Focus Consultancy Ltd has been published.
Download the full report at:
http://www.bia.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/documents/aboutus/Reports/racerelationsaudit/
Asylum seeking children

Barnardo’s report on the welfare of asylum seeking children

Full report
Executive summary
Press release

Refugee Council briefing on the project for families [...]

Compensating Palestinian refugees

The pronouncements made by President Bush and, in his new capacity as Middle East Peace Envoy, Tony Blair on prospects for a peace agreement between Israel and, at least, the Palestinian Authority have been cautiously optimistic. Both are clear that an end to the occupation of some Palestinian territory and a solution to the refugee [...]

Libertarian vs. Communitarian?

Since the premature proclamation of the ‘end of history’ following the collapse of the Soviet Union, those believing in the end of the old left and right division that has been central to modern politics have proffered a number of other dividing lines that will define the next political era. Some suggest power struggles between [...]

Worth reading…

…from IDMC this update looks at the scale of displacement generated by the ongoing political and humanitarian crisis in Kenya, claiming that up to 100,000 people have so far been displaced.
…from the Economist this special report makes the case for governments continuing to facilitate greater labour migration, claiming that population movements have in recent years [...]