Asylum Update – 29nd February 2008

Quarterly asylum statistics
The BIA has issued the asylum statistics for the final quarter of 2007and an accompanying press release.
See also BBC coverage and Refugee Council response
Integration and cohesion
This document is the second of three parts to the government’s response to the report Our Shared Future published in 2007 by the Commission on Integration and Cohesion.

Refugee [...]

Earning citizenship (2) – why now?

I didn’t pick this up at the time of my previous post on this, but why are the government making these proposals now, just a few months before Lord Goldsmith reports on the findings of his independent citizenship review for the Ministry of Justice? Is it pre-empting the findings? What if the findings are contradictory [...]

Asylum Update – 22nd February 2008

Citizenship and asylum
A recent House of Lords debate has raised the issue of the implications for asylum seekers and refugees of the government’s proposed ‘contract’ for foreign nationals becoming citizens. The government’s announcement followed close on the heels of the publication of the Green Paper containing the results of the BIA’s consultation on citizenship.
Commissioning community [...]

Earning citizenship

Today’s Home Office proposals to reform the migrant’s route to British citizenship reflect a recent trend in rebalancing the emphasis of the rights and responsibilities of those coming to the UK. As a previous post discussed, the new proposals develop further a more communitarian (rather than libertarian) approach to rights. Jacqui Smith makes clear that [...]

Asylum Update – 15th February 2008

Keeping children safe from harm
is a BIA code of practice consultation paper is to seek a range of views on how to improve the way that children are handled within and by the immigration system. The deadline for responses is Friday 25 April 2008. More details here
ECRE paper
Defending Refugees’ Access to Protection in Europe [...]

Refuge in Israel

This article provides further insight into the situation of sub-Saharan African refugees in Israel. We have blogged previously on this issue and the plight of refugees in countries that are both geographically adjacent to asylum-migration routes out of African conflicts but also underdeveloped in terms of service provision and institutional protection for refugees. This leads [...]

Asylum Update – 8th February 2008

UNHCR news
- New Country Briefing Folders on Somalia and Eritrea
- Statement on Subsidiary Protection under the EC Qualification Directive for people threatened by indiscriminate violence published here. A response to questions presented by the Dutch highest Administrative Court to the European Court of Justice, the Statement seeks to ensure EC law on subsidiary protection matches [...]

Worth reading…

…from Open Democracy this essay by Saskia Sassen describes emerging ‘tertiary spaces’ between the national and the global in which different actors engage. While her focus is more formal institutions, she also acknowledges that diffuse informal examples also exist – many refugee diasporas fit this description.
…from Spiked Online this article reports back from the first [...]

Asylum update – 1st February 2008

Unaccompanied asylum seeking children
The Home Office has published plans for the reform of support to unaccompanied children, together with the draft Code of Practice to keep children in the immigration system safe from harm.
Better outcomes: the way forward, improving the care of unaccompanied asylum seeking children
Draft code of practice consultation
Responses:
Medical Foundation
ILPA
Refugee Council
Conference
5th Postgraduate Conference on [...]