Asylum Update – November 20th 2008

Research

 

The UK Borders Agency has published Asylum Performance – 2007 in which it compares performance to targets, particularly in relation to removals. The report claims the number of refugee claims is at its lowest level since 1993. 

 

At the same time the Home Office has published its quarterly immigration statistics including asylum for the third quarter of 2007, with supplementary tables also available. See also press release including Ministerial comments.

 

Papers Please: The Impact of the Civil Penalty Regime on the Employment Rights of Migrants in the UK is the first report in the Migrant Rights Network’s new Migration Perspectives series. See also article in Equal Opportunities Review.

Supporting disabled refugees and asylum seekers: opportunities for new approaches is a new research report produced by ICAR for the Metropolitan Support Trust and the GLA. See also press release, executive summary and launch event report

 

Journal articles

One Day We Had to Run?: The Development of the Refugee Identity in Children’s Literature and its Function in Education by Julia Hope, in Children’s Literature in Education Vol 39 No 4.

‘The new Europeans’: the image of the African refugee in European literature by Sissy Helff, in African and Black Diaspora Vol 1 No 2.

 

The Right to Seek – Revisited. On the UN Human Rights Declaration Article 14 and Access to Asylum Procedures in the EU by Gammeltoft-Hansen, T. and Gammeltoft-Hansen, H. in the European Journal of Migration and Law, Volume 10, Number 4.

 

 

Policy and law

 

In the latest Zimbabwean Country Guidance case, the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal has ruled that Zimbabwean asylum seekers in the UK unable to demonstrate loyalty to their current government will be at risk of persecution if removed.
The outcome of a Democratic Republic of Congo country guidance case is currently awaited.

 

A joint response to the draft Immigration and Citizenship Bill has been submitted by the Refugee Councils of England, Scotland and Wales. See also press coverage of evidence submitted by housing charities and the British Medical Association, all highlighting the potential impact on asylum seekers. 

 

The Refugee Council and the Refugee Legal Centre have submitted a joint response to the Government’s proposals to create a new Tribunal structure for asylum appeals.

See also press coverage on expert witnesses at appeals.

 

News

 

New immigration minister Phil Woolas has criticised lawyers and advocacy groups acting on behalf of asylum seekers in a national newspaper interview. A number of such organisations have responded, including the Immigration Advisory Service