Resources

Resources

Understanding Criminalisation - Why Some Young People Seeking Asylum Come into Contact with the Criminal Justice System

This research found that young people seeking asylum in the UK are often very particularly vulnerable due to their life experiences before, during, and after migration. Systems of accommodation and support in the UK, provided by local authorities and the Home Office, increase this vulnerability. Behaviours that arise from this increased vulnerability (such as offending behaviours) are surveilled and disciplined through contact with the police.
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Remote immigration and asylum advice: what we know and what we need to know

The current state of immigration and asylum advice is dire – 63% of the population in England and Wales do not have access to an immigration and asylum legal aid provider. Even those that do live near one of the remaining providers face significant barriers in accessing legally aided advice, due to saturated provider capacity precipitated by years of unsustainable legal aid fees, heavy administrative burdens and burnt-out practitioners. The provision of immigration and asylum advice in England and Wales is ‘not even adequate for first-time adult asylum applications, with a deficit of at least 6,000 for asylum applications and appeals’. 
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Annual report 2023

Alison Pickup
As the second year of working towards our 2022-2024 strategic priorities, 2023 was an exciting year of growth for Asylum Aid. But we also faced challenges from many directions: a government hostile both to our clients and to our work; a crisis in the availability of legal aid representation for people seeking asylum, as a result of years of underfunding and the declining sector; a constant cycle of new and complex legislation that seeks to restrict the right to asylum; and a failing system of accommodation and support for those prohibited from working that leaves many in appalling living conditions and surviving on barely adequate subsistence. Against this context, we are delighted to share this report, which showcases the real progress that Asylum Aid has made over the last year. We are now in a position to help more people get the protection they need; we have increased our partnerships with others in the sector, improving the advice that those fleeing persecution can get elsewhere; and we have demonstrated leadership and courage in taking forward legal challenges to unfair, unsafe and unworkable policies.
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Statement on far-right violence and attacks on asylum hotels

We are horrified and extremely concerned about the far-right racist attacks on asylum hotels and violence against people seeking asylum, refugees, migrants, and minority communities, particularly Muslims.   These disturbing images and threats of more organised attacks are taking a huge toll on the mental health of the people we work with – those who have survived some of the worst forms of human cruelty and have arrived in the UK in hope of finding protection.
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Press release on the flights to Rwanda being cancelled

At a hearing in the High Court this morning, the Home Secretary confirmed that no flights to Rwanda are currently scheduled or are intended to be scheduled. Surprisingly, despite what the Prime Minister said at the weekend, her lawyers were not yet able to confirm that the Rwanda policy is “dead and buried”. Consequently, it has not yet been withdrawn. As a result, Asylum Aid’s legal challenge to that policy remains live, while the new Home Secretary undertakes a review. The Home Secretary should now urgently confirm that there will be no flights ever, withdraw the policy and all Rwanda notices of intent. She should also start the process of repealing the Safety of Rwanda Act, which is an affront to the rule of law.
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Press release: Asylum Aid files judicial review claim challenging the Home Office’s Rwanda policy.

Asylum Aid has filed a claim in the High Court challenging the Home Office’s ‘Safety of Rwanda’ guidance (Policy). The charity argues that the Home Office’s Policy unlawfully instructs decision makers to ignore compelling evidence put forward by individuals showing that they would be at individual risk of being sent from Rwanda to another country where they face a risk of persecution, torture or even death. The Policy, Asylum Aid believes, is unlawful and misinterprets the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024, which was given Royal Assent on 25 April.
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Press Release on Asylum Aid launching legal action against the Home Office’s Safety of Rwanda policy.

Asylum Aid has launched legal action against the Home Office’s new Safety of Rwanda policy, published on 29 April 2024, on grounds that it is inconsistent with the Safety of Rwanda Act which got Royal Assent on 25 April. We have sent a pre-action protocol letter to the Home Office, highlighting that its policy, which details how the Act will be implemented, fundamentally misunderstands the Act, and seeks to undermine the will of the Parliament as reflected in the Act.
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Press release on the passing of the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

We are outraged at the passing of the Safety of Rwanda Bill, which declares Rwanda to be ‘safe’ despite the opposite finding by the Supreme Court, and without even letting the government’s own Monitoring Committee check whether its new Treaty with Rwanda has made any difference on the ground. The people the government wants to send to Rwanda include survivors of trafficking and torture and even children. The Rwanda removals scheme is designed to be deliberately cruel, and we have witnessed the deep and irreparable damage it has already caused to the mental health of our clients.  

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