Asylum / refugees / immigration (UK)
Observer: Revealed: UK has failed to resettle Afghans facing torture and death despite promise
Afghan nationals who were promised resettlement to the UK nearly a year ago are facing torture and death while they wait for a response from the British government, the Observer can reveal.
Not one person has been accepted and evacuated from Afghanistan under the Home Office’s Afghan citizens’ resettlement scheme (ACRS), launched in January, prompting claims that ministers are showing a “toxic combination of incompetence and indifference”. The scheme was intended to help Afghans who worked for, or were affiliated with, the British government – including its embassy staff and British Council teachers – and all of whom face severe harm at the hands of the Taliban.
https://www.theguardian.com/
Independent: ‘Unworkable’ asylum plans backed by Suella Braverman condemned as ‘completely out of step with British values’
Extreme plans backed by home secretary Suella Braverman to stop asylum seekers crossing the Channel have been criticised as “unworkable” and “completely out of step with British values”.
In a clear bid to pressure Rishi Sunak into taking harsher action on small boat crossings, Ms Braverman has written the foreword to a think tank report which calls for all asylum seekers who enter the UK “illegally” to be detained indefinitely and banned from ever settling here.
https://www.independent.co.uk/
Sky News: Albanians 'should be barred' from claiming UK asylum, immigration minister says
Albanians should be barred from claiming asylum in the UK, the Immigration Minister has said
Robert Jenrick said such individuals should be "excluded from the right to claim asylum" as they are coming from a "demonstrably safe" country.
https://news.sky.com/story/
Guardian: Refugee who brought injured niece to UK illegally given leave to remain
A man whom the Home Office repeatedly tried to deport after he brought his badly burned baby niece to the UK illegally for treatment has won his right to remain in Britain after a six-year battle.
Najat Ibrahim Ismail, 35, fled torture in Iraq and came to the UK in 2004. He and his British wife, Emma Ismail, have three children and live in Portsmouth.
https://www.theguardian.com/
Guardian: Man who died after being held at Manston asylum centre named
A man who died after being held at Manston reception centre in Kent, where initial checks are carried out on small boat arrivals, has been named as Hussein Haseeb Ahmed, a 31-year-old from Iraq.
Ahmed arrived in the UK on a small boat on 12 November and was being processed at Manston when he became ill and died in hospital on 19 November.
https://www.theguardian.com/
Guardian: Home Office centres turn away asylum seekers summoned for interviews
Dozens of asylum seekers who were recently moved out of Manston were left stranded outside Home Office centres after being invited to apparently phantom appointments and then turned away, the Guardian has learned.
The development comes exactly a month after 11 asylum seekers were left in the street close to London’s Victoria station after being moved out of Manston, the controversial reception centre for small-boat arrivals in Ramsgate, Kent.
https://www.theguardian.com/
ITV: 'We want to work, we want to contribute': Asylum seekers urge work restrictions to be lifted
Rachael wants to work.
She’s an asylum seeker from Kenya. In her homeland, she was a secondary school Biology teacher. She also ran her own business.
Rachael fled death threats and extortion in Kenya and has been in the UK for almost five years.
But she isn’t allowed to work while waiting for her asylum claim to be processed.
https://www.itv.com/news/
Guardian: Almost fifth of lone Albanian child refugees in Kent missing, says council
Almost a fifth of lone Albanian child refugees have gone missing, an English council has revealed. Kent county council took in 197 unaccompanied children from Albania between 1 January and 31 October of this year and, of those, 39 are missing.
The figures were revealed after a freedom of information request by the BBC.
https://www.theguardian.com/
Relevant world news
BBC: Haiti: Inside the capital city taken hostage by brutal gangs
In Port-au-Prince you cannot see the boundaries, but you must know where they are. Your life may depend on it. Competing gangs are carving up the Haitian capital, kidnapping, raping, and killing at will. They demarcate their territory in blood. Cross from one gang's turf to another, and you may not make it back.
Those who live here carry a mental map, dividing this teeming city into green, yellow, and red zones. Green means gang free, yellow can be safe today and deadly tomorrow, and red is a no-go area. The green area is shrinking as heavily armed gangs tighten their grip.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/