Asylum seekers and refugees in United Kingdom
Recent stories
Home Office marriage regulations face legal challenge
The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) is taking a test case against a provision of the 2004 Asylum and Immigration Act which states that citizens wishing to marry a foreign partner must address themselves to a specially designated register office where they have to meet strict eligibility criteria before their notice to marry is accepted.
19 January 2006 (275 words)
Anti-refugee violence
Riot against refugees in Wales
30 June 2003 (620 words)
Police chief alleges migrant crime rise
The president of the Association of Chief Police Officers has alleged that 'massive migration and a whole new type of crime, from the Nigerian fraudster ... to the Jamaican concentration on drug dealing' was sweeping the country.
30 May 2003 (90 words)
Birmingham asylum seeker takes his life
On 12 March, Mohsen Amri, an Iranian asylum seeker who had been dispersed to Birmingham by the London Borough of Haringey committed suicide after hearing that his asylum claim had been rejected.
16 December 2002 (47 words)
New Scottish detention centre opened
The Dungavel Detention Centre in South Lanarkshire, which is run by Premier Detention Services, is Scotland's only asylum prison.
16 December 2002 (203 words)
New reception arrangements to be phased in
In October 2001, the home secretary, David Blunkett, put forward his proposals to scrap 'the humiliating and demeaning voucher system', reform dispersal and overhaul current reception arrangements for asylum seekers.
16 December 2002 (413 words)
New law introduced
After attempts by the House of Lords to throw out some of the most repressive aspects of the Bill, the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act was passed with barely any opposition in the Commons in November 2002.
16 December 2002 (275 words)
Britain at hub of child prostitution
According to a report by the End Child Prostitution, Pornography and Trafficking (ECPAT - UK), Britain has become a hub of a growing trade in children, mostly from west Africa, Nigeria and increasingly eastern and central Europe.
5 December 2002 (49 words)
Arbitrary detention condemned
Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID) has called on the UN to investigate the plight of the thousands of asylum seekers and migrants who are indefinitely and arbitrarily detained in the UK each year.
1 December 2002 (118 words)
Home Secretary approves mosque raid to remove Afghani family
There was outrage after the home secretary approved a police operation to remove an Afghani family from a mosque where they had sought sanctuary.
1 December 2002 (62 words)
Snatch squads formed
In his White Paper proposals, Blunkett also announced a new protocol between the immigration service and the police service to step up the removal of illegal immigrants or failed asylum seekers no longer entitled to remain in Britain.
18 October 2002 (186 words)
Home Office films Roma deportations
There was criticism of the Home Office after it allowed TV crews to film the deportation of forty-nine failed asylum seekers, including a dozen children, on a special charter flight from Stanstead airport to the Czech Republic.
21 September 2002 (78 words)
National Lottery attacked by government for supporting asylum NGO
The home secretary David Blunkett has been accused of political interference after attacking the National Lottery for funding the National Coalition of Anti-deportation Campaigns (NCADC).
1 September 2002 (215 words)
The treatment of asylum seekers with HIV
After the High Court ruled that an Ethiopian asylum seeker who cannot breastfeed her four-month-old daughter because she is HIV-positive has a legal right to free milk, attention has been focused on the plight of HIV-positive asylum seekers in the UK.
31 July 2002 (194 words)
Huge fire at Yarl's Wood detention centre
Two new detention centres for asylum seekers considered at risk of absconding were already opened in 2001. A 500-bed centre at Harmondsworth, near Heathrow Airport, opened at the beginning of October and a second, for 900 asylum seekers, at Yarl's Wood, Bedfordshire, opened on 19 November.
20 April 2002 (1022 words)
Continental 'asylum villages' planned
The Home Office is planning to build 'asylum villages' in the countryside.
4 March 2002 (260 words)
Newcastle asylum seeker leaps to his death
Souleyman Diallo, a 28-year-old asylum seeker, has died after leaping from Tyneside's Redheugh Bridge on New Year's Day because he was facing deportation to Guinea.
15 January 2002 (56 words)
Two black deaths in custody
The Police Complaints Authority is investigating the death of two men in the custody of south London police.
1 January 2002 (90 words)
Evictions against xeno-racist neighbours
In January, Bradford council started eviction proceedings against a group of residents accused of subjecting six families from eastern Europe to an 'appalling' hate campaign.
1 January 2002 (41 words)
Spotlight on criminal justice system and racial motivation
Firsat Dag murderer jailed for life
1 January 2002 (309 words)
Related links
Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers
Information Centre about Asylum and Refugees in the UK
National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns
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