This editorial looks at the importance of health care professionals and NHS trusts in facilitating access to independent immigration advice and support for individuals with uncertain immigration status, given how much of a risk factor unresolved immigration issues are when it comes to mental health.
A new briefing from HBF, Asylum Aid and Humans for Rights Network reveals that the Home Office is incorrectly treating hundreds of children seeking asylum as adults, based on a short visual assessment on arrival in the UK, and placing them alone and at significant risk in unsupervised accommodation and in immigration detention.
This Government, through the ‘Illegal' Migration Bill, seeks to strip those fleeing war, persecution and human rights abuses of their right to seek safety in this country. It seeks to destroy long held principles of fairness in our justice system – that of access to the courts and equality before the law. The Helen Bamber Foundation and Asylum Aid will resist the passing and implementation of this Bill with all the means at our disposal.
This briefing highlights our concerns that part of the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill will remove the proper and necessary checks on the exercise of executive power in the running and management of the asylum accommodation system in England, and will result in serious adverse impacts and harm both for people seeking asylum and for local communities.
In November 2022, the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) inquiry launched an inquiry looking at the government’s policies and procedures relating to asylum seekers and the impact these have on their human rights. We submitted evidence HBF and Asylum Aid, and on behalf of the Taskforce on Victims of Trafficking in Immigration Detention and the Refugee and Migrant Children's Consortium.
Delivering policy change is a fundamental part of the Helen Bamber Foundations (HBF)’s organisational strategy and a vital way of creating positive improvement to the lives of all survivors. This strategy sets out how we intend to achieve change and our priority areas for the coming year.
Over 100 charities from the refugee and children’s sectors wrote to the Prime Minister on January 26th 2023 to express their grave concern about separated children seeking asylum going missing from Home Office hotels. The children are suspected of being exploited and are accommodated outside of the UK’s child welfare framework which applies to all children, regardless of their immigration status.
Recent media coverage have revealed that dozens of children placed in Home Office-run hotels have gone missing, at risk of exploitation and trafficking. With other NGOs, HBF has been raising concerns about the use of hotels and the impact it has on the safety and welfare of vulnerable children for over 18 months. This blog examines the Home Office use of hotels and how it denies unaccompanied children the care and protection to which they are entitled.
This briefing summarises findings from two pieces of research, in which the Helen Bamber Foundation was involved, looking at people’s experiences of their substantive asylum interviews: • The texture of narrative dilemmas: Qualitative study in front-line professionals working with asylum seekers in the UK, 20211 • The challenges faced during Home Office interview when seeking asylum in the United Kingdom: An interpretative phenomenological analysis, 20222
This briefing provides a short overview of existing research on the challenges and the experience of legal aid providers in providing advice to clients 'remotely' rather than face to face.
The Bill of Rights Bill, or ‘Rights Removal Bill’, sought to scrap the HRA and replace people’s universal rights with those gifted by the government, whilst removing legal responsibility and accountability and introducing barriers to people actually having their rights upheld. This would affect us all, but would be particularly devastating for more marginalised groups, including survivors.
