On 20 March 2024 the government laid two 'Special Development Orders' (SDOs) granting temporary planning permission for the accommodation of people seeking asylum at two former RAF sites at Wethersfield in Braintree and Scampton near Lincoln.
The Gaza Families Reunited campaign (@GazaFamReunited on Twitter/X) coordinated a joint letter to the Home Secretary, in consultation with migrants’ rights (including refugee rights) organisations as well as Palestinians seeking to bring their family members to safety from Gaza.
This submission looks at the consultation on reforms to social housing allocations, proposed by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities.
Last week, the Home Office shamefully discredited the findings of our report, written jointly with Humans for Rights Network, which provided detailed evidence of the irreparable and profound harm caused to residents housed in the asylum camp at Wethersfield airfield.
As representatives of medical humanitarian and healthcare organisations, we call on the government to urgently abandon its plans to push through its ‘Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill’, which risks exposing men, women, including pregnant women, and children to irreparable harm.
A key component of HBF's holistic model of specialist care is legal protection. This response outlines the problems we see and the key changes needed to ensure people seeking asylum and survivors of trafficking can access legal advice and representation.
This research involved speaking to refugees and asylum seekers at different stages of the asylum process in the UK about the full trajectory of their health-care journeys in order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the current barriers to healthcare as well as of who and what helps refugees and people seeking asylum facilitate access to and navigate the health system.
HBF and Asylum Aid submitted evidence to the UN Human Rights Committee as part of its examination of the UK under the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The submission focuses on the UK government's upholding of the ICCPR with respect to survivors of trafficking, refugees and those seeking asylum and stateless persons.
This paper reviews the existing and emerging applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the context of asylum. The use of AI in processing asylum claims could address some of the challenges faced by decision-makers, but the application of AI requires careful implementation, keeping human rights and ethical considerations at the forefront.
Our new report reveals that child refugees who come to the UK alone are facing harassment, abuse and criminalisation as a result of being wrongly treated as adults and placed in accommodation with adult strangers.
We are appalled that the government is continuing to push the Safety of Rwanda Bill through the House of Commons. Those who could be sent to Rwanda include people who have endured the worst of human cruelty in their countries of origin or during their arduous journeys to the UK, or often both. It is inhumane to send them to a third country which they know nothing about, and which has a track record of human rights abuses. This includes sending people back to countries where they were persecuted.
Our new report with Humans for Rights Network (HFRN) shows that the government’s use of Wethersfield airfield as a large ‘open-prison camp’ for men seeking asylum for the last five months has already caused profound harm and suffering.
