Mother and Children required to deport themselves
Mildred Okpara and her two young children and baby are still in their Sheffield accommodation. They have received a letter from UKBA to report to Heathrow airport on Thursday the 2nd September.
Kirklees Refugee Forum are supporting a campaign to keep the family in Sheffield and would like your presence (if possible) in Sheffield this Friday.
Join the protest outside the Home Office UK Border Agency
Keep the Okpara family safe in Sheffield!
Come and join us on  the demonstration and bring as many people as possible. Please …

From FREEMOVEMENT.
[ Iraq civilian death toll almost doubles in July    Alert Net 01/08/10
UNHCR concerned about deportations to Mogadishu as fighting continues
UNHCR 30/07/10
Thousands flee Congo clashes, security worsens  IRIN 30/07/10
Nine die in Kashmir protest clashes    BBC News 02/08/10]
Two actual or potential conflict situations around the world deteriorated and one improved in July 2010, according to the new issue of the International Crisis Group’s monthly bulletin CrisisWatch
Deteriorated Situations: Rwanda, Somalia
Somalia, militant Islamist group al-Shabaab demonstrated for the first time its capability to spread conflict and bloodshed more widely across the region by …

A scheme that helps keep children safe by allowing parents to ask police whether people with access to their family are sex offenders rolls-out nationally today, the Home Secretary has announced.
The Child Sex Offender Disclosure Scheme provides members of the public with a way to check whether people who have contact with their children are a possible risk – and if it can help keep children safe the police will pass on information.
Having already protected more than 60 children from abuse during its pilot, the scheme is expanding to eight …

From UKBA
Three men, including a vicar, have today been found guilty of being behind a massive scam to organise hundreds of sham marriages in East Sussex.
Reverend Alex Brown, Ukrainian national Vladymyr Buchak and immigration lawyer Michael Adelasoye were all convicted of conspiring to facilitate braches of immigration law following an eight week trial at Lewes Crown Court.
Brown had earlier pleaded guilty to a charge of carrying out marriage ceremonies without banns of matrimony being published.
Their convictions follow one of the biggest ever investigations by the UK Border Agency’s South East …

The UK Statistics Authority welcomes the Government’s decision to proceed with the existing plans for the 2011 Census in England and Wales, set out in an answer by the Minister for the Cabinet Office, Rt. Hon. Francis Maude MP, to a Written Parliamentary Question.
 
The Office for National Statistics’ preparations for the Census on 27 March 2011 will now press ahead with all speed.The Statistics Authority is determined that, with the full support of the Government and all the other parties concerned, the 2011 Census will be the success that the …

 from BBC
The fast-track deportation of foreign nationals refused permission to remain in the UK has been declared unlawful by the High Court.
A judge ruled that the Home Office policy meant people were being given “little or no notice” of removal and were deprived of access to justice.
The policy was challenged by Medical Justice, which provides medical and legal advice to people facing removal.
The Home Office said it was “disappointed” and would appeal.
Medical Justice and the Home Office each laid out their case at a hearing last month, and on Monday …

The UK Home Office recently brought forward, the date for the commencement of compulsory requirement for immigrants to pass some test in English, in order to qualify to enter UK. This is just one of the stringent measures being adopted to ward off most non EU citizens seeking to enter UK. It is not in doubt UK’s immigration vocabulary has completely changed. It has changed from humanism to robust, hospitality to deportation, legal to retrospective effect. The situation is very worrying.
The UK government is fast forgetting that the British colonized …

Important Information for Refugees granted leave to remain for 5 years in 2005
From 30 August 2010, those granted refugee leave or humanitarian protection in 2005 for 5 years will start to come to the end of their 5 years leave.
They will need as a matter of urgency to renew their application for indefinite leave to remain.
Someone who does not do so before his/her 5 years leave expires may suffer several problems – including losing any entitlement to work or receive benefits, or that any application for indefinite leave to remain …

Report on a full announced inspection of Brook House Immigration Removal Centre 15 – 19 March 2010 by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons. Report compiled June 2010, published Monday 12th July 2010.
At the time of the inspection, Brook House IRC was an unsafe place.
Brook House IRC at Gatwick airport opened in March 2009. It is run by G4S and holds around 400 male detainees.
A year after it opened, Brook House was fundamentally unsafe, said Dame Anne Owers, Chief Inspector of Prisons, publishing a report on an announced inspection of the …

The report “Inspection of UK Border Agency operations in Wales and the South West” is the first comprehensive inspection of the UK Border Agency’s regional operations within the UK. Cardiff, Bristol, Holyhead and Plymouth ports were inspected along with enforcement operations in Bristol and Cardiff.
Independent Chief Inspector, John Vine CBE QPM found that Holyhead seaport is recognised by the UK Border Agency as a high risk area for immigration offenders entering the country illegally. However, it has no permanent immigration controls as, like other Welsh ports, all passengers arrive from …

A report published today by the Independent Chief Inspector of the UK Border Agency has found that although the UK Border Agency has developed a clear approach to the handling of complaints and correspondence, it has yet to demonstrate it is learning lessons consistently or addressing the root cause of complaints.
 
The report “Lessons to Learn: The UK Border Agency’s Handling of Complaints and MPs’ Correspondence” focused on two areas fundamental to the UK Border Agency Customer Strategy – complaints and correspondence handling for the general public and Members of Parliament.
Independent …

67 UKBA Charter flights in 2009/2010 costing £10.3 million
‘Freemovement’ requested information on Charter flights removing persons from the UK who have breached UK immigration rules.
The request was dealt with under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
1. In the financial year April 2009/March 2010 how many charter flights took place?
The number of charter flights in which UK Border Agency participated in the last financial year was 67.
[ Average number of removees 32 per flight]
[ Average cost of removing each person £4,804 ]
[ Average cost of each flight £153,731.34 ]
2. To which …

By Austin Aneke
(Jacobin) Thomas Paine had written that “when you see age going to the work house and the youth to the gallows something is wrong somewhere. It would seem by exterior appearances that all was good, but there lies hidden from the eye of common observation a mass wretchedness that has scarcely any other chance than to expire in poverty. Its entrance into life is marked with the presage of its fate, and until this is remedied it is in vain to punish”.
Though written ages ago his carefully worded and …

from GFI
The G20 Summit in Toronto June 27th-28th was heavy on promises and lean on concrete action items, notes the Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development.  While the G20 expressed a strong desire to “close the development gap,” increase transparency, and tackle corruption and money laundering, there was a notable lack of language indicating an understanding of the interconnected nature of these different problems. 
   
“We are disappointed that there was not an acknowledgment of the importance of curtailing illicit financial outflows from developing countries in the official statement,” said …

Shadow home secretary Alan Johnson said a temporary cap on economic migrants was a con trick. He said it would affect about one in seven immigrants and there were already restrictions on firms recruiting workers from outside the EU under the points-based system introduced by the previous Labour government.
Mr Johnson told BBC News: “You wonder what is the point of this, given that in this country at the moment, under our policy, if a company wants to bring a skilled worker in, they can do it if they have advertised …