Month: February 2021

Home Office use of ‘contingency units’

Please find below a version that can be shared of my submission in response to the call by the Independent Chief Inspector for Borders and Immigration, David Bolt https://www.gov.uk/government/news/call-for-evidence-an-inspection-of-the-use-of-hotels-and-barracks-as-contingency-asylum-accommodation:

It can be downloaded here:

2021-Feb-21-Public-version_-submission-ICIBI-Inspection-of-contingency-unitsDownload

Call for evidence: An inspection of the use of hotels and barracks as contingency asylum accommodation

The Home Office emphasis on find and remove, and increasing the tensions of an already hostile environment demonstrate a clear lack of willingness to find a humanitarian way forward in these exceptional circumstances.

The bottom line is that the Home Office has, at best and being very generous, allowed the conditions described to prevail by their lack of care, but it seems that there is a deliberate policy to promote and continue the hostile environment, whilst paying substantial sums to the private sector.

There are strong moral, political. practical, and financial arguments to support the campaign for *Indefinite Leave to Remain/settled status for all who are undocumented or in the legal process.

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Status Now 4 All – EDM #658 and #1442

Please ask your MP to support EDMs #658 and #1442

EDM1442: Undocumented migrants and covid-19 vaccination tabled on 03 February 2021 by Claudia Webbe – MP Leicester East

Motion text

That this House believes that access to essential healthcare is a universal human right; regrets the continued existence of structural, institutional and systemic barriers in accessing NHS care experienced by undocumented migrants and those awaiting determination of their asylum, visa and immigration applications; considers that an effective public health response to the covid-19 crisis requires that the most vulnerable can afford to access food, healthcare, and self-isolate where necessary; understands that some of the most vulnerable people in society will not access vaccination against the virus, since to disclose their identity to the authorities would risk their arrest, detention and deportation; fears that without urgent Government intervention this will lead to further avoidable premature deaths, especially in the African, Asian and Minority Ethnic population; and therefore calls on the Home Office to grant everyone currently in the UK at this time who are undocumented migrants and those awaiting determination of their asylum, visa and immigration applications indefinite leave to remain, and to be eligible in due course to receive the covid-19 vaccination.

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