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     No-Deportations – Residence Papers for All

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Man Dies After Falling From Building During ‘Needless’ Immigration Raid

 

UK Immigration Authorities Separating Children From Parents

 

British Airways Sponsors Pride. So Why Help To Deport LGBT Asylum Seekers?

 

Evidential Burden Reduced in Retained Rights Cases

 

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UK Immigration Authorities Separating Children From Parents

The British government is separating children from parents who have been taken into immigration detention – the practice that brought worldwide condemnation for the Trump administration. Scores of children – and possibly hundreds – are separated from a parent or carer in the UK every year, according to a charity that challenges immigration detention. Bail for Immigration Detainees (Bid) has so far this year represented 155 parents who have been separated from a child or children while in immigration detention in the UK. The charity usually handles about 170 cases a year. While current Home Office guidelines state that children should not be separated from a parent if that results in the child being taken into care, Bid says this has happened to three families in the last 16 months. In two cases, fathers were taken into immigration detention after local authorities warned that the children’s mothers were unable to care for them alone, and that the children would need to spend their childhoods in care. Both men were eventually bailed.

Read more: Ian Cobain, https://is.gd/73QQjm

 

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Man Dies After Falling From Building During ‘Needless’ Immigration Raid

 

A man has died after falling from a building in Wales during an immigration raid, prompting an investigation by the police watchdog. The 23-year-old Sudanese migrant had been working at a car wash in Newport when immigration officers arrived on the scene and reportedly started chasing workers. It is understood that following the arrival of the officers the man climbed onto a nearby factory roof. A short while later he was found on the floor of an annexe building next to the factory with critical injuries.

Onlookers said there was a “huge bang” as the man fell from the roof, and that the immigration officers “went white”. Officers called an ambulance and performed CPR until paramedics arrived. The man was transferred by ambulance to the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff, where he was later pronounced dead.  Lyn Saunders, 70, who was waiting for his car to be cleaned at the hand wash when the immigration officers arrived, said he saw more than a dozen officers jump out of two vans and start chasing car wash workers. “It was a bit like a Carry On film. There were about half a dozen of us sitting in the cafe next to the car wash waiting for our cars to be done. The worker’s just scattered. It was a bit of a shock to say the least,”

 

Read more: May Bulman, Independent, https://is.gd/g8RF0k

 

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Evidential Burden Reduced in Retained Rights Cases

In accordance with Regulation 10(5) of the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2006, a non-EU national can apply for a UK Residence Card based on retained rights of residence in the UK if their marriage with an EEA national breaks down. Until recently, applicants faced difficulties in trying to demonstrate that their former spouse was exercising Treaty Rights at the date of divorce. Dozens of cases have been refused on this ground, with a number of them being taken to Court in an attempt to clarify the applicants’ fragile legal status in the UK.

In the case of Baigazieva vs Secretary of State for the Home Department, in an unusual move, the Secretary of State re-considered his position on this issue prior to the appeal being heard and asked the Court of Appeal to rule in favour of Ms Baigazieva. The Court of Appeal agreed with the Home Secretary and ruled that whilst the appellant’s retained right of residence does not take effect until the point of divorce, there was no support for the proposition that the appellant had to prove that their former spouse remained a qualified person up until that point. Therefore, the third country national will only be required to show that their former spouse was a qualified person at the point divorce proceedings were initiated, rather than the point of formal divorce itself. This decision appears to take account of the common situation where the date of the decree absolute (formally dissolving the marriage) usually comes much later than the date when the relationship broke down.

Another case reducing the evidential burden under the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2006 is PM vs The Secretary of State for the Home Department from 16 March 2010. The case revolved around a non-EU national who had sought to obtain Permanent Residence in a situation where their relationship with an EEA national had broken down. The facts were that the couple had lived together in a subsisting marriage for over 3 years and had a child, but later decided to stop living in a common household and remained married to each other only in a social contact. The initial application for Permanent Residence was refused on the basis that there was insufficient evidence that the non-EEA national had resided in the UK for five years with the EEA national, in accordance with the Regulation 15(1)(b) of the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2006.

The Court ruled that the non-EEA national should be granted Permanent Residence in the UK because the couple had cohabited as a genuinely married couple for some time, a child was born to the couple and because they maintained social relations in the context of the contact with the child. Although the EEA Regulations (Regulation 2(1)) exclude those who are a party to a marriage of convenience from being recognised as a spouse, and therefore a family member, a marriage of convenience could not arise solely because a married couple did not live together in the same household.

Posted by: Gherson Immigration, https://is.gd/I7zr1V

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British Airways Sponsors Pride. So Why Help To Deport LGBT Asylum Seekers?

 

Virgin took a stand against forced deportations in defiance of the law. Britain’s national airline should follow suit

The fact that the 1971 Immigration Act made not co-operating with the Home Office a criminal offence for Virgin is immaterial. Putting people’s lives in danger, LGBTQ+ or otherwise, can never be excused. LGBTQ+ rights in the United Kingdom weren’t won by asking nicely: activists struggled for decades, and continue to do so – often engaging in acts of civil disobedience in order to ensure our right to live freely and safely is, as far as possible, enshrined in law. Airlines who facilitate, and profit from, the forced deportation of refugees and asylum seekers from the United Kingdom don’t get to pass the blame. It’s the responsibility of us all to stand up to grave injustices when we witness them first hand. Let’s not forget that Jimmy Mubenga, an Angolan man, died after being restrained by guards while being deported on a BA flight.

If British Airways is truly committed to supporting LGBTQ+ people, it’s not too much to ask that it takes this stand. Deporting members of our community to possible death can’t be mitigated simply with its meaningless slogan of “Flying Proud”. If British Airways doesn’t follow in Virgin’s footsteps, it will prove that it’s only lip-service and good PR that the airline considers worthwhile – co-optation at its worst. When I approached the company for comment I got no response.

“We take great pride in transporting our modern British values to the world,” reads British Airways’ page on the Brighton Pride website. It’s now up to the company to decide which values it wishes to uphold – those of a progressive society committed to equality, or one that continues to place LGBTQ+ lives at risk.

Read more: Michael Segalov, Guardian, https://is.gd/AIVOan

 

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