Research

‘Vile liars and truth distorters’: truth, trust and the asylum system

Published by NCADC on November 9, 2012 | 1 Response

A guest blog post by Melanie Griffiths. Melanie Griffiths is a DPhil candidate at Oxford University, with affiliation to the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, and the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society. Her research is on the asylum system in the UK, with a particular focus on refused asylum seekers and immigration detainees. Her doctoral thesis is on truth, trust and identification and she has also written on time and uncertainty in relation to migration. Her email address is [email protected] Asylum seekers and refused refugees are some of the most mistrusted persons in British society, widely assumed to Read the full article…

Guest post: why criminalise the asylum seeker?

Published by NCADC on July 12, 2012 | 1 Response

The NCADC blog is pleased to welcome three guest posts from Molly Haglund, who has just completed a Masters Degree in Human Rights Practice at the Universities of Roehampton, Gothenburg and Tromsø. They are edited excerpts from her thesis entitled Punished for Persecution: An Analysis of the Criminalization of the Asylum Seeker in the United Kingdom which you can download here. The three posts examine the issues of (1) The Criminalization of asylum seekers, (2) A Tradition of Deterrence and (3) Why Criminalize the Asylum Seeker? Read Molly’s previous two posts, on the criminalisation of asylum seekers; and a tradition of deterrence. Today’s Read the full article…

Guest post: a tradition of deterrence

Published by NCADC on July 10, 2012 | 1 Response

The NCADC blog is pleased to welcome three guest posts from Molly Haglund, who has just completed a Masters Degree in Human Rights Practice at the Universities of Roehampton, Gothenburg and Tromsø. They are edited excerpts from her thesis entitled Punished for Persecution: An Analysis of the Criminalization of the Asylum Seeker in the United Kingdom which you can download here. The three posts examine the issues of (1) The Criminalization of asylum seekers, (2) A Tradition of Deterrence and (3) Why Criminalize the Asylum Seeker? You can read Molly’s first post on the criminalisation of asylum seekers here. Today’s post considers the Read the full article…

Guest post: the criminalization of asylum seekers

Published by NCADC on July 6, 2012 | 2 Responses

The NCADC blog is pleased to welcome three guest posts from Molly Haglund, who has just completed a Masters Degree in Human Rights Practice at the Universities of Roehampton, Gothenburg and Tromsø. They are edited excerpts from her thesis entitled Punished for Persecution: An Analysis of the Criminalization of the Asylum Seeker in the United Kingdom which you can download here. The three posts examine the issues of (1) The Criminalization of asylum seekers, (2) A Tradition of Deterrence and (3) Why Criminalize the Asylum Seeker? The Criminalization of Asylum Seekers In 2002, asylum applicants comprised 49% of net migration Read the full article…

Treatment of returned asylum seekers in Iran

Published by NCADC on January 31, 2012 | Leave a response

The Ireland Refugee Documentation Centre, part of the Legal Aid Board, is an independent library and research service. The Centre provides a research and query service for all organisations involved in the asylum process, and builds and maintains a collection of objective and up to date country of origin , asylum, immigration and human rights information. It also provides training on country of origin information research and aims to cooperate with similar agencies elsewhere to enhance knowledge of the country of origin research area. The centre has just published a very useful compilation of recent reports on the risks to Read the full article…

Fahamu Refugee Legal Aid Newsletter: essential reading

Published by NCADC on January 18, 2012 | Leave a response

The Fahamu Refugee Legal Aid Newsletter is a monthly forum for news and reflection on the provision of refugee legal aid. Focusing on the global south, it provides a unique range of news stories, organisation profiles, and legal explanations to assist those providing free legal advice on asylum, refugee and human rights cases across the world. Joe Bryce, an immigration solicitor based in Scotland, described the newsletter as “Extraordinarily valuable and interesting, a real Aladdin’s Cave”. The newsletter follows recent developments in the interpretation of refugee law; case law precedents from different constituencies; reports and helpful resources for refugee legal Read the full article…

Women’s Asylum News

Published by NCADC on September 12, 2011 | Leave a response

The August/September edition of Women’s Asylum News is now available to download from the Asylum Aid website. The lead article in this month’s issue covers the latest report by the Asylum Support Appeals Project (ASAP) which considers barriers to asylum support appeals for women and has been written by Gerry Hickey, Legal Adviser at ASAP. This issue also contains case summaries of recent judgments in the Upper Tribunal, national news concerning new guidance for the changes to the domestic violence applications rule and international news.

Researching country of origin information

Published by NCADC on April 20, 2011 | Leave a response

Country of Origin Information (COI) is central to refugee status determination. However, the Research Unit at (sadly now defunct) Immigration Advisory Service highlighted serious concerns about the quality of initial decision making in asylum claims in the UK, and in particular the use/misuse of COI. You can download the IAS research into COI here (pdf) You might find your asylum application refused because UKBA used dodgy info, or because you didn’t have quality legal representation. Or perhaps you are trying to put together a fresh claim, but can’t find a solicitor. Or you want to gather evidence to gain public Read the full article…

Human Rights Watch World Report 2011

Published by NCADC on January 24, 2011 | Leave a response

The 649-page report, Human Rights Watch’s 21st annual review of human rights practices around the globe, summarizes major human rights issues in more than 90 countries and territories worldwide. It is an essential resource for anyone campaigning against removal from the UK. You can browse chapters by country or download the full report in pdf (4MB) Each country entry identifies significant human rights issues, examines the freedom of local human rights defenders to conduct their work, and surveys the response of key international actors, such as the United Nations, European Union, Japan, the United States, and various regional and international Read the full article…

Driven to desperate measures - the realities of Fortress Europe

Published by NCADC on October 18, 2010 | 1 Response

The racism that kills The recent death of Jimmy Mubenga adds to the grim statistic of those who have died as a result of the UK’s brutal immigration laws. Harmit Athwal of Institute for Race Relations writes at the Guardian website on the launch of the new IRR report, Driven to Desperate Measures: 2006-2010, which documents 77 deaths of asylum seekers and migrants in the UK. These deaths rarely make the news, a strange parallel world of refused asylum seekers who are petrified of being sent back to face the dangers from which they fled. Harmit argues that racism in the Read the full article…