Wednesday morning links


The Forum/Zrinka Bralo : 'How to solve a problem like Calais?'

http://migrantforum.org.uk/how-to-solve-a-problem-like-calais/

'Now, here is another kind of fantasy: maybe, just maybe, our political leadership (we mean all parties) will face the facts and try different approach, and for once deal with factual reality of migration as normal, positive, human phenomenon and that as a grown up country we can deal with it to our advantage.'

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The Daily Show : 'No country for little kids'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0E3a1gjM10

'Michael Che investigates an elaborate conspiracy involving thousands of children posing as refugees in order to invade America. '

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The Right to Remain conference, storified

https://storify.com/Right_to_Remain/courage-and-campaigning-for-migration-justice

'On Saturday 6 September, we held our first annual conference with our new name, Right to Remain. It was an incredible day with over 100 people from all over the UK - and from all over the world - sharing stories of courage, resistance and solidarity in campaigning for migration justice. '

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Lincolnshire Echo : 'Twelve-hour riot after detainee dies at Morton Hall Immigration Removal Centre in Swinderby, Lincolnshire'
http://www.lincolnshireecho.co.uk/hour-riot-detainee-dies-Morton-Hall-Immigration/story-22887568-detail/story.html

BBC : 'Morton Hall Immigration Centre disorder investigated'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-29094137

The Right to Remain conference in London last weekend held a minute's silence for the man who died.

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Unlocked Detention/Ben from Detention Action : 'Shining a light on the inhumanity of the current system'

http://unlocked.org.uk/blog/shining-a-light-on-the-inhumanity-of-the-current-system/

Remembering Rubel Ahmed. Powerful stuff - a must read.

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Unlocked Detention : 'Visiting someone in detention' 

http://unlocked.org.uk/blog/visiting-detention/

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Free Movement : 'Family visitor receives £125,000 damages for mistreatment by immigration officials '

http://www.freemovement.org.uk/family-visitor-receives-125000-damages-for-mistreatment-by-immigration-officials/


Politics.co.uk/Ian Dunt : 'The Home Office's campaign of lies and intimidation against a mother '

http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2014/08/04/the-home-office-s-campaign-of-lies-and-intimidation-against

'It is a story about men with too much power and too little accountability, and how innocent people can get lost in the system if one of these men takes a dislike to them. It is a story about officials fabricating evidence to win legal cases. It is a story about a government department which is out of control.' 

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Politics.co.uk/Ian Dunt : Grey and hopeless: The grim reality of immigration tribunals

http://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2014/08/20/grey-and-hopeless-the-grim-reality-of-immigration-tribunals

Harley Miller's ongoing struggle.

'In the afternoon we're told there will be no hearing today. So that's it: six months waiting, ten people taking the day off, all for nothing.'

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Migrants' Rights Network/Don Flynn : 'MRN sets out reasons why The Guardian should not use the term 'illegal immigrant' '

http://www.migrantsrights.org.uk/news/2014/mrn-sets-out-reasons-why-guardian-should-not-use-term-illegal-immigrant

No human is illegal.

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Vox : '38 maps that explain Europe'

http://www.vox.com/2014/9/8/6103453/38-maps-that-explain-europe

Particularly interested in the fantasy map dividing the European Union into 28 equal-population states, including evocative states like Cisalpina, Czecho-Silesia, Anglo-Mercia, the Celtic Union, and a resurrected Prussia. Border are fluid.

Don't forget to check out the commuter rail map across three nations, and the maps of Europe in the fifth century and during the Cold War. Borders are fluid.

(Europe by night is particularly beautiful).

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Grantland : 'A fighter abroad'

http://grantland.com/features/brian-phillips-boxing-career-freed-american-slave-tom-molineaux/

The fascinating story of prizefighter Tom Molineaux - freed American slave (and immigrant to Britain).

'On December 10, 1810, in a muddy field around 25 miles from London, a fight took place that was so dramatic, controversial, and ferocious that it continues to haunt the imagination of boxing more than 200 years later. One of the fighters was the greatest champion of his age, a bareknuckle boxer so tough he reportedly trained by punching the bark off trees. The other was a freed slave, an illiterate African-American who had made the voyage across the Atlantic to seek glory in the ring...' 

'...“It will also not be forgotten, if justice holds the scales, that his colour alone prevented him from becoming the hero of that fight.” '

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Washington Post/Kenneth J. Rose : 'I just freed an innocent man from death row. And I’m still furious.'

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/09/04/i-just-freed-an-innocent-man-from-death-row-and-im-still-furious/

Sunday links


Sources : Family Immigration Alliance, Wang Bang, Free Movement blog, politics.co.uk, Guardian

Family Immigration Alliance - Wayne's story :
http://familyimmigrationalliance.wordpress.com/2014/08/01/waynes-story/

'I’ve haven’t seen my wife and daughter since 2009, because of a visa issue...'

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Wang Bang - My week with David Rushmer in Paris :
http://wangbangy.tumblr.com/post/95464334000

'David is part of our family' :
http://wangbangy.tumblr.com/post/87600693835

Bang's blog :
http://wangbangy.tumblr.com/

David and Bang's story :
http://britcits.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/david-bang-we-are-aware-many.html

Bang's interrogation :
http://britcits.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/account-of-interview-in-british-embassy.html

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Free Movement blog - Compensation awarded for hearing cancelled at short notice :
http://www.freemovement.org.uk/compensation-awarded-for-hearing-cancelled-at-short-notice/

'An award of £3,600 plus interest for legal costs and £100 for inconvenience was made to a lady whose hearing was cancelled the day before by the court. Waiting around all day only for it later to be cancelled is surely worse, particularly if a load of witnesses and supporters are also put to the same inconvenience?'

Politics.co.uk - Grey and hopeless: The grim reality of immigration tribunals :
http://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2014/08/20/grey-and-hopeless-the-grim-reality-of-immigration-tribunals

'The immigration system is full of small personal slights. These are the regular unspoken humiliations which reveal, more than any law or ministerial speech, just how little respect the state has for those who wish to live here.'

Previous post :
http://britcits.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/lauded-therapist-harley-miller-still-in.html

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Private firms 'are using detained immigrants as cheap labour' :
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/aug/22/immigrants-cheap-labour-detention-centres-g4s-serco

'G4S and Serco saving millions by paying detainees as little as £1 an hour to cook and clean, claim campaigners'

Lauded therapist Harley Miller still in limbo as battle to stay in Britain drags on

Source : Independent

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/lauded-therapist-harley-mille-still-in-limbo-as-battle-to-stay-in-britain-drags-on-9679464.html

'Specialist children’s counsellor Harley Miller finds herself stuck in a seemingly unending struggle to remain in the UK the Australian is as frustrated by court delays as she is with the idiosyncrasies of immigration law.'


Immigrant stories: The psychotherapist and the letter of proof : http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2014/01/17/immigrant-stories-the-nhs-nurse-and-the-letter-of-proof

Fury at Border Agency over case of the Australian NHS therapist given just a few days to leave Britain :
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/fury-at-border-agency-over-case-of-the-australian-nhs-therapist-given-just-a-few-days-to-leave-britain-8935743.html

Deportation of the valuable and vulnerable :
http://britcits.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/deportation-of-valuable-and-vulnerable.html

Harley Miller on Twitter :
https://twitter.com/HarleyM65

Immigrant stories: The psychotherapist and the letter of proof.

http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2014/01/17/immigrant-stories-the-nhs-nurse-and-the-letter-of-proof

' The first in an occasional series of Immigrant Stories, shining a light on the people trapped in Britain's immigration system.

'She had the letter to prove it.

'When the Home Office told Mariam Harley Miller, a London psychotherapist, that she had just 28 days to leave the country it felt like a bad dream. But it wasn't. The clock was ticking on the Australian citizen and it would not stop, no matter how strenuously she pointed out they had made a mistake.

'She had in her possession a letter, sent by the Home Office, in which they assured her that her visa status was valid. It didn't matter. They wouldn't listen. She was trapped in a system which made no sense, with a timer ticking down to her departure date....'

More on the ongoing story of Harley Miller :
http://britcits.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/harley-miller-in-uk.html
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'... the world expects us to stand up for the principle that every person has the right to think and write and form relationships freely – because individual freedom is the wellspring of human progress.'
- Barack Obama, today, speaking on the NSA surveillance scandal (source: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/barack-obamas-speech-nsa-surveillance-full-text-1432773 )

Some people who need standing up for :
http://britcits.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/stories

Harley Miller in the UK.

https://www.facebook.com/HarleytheImmigrantUK

'On 31st October my renewal application for residency in the UK was rejected after legally living here for 9 years. This page is about this experience.'

Fury at Border Agency over case of the Australian NHS therapist given just a few days to leave Britain :
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/fury-at-border-agency-over-case-of-the-australian-nhs-therapist-given-just-a-few-days-to-leave-britain-8935743.html

'Mariam “Harley” Miller, a 48-year-old specialised therapist who lives in south London, was given 28 days’ notice to leave the country by the UKBA after waiting years for a response to an application to stay.

'Despite the Home Office saying it wants to encourage highly skilled migrants in the UK, Ms Miller, who is a qualified systemic therapist with two masters degrees, has had her application to stay refused.

'A posting about her experience on Facebook over the weekend already has more than 1,700 likes and been shared around the world.

'She wrote: “I have been in this country for nine years. In the whole of that time I have worked for the NHS, in the child and adolescent mental health sector, helping young people of this country through sometimes quite severe mental health problems.”...'

More Facebook campaigns : http://britcits.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/facebook
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Spousal Immigration: an ignored homewrecker.

http://commentual.wordpress.com/2014/01/05/spousal-immigration/


'A friend of mine is in love. I recently found out she’s engaged to the man she met years ago, and they are to hold their wedding this year. But here’s the twist: the man in her life wasn’t born in the UK, where my infatuated friend was born, and lives. This means that their love has had conditions placed upon it. Not by her, and not by him but by the UK Border Agency.'

Deportation of the valuable and vulnerable

Recent weeks have seen the media cover a number of cases in which the Home Office has unfairly threatened non-Brits living in the UK with deportation.

From a Fijian British Army veteran who was unaware he had to apply to settle in the UK to a highly-skilled Australian NHS therapist who was given days to leave the country, it seems neither valuable nor vulnerable migrants are safe from the overzealous Home Office when it comes to removals based on technicalities.

In some instances, the decision to remove is overturned at the last minute, often without an apology for the distress caused. However, we are increasingly seeing victories against deportation come about when the Home Office cracks under the pressure of public outrage rather than through any common sense or realisation that the deportation would be unfavourable to the public good.

Home Secretary Theresa May herself intervened in the case of Fijian Filimone Lacanivalu who was detained for more than a month after queries over his immigration status emerged. He has since been granted the right to settle based on his nearly decade-long service to the Armed Forces.

Scottish head teacher David McIsaac, who was initially refused the right to remain permanently on the grounds his five-year marriage was a sham, has been offered an extension on his stay on the condition he drops his appeal after his MSP put pressure on the Home Office.

Then there is the case of Vietnam War veteran Marx Hirsch, 74, who has lived in the UK for nearly 50 years. Threatened with deportation for breaking the terms of his right to stay by moving elsewhere for five years, Hirsch won a stay of execution just days before he was scheduled to be removed but still faces the prospect of removal should a review of his case not result in him being granted the right to settle.

But for each of these success stories, there are many thousands more which don’t result in extensions of stay or wide media coverage.

Take the case of UK-born Cher Siyamuanya, just 4, and his mother from Zimbabwe who were sent separate letters saying they were liable to be removed after the courts found her claims that she would face persecution if returned to her country of origin unbelievable.

And let us not forget the case of Harley Miller, an Australian NHS worker who was given less than a month to leave the UK despite having been a resident for nine years. Miller, having first entered on a spouse visa, was given leave to remain after her marriage broke down but was later refused discretionary leave to remain after waiting two years for a decision on her application.

Lastly, a seven-year-old Canadian, Jamie Leung, received a letter telling him to leave the UK. His British mother, initially unaware she needed to obtain a visa for her son to stay in the UK, was unsuccessful in obtaining legal immigration status for him from within the UK before the letter arrived.

While there are cases where falling foul of bureaucratic red tape might fairly result in removal, some of the recent cases which have made it into the limelight have seen a threat of removal issued without any prior request to the applicant for further information or evidence. Often no other options are given to those who face leaving their friends, family, job and property behind.

Most people who unknowingly fall foul of the UK’s complex immigration rules want to establish the right to stay voluntarily and play by the rules. The inhumane way the Home Office handles some cases is counterproductive since deportation should be something that is conductive to the public good, not just a case of hunting down those who slip up on technicalities.