Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #RefugeeBanBill
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📢BREAKING! 📢
UN Committee on the Rights of the Child @UNChildRights1 issues almost 200 recommendations for UK and @scotgov following its #childrights review.
Follow this thread for highlights! #TeamScotlandUN
Full version 👉shorturl.at/uxM14
UN Committee on the Rights of the Child @UNChildRights1 issues almost 200 recommendations for UK and @scotgov following its #childrights review.
Follow this thread for highlights! #TeamScotlandUN
Full version 👉shorturl.at/uxM14
@UNChildRights1 @scotgov @OfficialSYP @CYPCS @Creative_Voices UN Committee opens by identifying several areas that need 'urgent measures':
🚨non-discrimination
🚨protection from abuse, neglect, sexual exploitation
🚨children with Care-Experience
🚨mental health
🚨asylum-seeking, refugee and migrant children
🚨child justice system
🚨non-discrimination
🚨protection from abuse, neglect, sexual exploitation
🚨children with Care-Experience
🚨mental health
🚨asylum-seeking, refugee and migrant children
🚨child justice system
@UNChildRights1 @scotgov @OfficialSYP @CYPCS @Creative_Voices UN Committee welcomes the #UNCRCScotland Bill and urges @scotgov to "expeditiously bring forward the amendments necessary" so that it can become law ⌛️
#TeamScotlandUN #ConcludingObservations
#TeamScotlandUN #ConcludingObservations
Thread. As the #RefugeeBanBill faces scrutiny from the Lords today the Home Secretary and Justice Secretary have taken one of their pet papers to spread yet more misinformation. 1/ #r4today
thetimes.co.uk/article/b37b29…
thetimes.co.uk/article/b37b29…
First things first. Asylum and refugees are only mentioned once in the Conservative 2019 Manifesto. As opposed to being a "manifesto commitment, the #RefugeeBanBill would directly contravene the only one they made. 2/
conservatives.com/our-plan/conse…
conservatives.com/our-plan/conse…
The Home and Justice Secretaries appear to be deliberately misleading people by conflating the immigration and asylum systems. None of this is exactly correct. Costs involved have been inflated by this government, not number of people seeking asylum, which it's legal to do so. 3/
Today, the government’s “stop the boats” #RefugeeBanBill debated in the Lords
The Bill means when people come to us asking for help, we will no longer assess whether they are refugees or not- We’ll simply lock all of them up, regardless
Only traffickers will welcome it #r4today
The Bill means when people come to us asking for help, we will no longer assess whether they are refugees or not- We’ll simply lock all of them up, regardless
Only traffickers will welcome it #r4today
People will always try to seek safety in the UK.
We are one of the richest, safest countries on Earth & we colonised a third of it, leaving ties of language & community behind.
We abandoned Afghans, we are abandoning the Sudanese. They won’t give up because of this Bill #r4today
We are one of the richest, safest countries on Earth & we colonised a third of it, leaving ties of language & community behind.
We abandoned Afghans, we are abandoning the Sudanese. They won’t give up because of this Bill #r4today
The Bill essentially says the tiny trickle of migrants seeking to rebuild a life by reaching the UK should just go somewhere else
But the international refugee protection system is based on solidarity. If we say “not here” why on Earth would the French not say the same?
#r4today
But the international refugee protection system is based on solidarity. If we say “not here” why on Earth would the French not say the same?
#r4today
It's come to my attention again that few people have any idea what the government's "stop the boats" illegal migration bill does, so:
It ends the right to seek asylum in the UK.
No decsions. No applications will be processed. From Afghans to Albanians. Limbo forever for all.
It ends the right to seek asylum in the UK.
No decsions. No applications will be processed. From Afghans to Albanians. Limbo forever for all.
There are infinitessimally small caveats but this is essentially the truth & the whole story.
In plain & simple terms: No one coming to us for help (or any reason) will have their claim for protection heard anymore, ever.
They'll all be detained, all be left in barges & hotels.
In plain & simple terms: No one coming to us for help (or any reason) will have their claim for protection heard anymore, ever.
They'll all be detained, all be left in barges & hotels.
Actually, I shouldnt have used Albania because, exceptionally, while they'll be denied the right to apply for asylum like everyone else, Albanians specifically won't all be in limbo forever, rather illegally deported- meaning any who do need protection will be sent back to danger
COSTILITY: the cost of hostility. The public money wasted by governments on being hostile to refugees and people seeking asylum.
Billions of pounds is being thrown away on deterrents that both don't work and are indefensibly cruel.
We call this costility. 🧵...
Billions of pounds is being thrown away on deterrents that both don't work and are indefensibly cruel.
We call this costility. 🧵...
The biggest cost of hostile policies is the damage done to people seeking safety, but the cost in terms of the public money wasted is huge as well.
Here are some examples of costility and why it's such a terrible approach.
Here are some examples of costility and why it's such a terrible approach.
Every year, the government makes available a personal tax summary showing what your tax contributions were spent on.
We’ve made our own version for costility. Here are some of the ways that the government is choosing to waste your money on punishing refugees.
We’ve made our own version for costility. Here are some of the ways that the government is choosing to waste your money on punishing refugees.
Somewhere a Home Office official is flipping a coin for whether Albanians or Indians will be this year's scapegoat. 1/ #r4today
thetimes.co.uk/article/15de3a…
thetimes.co.uk/article/15de3a…
These numbers are very low. The bigger issue is how they show that even when the government has resettlement routes on paper they are so inadequate people are forced to use irregular means to seek asylum in the UK. 2/
This government is desperate to create the idea that UK has a problem with people seeking asylum. It's scraping the barrel to do so though. What is guaranteed is the #RefugeeBanBill will make things worse by denying people the only option many have to seek asylum in the UK. 3/
In 2002 there were nearly 10,000 more asylum applications than in 2022, yet the rate for initial decisions dropped from 99% to 25% over the same period. @ZoeJardiniere is spot on. The current situation is one of the government's own making to create a perpetual scapegoat. 1/
It is also worth noting that this was nothing to do with capacity. The number of caseworkers processing claims actually rose from 260 in the year ending March 2016 to 640 at the same point in 2022. What happened was that the actual processing slowed down. 2/
For example, during the period of March to March 2016 to 2022 the number of people waiting more than 6 months for a decision rose from 8,278 to 72,597. That's a big jump when you have more people processing claims unless something else is going on. 3/
I wrote a piece on how to respond to the #RefugeeBanBill and whether safe routes/humanitarian visas are the answer.
Proud of this one, although I don’t know how many friends it will make me..
It’s the principle of territorial asylum we have to defend now opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-traf…
Proud of this one, although I don’t know how many friends it will make me..
It’s the principle of territorial asylum we have to defend now opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-traf…
In short, we’re dancing on the head of a pin contorting our demands into the space considered “politically viable” to protect ever shrinking numbers of “good refugees” through safe routes.
No proposal I’ve seen would actually remove the need for some to take irregular journeys..
No proposal I’ve seen would actually remove the need for some to take irregular journeys..
(And my own proposal I worked on at jcwi is included in that criticism)
So while these visas would be great & help some people, they’re not where our energy should be spent. There’s a bigger principle we’re losing here.
The right to come here however you need to & ask for help.
So while these visas would be great & help some people, they’re not where our energy should be spent. There’s a bigger principle we’re losing here.
The right to come here however you need to & ask for help.
It doesn't matter if an asylum seeker is from Afghanistan, Albania or anywhere else. Without making it safer and simpler to access the asylum system, something voted down yesterday multiple times, it remains inevitable "deterrents" will increase exploitation. 1/ #RefugeeBanBill
All this bill does is increase the ability of traffickers to prey upon people, including children. It doesn't offer alternative ways to seek asylum in the UK. It doesn't tackle gangs at source. It doesn't make processing asylum claims faster and more efficient. 2/ #StopTheBill
It's performance politics. Multiple studies, including the @ukhomeoffice' own analysis show that not only do deterrents and harsher asylum policies not reduce people using irregular routes, they actually increase the number, and the number of people who are exploited. 3/
Not only has the government been housing Afghan refugees in inadequate temporary hotel accommodation for years.
They will also pass the #RefugeeBanBill today that blanket denies protection to ALL Afghans coming & asking for our help & says we’ll send them to Rwanda.
#r4today
They will also pass the #RefugeeBanBill today that blanket denies protection to ALL Afghans coming & asking for our help & says we’ll send them to Rwanda.
#r4today
I’m not sure how it happened.
How can it be that #r4today has a story on Afghan refugees on THE SAME DAY the government will pass a law through its next stage in parliament that will deny ALL Afghans reaching us protection from now on and not mention it?
How can it be that #r4today has a story on Afghan refugees on THE SAME DAY the government will pass a law through its next stage in parliament that will deny ALL Afghans reaching us protection from now on and not mention it?
How can a Tory MP- WHO VOTED FOR IT be complaining on twitter that:
refusing asylum to Afghans who reach us through desperate means and sending them to Rwanda
Is not what they want? It is EXACTLY what the #RefugeeBanBill does & MPs & the media seem not to have noticed? #r4today
refusing asylum to Afghans who reach us through desperate means and sending them to Rwanda
Is not what they want? It is EXACTLY what the #RefugeeBanBill does & MPs & the media seem not to have noticed? #r4today
The #RefugeeBanBill is a deplorable, illegal & unworkable attempt to rip up the human rights of some of the most vulnerable people in the world.
It comes from a Tory Government desperate to divide & distract us during an economic crisis exacerbated by their policies.
🧵
1/21
It comes from a Tory Government desperate to divide & distract us during an economic crisis exacerbated by their policies.
🧵
1/21
Instead of offering safe routes to sanctuary in the UK, the Government is attempting to ban asylum and human rights claims from people who have escaped some of the worst horrors in the world and forcibly remove them instead, with sweeping new detention powers pending this.
2/21
2/21
It flies in the face of the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, drafted in the wake of the Holocaust: “refugees shall not be penalised solely by reason of unlawful entry or because, being in need of refuge and protection, they remain illegally in a country”.
3/21
3/21
Not only did @JamesCleverly fail to acknowledge on #r4today the Government's practical inability to remove the people they refuse to admit to the UK asylum system, but he fundamentally misrepresented the powers in the #refugeebanbill to detain tens of thousands of people 1/
He characterised the purpose of this detention as being purely pre-removal i.e. for the shortest possible time in order to effect removal. This could be misunderstanding or political spin but, regardless, it incorrectly represents the number of people & length of detention 2/
3/ the bill gives Government unprecedented powers for automatic & indefinite detention of tens of thousands of people. It's estimated that up to 80k people will arrive by small boat this year. True, not all will be detained at the same time but there will be significant overlap
