News: Refugees, asylum seekers & migrants

27.01.2004 What the Home Office is proposing in the asylum bill is a single-tier tribunal that will be above all other law, enabling it to make decisions that are illegal.

26.01.2004 Britain is not a "soft touch" for asylum seekers, according to the results published today of an all-party MPs inquiry into the state of the asylum system.

21.01.2004 Schools should recruit refugee teachers to ease staffing shortages in UK classrooms, government advisers say today.

20.01.2004 From today, the police will have a host of new powers to stop, search and detain suspects. The Home Office says that new powers are necessary to fight terrorism, but recently released "stop and search" figures suggest existing powers are being abused.

15.01.2004 A security officer at Yarl's Wood detention centre in Bedfordshire has been sacked following revelations of racist bullying, exposed by an undercover reporter in December 2003.

14.01.2004 A gay asylum seeker faces deportation from Britain even though he fears persecution in Cameroon after claiming an affair with a high-level politician.

14.01.2004 A government Bill that "denies asylum seekers a fair hearing" was branded as "devastating" by refugee and human rights organisations. The Asylum and Immigration Bill, which had its second reading on 17 December 2003, could lead to refugees being returned to face torture, persecution or death.

14.01.2004 The Refugee Children’s Consortium is challenging the government to demonstrate how its new asylum proposals square with its recent commitment to ensuring that "Every Child Matters" and to iron out its contradictory approach to refugee children.