News: Refugees, asylum seekers & migrants

27.02.2004 More than 100 asylum rights campaigners and supporters lobbied parliament on 23 February as the Asylum and Immigration Bill was being debated.

26.02.2004 South Africa last night emerged as the second country with which the Home Office has started talks to take failed asylum seekers from Britain as part of a concerted drive to step up immigration removals and deportations.

24.02.2004 Asylum applications fell 41% last year, the government revealed today, as David Blunkett castigated the media for its coverage of yesterday's announcement on EU migrants.

24.02.2004 The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants has called on the government to stand firm on its commitments to extend employment rights to nationals of the accession states after the 1 May.

23.02.2004 The home secretary, David Blunkett, yesterday came under last-minute pressure not to succumb to an anti-immigrant backlash by heavily restricting benefits to jobseekers from the enlarged EU.

17.02.2004 The fast-growing use of migrant slave labourers is dominating big swathes of UK industry, writes Tony Thompson.

11.02.2004 The Labour MP Kevin McNamara has tabled a motion in the House of Commons complaining about recent articles in the Daily Express on Roma coming to Britain.

10.02.2004 The death of 19 cockle-pickers from China in Morecambe Bay, Lancashire last week draws vital attention to migrant workers' vulnerability to exploitation, forced labour and trafficking.

10.02.2004 Government figures on the number of asylum seeking children who go missing from local authority care have been discredited. Community Care allege that the figures are higher.

09.02.2004 Home Office asylum decisions are based on inaccurate and out-of-date country information, unreasoned decisions about people's credibility and a failure to properly consider complex torture cases, a new report released today by Amnesty International reveals.

05.02.2004 Journalists at the Daily Express say that editors are pressurising them "to write anti-Gypsy" articles. Last week, the newspaper ran a campaign to prevent Roma (Gypsies) from new EU countries coming to Britain - which led to the government announcing new curbs on benefits.

04.02.2004 Police have been investigating what they believe is a racist attack on a refugee's home in Peterborough.

03.02.2004 Demonstrators in the UK and across Europe took to the streets last weekend to campaign for migrants' rights and to protest against immigration detention. Indymedia UK has a roundup of the action.

02.02.2004 Iranian asylum seeker, Fershteh Wahed Wakshoori, has been taken to Rochdale Infirmary where she is on a drip after refusing food in protest at the refusal of her asylum claim.