Please support our new campaign: https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/hostile-policies-put-refugees-at-risk/

Thank you so much for your generous donation and support to Refugee Legal Support's campaign.  With your tireless support, we will help Shadi, Aisa, Hadi and so many others travel safely to reunite with their families in the UK. 

Thanks to you, we will be able to 

• support refugees with family members in the UK to make applications to reunite them;

• reach even more people who need our assistance ; 

• use our voice and legal resources to speak up and strategically challenge the systemic injustices of the domestic and European immigration system.

With your support we have exceeded our target of £20,000. We are so grateful for your warm welcome of the campaign. This campaign reached more than 700 people who donated and shared this with their peers. You've shown one more time that solidarity is strong and can’t be beaten. 

Thank you again for your invaluable support and for all your comments - both mean so much to us and to the people we represent. If you want to see more about our work in the coming months, follow us on facebook , twitter and website. 

In solidarity,

Refugee Legal Support Team

Thank you all so much for making this campaign successful. With your help we've managed to reach and exceed our £10,000 mark to help people navigate family reunion in a dignified and empowering way.

From today, every donation made, up to £5,000, will be matched. This means that if you donate £10, you are contributing £20 to our cause.

Continue sharing and speaking up against the injustices facing separated families. 

In solidarity, 

RLS Team

Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash

Photo by James Lee on Unsplash

The Home Office wrote for one of our clients in Greece:

“ Asylum seekers in the EU, including unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, who would have been eligible to reunite with family in the UK under Dublin are able to apply for leave to enter the UK under existing UK Immigration Rules, if their family member has the relevant immigration status. They will be granted leave to enter if they are assessed to meet the requirements of the Rules.“

Reading this in an email from the Home Office, a person would hope that their rights remain intact and the only thing that’s changing is the procedure and the applicable rules.

How far is this from reality?

Only 4.8% of our clients who were eligible for family reunification under Dublin III are now eligible for family reunification under the UK Immigration Rules. The other 95.2% is separated spouses, unaccompanied children with parents and close relatives in the UK whose status does not qualify them to become sponsors under the UK Immigration Rules. We work very hard on these cases, build up strong human rights arguments and present objective evidence in order to prepare for good applications outside the Immigration Rules. 

What about the barriers?

Even this 4.8% that can in theory make applications under the Immigration Rules are faced with sometimes insurmountable obstacles; 

• Hadi is sleeping at the outskirts of the camp on Samos island and there are no available doctors to take a DNA sample from him. There is only one doctor in the camp for over 3,000 people. We mobilised our network and found Hadi psychological support, advocated for his right to be within the camp and are working with a team of legal aid solicitors who are fighting for him with the Home Office in the Upper Tribunal. 
• Mariam is afraid that she won’t be able to travel to the Visa Application Centre in Athens because the ferries from Kos are very limited. We referred her to a lawyer who is assisting her with relocating to Athens temporarily. 
• Suleiman might not be able to attend her Visa Application Centre appointment because she is facing return to Sweden due to the errors of the French administration. Our French network is in the process of allocating her case with a lawyer in France to ensure that her rights are upheld. 

It's our duty to find answers to the problems that are coming our way. It's our job to find allies in all over Europe to support the people we work with. 

You are that ally. Thank you so much for your support and trust all these years. With another push, we can reach our stretch goal. We have a week! 

Share, donate and speak up!

In solidarity, 

RLS Team

So many of you who've donated and supported this campaign are expressing their frustration towards the inhumane systemic injustices posed by the "New plan for immigration" introduced by Priti Patel. 

               As Julia, one of our backers,  said: "Not in my name Priti".

There are no "bad" and "good" asylum seekers; there are displaced people, human rights and justice. This is what we believe in and will continue fighting for through our work.

Borrowing Chara's words from her comment on our campaign page, families belong together,  and this is not negotiable for us. 

With our network of support, with you all,  and most importantly with the people we work with who have endured these injustices all these years we've made it possible for families to reunite against all odds. 

Help us reach the stretch target of £20,000. 

Share, donate and speak up.

In solidarity, 

RLS Team

Photo by Miko Guziuk on Unsplash