The Nationality & Borders Bill is back in the House of Commons. This is a dangerous bill. It will endanger lives and it makes claiming asylum in the UK almost impossible. 

After the Lords tried to remove some of the cruelest aspects of the bill, MPs have now voted to reinstate a raft of damaging and dangerous measures, including:

• That refugees will be treated differently according to how they arrived - meaning that people can be criminalised for not following approved routes, which don't exist for most people
• That asylum seekers can be processed offshore, raising the prospect of asylum seekers being stuck in isolated camps thousands of miles away 
• Against an amendment allowing unaccompanied children in Europe to easily join family in the UK
• That people can be stripped of their citizenship without warning

At a time when people all over the UK and Europe are opening their homes to people fleeing Ukraine, the government is criminalising refugees. People need protection, not further barriers, and we need your help to provide this.

You can help 

Refugee Legal Support’s work is one of the few things that keeps an asylum route open for migrants and refugees. Our support is open to anybody who needs us, wherever they come from. Our services are becoming more and more important. 

We need to raise £10,000 so that we can:

• Help refugee families to be reunited in the UK

• Help people in Greece to claim asylum and to join family throughout Europe 

• Get legal information to people who need it most

But we can’t help everyone. Demand is huge. We need your help. Just £20 can be enough to answer a call from someone who needs us. 

Please contribute what you can and share our page on social media or via email and WhatsApp with friends, family and colleagues.

Help us support people like Amira

Amira came to the UK as an unaccompanied child refugee after fleeing Afghanistan. A truly challenging journey, fraught with danger at every turn, she made it to the UK but continues to face huge challenges. 

First she had to navigate the UK asylum system herself, a long, protracted process. Alongside this, she had to try to settle in a strange new country, without her family or the network of friends she was forced to leave behind. 

Thankfully, Amira was granted asylum. But she needs her family close by. 

Amira’s family are stranded 

Her mother, father and two younger brothers recently fled Afghanistan following the Taliban takeover. They’re now in Europe and seeking to join Amira. 

Now that Amira has been granted asylum, she can now attempt to bring them over, but faces a long drawn out and complicated process that falls out of the scope of Legal Aid. 

Amira would be criminalised under new laws

There are three reasons that Amira’s story is particularly important to highlight right now:

1. Under the law now going through Parliament, the route she took to the UK to find safety would make her a criminal, as the government shuts off asylum-routes to the UK.

2. If Amira was from Ukraine and not Afghanistan, her family would be able to join her.

3. She’s one of the thousands of people having to face an inhumane asylum system who need help.

How we’re helping Amira

Until we win our fight for a more humane asylum system, we’ll continue to help Amira and people like her. Our innovative projects in the UK are keeping a route open to family reunion. 

We’ll help her to gather the evidence she needs, fight through the bureaucracy, make her argument and, if necessary, fight any negative decisions in the courts. 

Your help is vital

We couldn’t do what we do without your help. With your support, we can continue fighting alongside people who have had to flee their homes in the UK and in Europe.

*based on true facts but details changed to protect identity. 

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