Thank you so much for donating to our campaign "Hostile policies put refugee rights at risk: we need your solidarity!". 

Help us give a final push to our campaign before it closes on Sunday 7.11.2021 by sharing and donating. Link here: "Hostile policies put refugee rights at risk: we need your solidarity!". 

Thanks to you, we will be able to:

• Legally challenge refused family reunification requests;

• Provide emergency asylum interview preparation to individuals who have an upcoming asylum interview with the Greek authorities and prevent their forced return to Turkey; 

• Deliver info sessions at refugee camps where legal provision is scarce to inform as many people as possible of their rights under the new regime, their family reunion options post Brexit and the Afghan relocation scheme (ARAP);

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. 

We are grateful for all your comments they 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 and subscribe to our newsletter. 

In solidarity,

Refugee Legal Support Team

Our piece on how the UK is ready to mirror Greek illegal pushbacks is out!

Lessons from the Aegean 

A pushback takes place when a state forces people out of its borders without considering their individual circumstances: when states push back refugees and asylum-seekers, they force them out of the country, often violently and without accountability, without allowing them to claim asylum, and without considering whether they will be subject to torture or degrading treatment. This is why it is illegal: people have a right to claim asylum under UK, EU and international law, and states are not allowed to send people back to a place where they might face torture. 

In March 2020, Turkey reversed its position on the controversial EU-Turkey deal and started allowing asylum-seekers to cross the border into Greece. In response, the Greek government and FRONTEX, the EU-funded coastal border patrol, took an unprecedented hardline position on the border, and reports of illegal pushbacks became increasingly widespread.

The Greek government generally denies it carries out illegal pushbacks, and they are often executed in such a way as to ensure plausible deniability: many of the incidents reported involve masked men using the threat of force to push people back to the land border at Evros, or firing at boats of refugees to scare them away from Greek waters. NGOs and journalists at the border have documented endless incidents and the Border Violence Monitoring Network has collected a vast database of testimonials and reports which document threats or violence with firearms, forced undressing and inhuman treatment in police vehicles and detention facilities. On 25 October, the Greek Minister of the Interior admitted pushbacks are taking place.

In response, the UN, the IoM, the Council of Europe, Members of the European Parliament and the European Commissioner have all expressed their concerns about pushbacks. The EU Commission has said it “strongly opposes any pushback practices” and has “continuously made it clear to national authorities that any such practices are illegal”, yet the member states responsible and Frontex have never faced legal proceedings or sanctions.

Pushbacks are illegal and go hand in hand with arbitrary and degrading violence, for which public institutions are not being held accountable. Nevertheless, the Home Office has been studying the Greek example.

The future of the Channel

The Nationality and Borders Bill, laid in Parliament on 6 July 2021, would give border officers the power to stop a ship where it is suspected that the ship is being used in the connection with a criminal offence, and can require that this ship is taken 'elsewhere' and detained there, or can require that the ship 'leave United Kingdom waters'.As reported by The Guardian on 9 September 2021, a Home Office statement confirmed that staff are being trained to employ “turn-around” tactics at sea and less than a week later, as a clear demonstration of the UK's commitment to ramping up pushback activity, UK border force authorities were spotted carrying out 'pushback drills' in the channel on jetskis. 

Priti Patel has openly expressed an ambition to return boats to French waters, causing the French Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin, to tweet that France 'will not accept any practice that goes against maritime law'. She has also stated that boats will be turned around in 'certain circumstances', but it is not yet clear what those circumstances are. 

Finally, there is a possibility that by commencing pushbacks in Western Europe, you risk not only death in the waters of the Channel, but also a morally bankrupt series of 'chain pushbacks'. ''Chain pushbacks' is the terminology used to refer to forced expulsions across multiple borders, where migrants or refugees are – via an informal cooperation between different states – sent from one state (for instance Austria or Italy), through others (including Slovenia and Croatia) to a third country (e.g.Bosnia-and Herzegovina)'. According to the DRC submission to the Special Rapporteur on Pushback Practices in 2021, 'French police routinely stops and returns asylum seekers at the borders of Ventimiglia and Oulx (Italy), without giving them the opportunity to apply for asylum, even in the case of unaccompanied minors.' If the UK is considering pushing people back to France, there is a danger that these individuals could be pushed back even further, arguably even back to the borders of Europe. If every EU state took the same hardline approach as the UK, claiming asylum in Europe would become completely unworkable. 

A political culture in which loss of life at sea is seen as a necessary by-product of enforcing immigration policy is one to be fought against at any cost. The Greek-Turkish border has become an increasingly dangerous place, where two states skirt their own responsibilities and seek to divert refugees away from their own territory. We cannot let the channel become, a sea in which the UK and France try to abandon as many people as possible to each other. 

Multiple RLS clients have been pushed back at the Greek-Turkish land border – their stories involve having belongings stolen by authorities, sometimes being beaten, identity documents confiscated and thrown away. Unfortunately, there is not much we can do to address these horrific abuses when preparing people for the asylum interview: stories of pushbacks do not have a clear place in an asylum claim, especially when the applicant is seeking protection from the state which has violently pushed them back. 

These violent and unaccountable policies cannot be left unchallenged. Despite being illegal and indefensible, the UK government is looking to pushbacks in the Mediterranean for inspiration. RLS invites any civil society organisations, journalists, grassroots groups and legal actors in the UK who are worried about these developments to reach out to us. This is a new threat to human rights in the UK, and civil society needs to organize, share information and advocate for the right to claim asylum. 

© Daphne Toli

Today, over 40 celebrities are urging the Prime Minster to rethink the Nationality and Borders Bill and are calling for a more compassionate system for refugees.

Refugee Legal Support were at the Refugees Welcome Rally on October 20 to protest against the new bill in solidarity with refugee communities and organisations working to uphold refugee rights. Read our full response here.

The new Nationality and Borders Bill disregards the Refugee Convention and how it was drafted. We are opposed to any kind of classification of refugees proposed in the new bill. The bill over-emphasises the safe-third country rule. This is disingenuous. The UK neighbours with European states only; if the means of entry and safe third country requirements are applied in the way suggested by the bill, the UK would never have to accept any refugees.

It is against international law that a state can at its discretion shop around the world for refugees it is willing to accept. If the UK is serious about its commitment to international law, it has an obligation to apply it and protect refugees. 

We condemn all attempts to commodify refugees delegating them to bargaining chips and stand in solidarity with people seeking sanctuary.

Spread the word about the challenges facing displaced people by sharing our campaign Hostile policies put refugee rights at risk: we need your solidarity!  

With your solidarity, we've managed to exceed the £10,000 mark and are heading towards our stretch target. We couldn't be more grateful to you. With your support, we can share some good news.

Last week, a young person from Afghanistan, represented by Refugee Legal Support, was finally accepted for transfer to the UK to reunite with his brother. This young person had been living alone, without any support in Athens for more than 2 years, spending almost his entire adolescence on the move, with no access to education or safe accommodation. Our lawyers have been working tirelessly on his case, challenging the unlawful age assessment procedures of the Greek government and fighting the Home Office decision to rely on such practises. This case took more than a year to win. He's now very happy to join his brother in the UK but fears the UK immigration policies - we don't blame him.

Spread the word about the challenges facing migrants all over Europe and the UK by sharing our campaign Hostile policies put refugee rights at risk: we need your solidarity! 

 ©Booker Photography