For me, destitution has a human face. Earlier this month I had the privilege of visiting a Church’s Refugee Welcome Centre in Birmingham to hear about people’s experiences of the hostile environment. One person we spoke to was Zaza,[ref]Zaza requested that we change his name to protect …
Asylum and Migration
Churches urge end to ‘hostile environment’ policies
A group of major Churches is launching a campaign to challenge the government’s approach to illegal immigration, which they say is leading to destitution, discrimination and distrust. The Baptist Union, the Church of Scotland, the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church have joined forces …
Treating people decently? Immigration policy home and away.
The situation in the USA is truly shocking. The separation of children from their parents at the border and the possibility that some of them will never be reunited represents the height of cruelty within a system of border control. US Attorney General, Jeff Sessions’ use of the Bible to justify …
Good Ruddance to the hostile environment?
Home Secretary Amber Rudd is the Cabinet’s latest casualty. Helen Byrne hopes she takes her Department’s ‘hostile environment’ policy with her: Amber Rudd has resigned, her position untenable following the Windrush Scandal. The final straw was a leaked document which undermined her claim, made to …
The Asylum and Refugee Community
A story sent by Rev John Howard-Norman of Wesley Hall Methodist Church, Blackburn: As the nations of Europe struggle to make an adequate response to the needs of the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing war, violence and oppression, Christians, cannot simply remain bystanders to this …
‘If you lay down with dogs you get fleas’. My personal experience of the hostile environment.
Madalena Leao tells of how one small personal experience demonstrates the very real consequences of a hostile environment for those who look and sound like migrants. She also reflects on the miasma of suspicion and distrust it spreads throughout our society. This week Amber Rudd explained the …
The story behind the exodus
Over 650,000 Rohingyas have fled Myanmar for Bangladesh following widespread ethnic violence in Rakhine State. This is one of the most rapid movements of refugees that we have seen anywhere in recent years but what has led to this crisis and how might it be resolved? …
Notes from the latest meeting of the APPG on Refugees
‘When they take you there, the best of your life is taken away from you.’ Notes from the latest meeting of the APPG on Refugees. The motto of the Poverty Truth Commission ‘Nothing about Us without Us is for Us,’ is one that Britain’s parliamentarians would do well to remember. The idea that policy …
We are all connected
We are all connected The events of the past six months have been truly shocking, haven’t they? It has sometimes felt that we have only just caught our breath from the last disaster, and then the news breaks, and it all starts over again. I can’t recall another time in my life when I have woken …
Amidst the General Election coverage over the next few weeks and beyond, don’t let us forget…
There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28) Since the Prime Minister called a General Election two weeks ago, the country has been awash with news from the Campaign trail. MPs are …