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What do you already know about immigration and refugees?

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What do you already know about immigration and refugees?

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Who is affected by immigration in the UK?

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Who is affected by immigration in the UK?

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Why do some people want to reduce immigration?

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Why do some people want to reduce immigration?

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There are around 2000 immigrants in Calais which includes 300 unaccompanied children

Source: The Guardian

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Poland and Lithuania, countries that are part of the European Union, are increasingly 'pushing back', sending asylum seekers and migrants back into Belarus

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Thousands of migrants have been trying to cross into the EU overland through its eastern borders with Belarus.

The crisis has led border guards in Poland and Lithuania to force migrants back into Belarus, without assessing their asylum claims - a practice known as a "pushback".

We've looked at what happens to migrants who are sent back, and whether this practice is legal.

Are pushbacks on the rise?

In late October, Dunja Mijatović, human rights commissioner for the Council of Europe, urged EU member states to oppose attempts to allow the "illegal practice" of pushbacks.

But it's happening more and more.

Poland's parliament has passed an amendment allowing border guards to expel immediately migrants who cross the border illegally, and this is likely to be signed into law.

A similar law was passed in Lithuania in August.

Since then more than 7,000 migrants have been stopped from entering Lithuania and turned back to Belarus.

Poland's border guard has tweeted that it pushed back 314 migrants in the past week alone.

Are pushbacks illegal?

The European Convention on Human Rights establishes legal guarantees that anyone seeking protection must be given access to the asylum process, even if they have crossed a border illegally.

When asked about the recent actions of Lithuania, an EU spokesperson said: "It is for the Lithuanian authorities to conduct the relevant asylum and return procedures in line with EU law."

This, the spokesperson said, would include "respect of fundamental rights, ensuring effective access to the asylum procedure, and respecting the principle of non-refoulement."

Non-refoulement - a key concept in international refugee law - means that states are prohibited from sending asylum seekers back to territories where they might be exposed to inhuman or degrading treatment.

While the current wave of migrants attempting to enter Poland and Lithuania come largely from Iraq and are not necessarily fleeing the regime in Belarus, Human Rights Watch says it's clear that Belarus is not a safe place for them.

"The EU is wilfully turning a blind eye to what's going on there," says Bill Frelick, director of the refugee and migrants division of Human Rights Watch.

Poland and Lithuania do not hide the fact that they are turning back people who have crossed illegally.

On a recent visit to the Lithuanian border, officials told the BBC they were entitled to turn migrants back.

"We [tell] them you can't cross the illegal border. Please turn around, go to Belarus," state border guard Vytautas Kuodis said.

But Mr Frelick says: "At the end of the day, [the migrants] may or may not have a claim, but you have to assess the claim."

Ahmad Dandashi, a Syrian migrant who arrived in Germany in mid-October, says he was pushed back into Belarus six times by the Polish police before he finally managed to get through.

"They immediately push you back to the forest," he told the BBC.

"We asked them all the time, please keep me in prison. Just let me apply for asylum here in Poland. It's legal. But they didn't want to listen."

After one crossing, a Polish non-governmental organisation (NGO) intervened and managed to get Ahmad to hospital. After days in the forest, with no food or water, he was sick.

But after three hours, Ahmad says, the police took him back to the border.

"At the hospital, they were very rough. Yelling and shouting at me. I said don't send me back to Belarus."

Ahmad's account echoes those of other migrants in recent weeks.

Polish NGO Grupa Granica, which works along the border, says the migrants are often repeatedly pushed back from Poland to Belarus, and the other way round.

"We're like a ball between both parties," Ahmad says.

Despite international rules, Poland and Belarus are not the only countries conducting pushbacks.

This week, the BBC reported on an Afghan family who said they had crossed from Bosnia into Croatia almost 40 times, only to be turned back on each occasion.

In July, footage of Greek coastguard vessels violently intercepting migrants attempting to cross the Aegean Sea, broadcast on the BBC, drew a sharp rebuke from the EU.

"I think these are violations of our fundamental European values," the EU's commissioner for home affairs, Ylva Johansson, told the BBC.

In 2012, the European Court of Human Rights, ruled that Italy had violated human rights by turning back mostly African asylum seekers crossing the Mediterranean, without screening them first.

"That's exactly what's happening on any number of external borders," Mr Frelick says. "It's outrageous but not surprising."

More on this story

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Poland border crisis: What happens to migrants who are turned away?

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Thousands of migrants have been trying to cross into the EU overland through its eastern borders with Belarus. The crisis has led border guards in Poland and Lithuania to force migrants back into Belarus, without assessing their asylum claims - a practice known as a "pushback".

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NHEHS has been supporting Care4Calais this year

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“If my family were bombed and had lost everything, I’d like to think that someone, somewhere in the world would help them, if I couldn’t”

-Sarah, mother and volunteer, Leeds

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What is the difference between immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees?

Immigrants are defined as someone who moves to live in a foreign country

Asylum seekers are defined as someone who has been forced to leave their country as a political refugee and is seeking asylum in another

Refugees are defined as a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution or natural disaster

These definitions are sourced from the online Oxford Language Dictionary

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Teenage refugee tells of Channel crossing

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Teenage refugee tells of Channel crossing

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A teenager from Afghanistan who survived the ‘dark, cold and dangerous’ journey talks about her ordeal – and her hopes for the future.

On Christmas morning, while most people were asleep or opening their stockings, Ameena arrived at an English beach, vomiting from sea sickness. The 17 year old teenager made the crossing to England with 7 other strangers on a 12ft dinghy boat. The English channel is one of the busiest shipping lanes, but they had chosen the 25 of December as the waters would be less busy and they had a bigger chance of survival.

Ameena described the crossing from Turkey to Greece, the opposite compared to her Channel crossing journey. “From Turkey the police were escorting us, making sure it was as safe as possible. Crossing to the UK was very, very dangerous by comparison. It was dark and cold and we were alone, I was scared,” she said.

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Most people were still asleep on Christmas Day when Ameena* landed in England. She remembers stumbling onto the Kent beach in total darkness, retching with sea sickness.

"When I arrived I was vomiting everywhere," the teenager told the Observer during the first media interview with an unaccompanied child refugee who has entered the UK by boat.

Ameena, 17, made the crossing in a 12ft dinghy with seven other strangers on 25 December 2018. Although the English Channel is the world's busiest shipping lane, the date meant less maritime traffic than usual while conditions were, for the time of year, only mildly choppy. The Afghan arrived, according to Border Force records, on the broad sloping beach at Folkestone at 2.40am on Christmas Day.

Press reports at the time focused on the fact that a girl - revealed now as Ameena - had made the perilous journey to Folkestone and was among several vessels and 40 migrants who attempted to cross the Channel that day.

Three days after Ameena arrived in Kent the home secretary Sajid Javid cut his family Christmas short and announced a "major incident" to deal with the rising number of migrants attempting to cross the Channel in small boats.

I actually called the police when I landed but I couldn't tell them where I was, I had no idea

Ameena, who began her overland journey from Tehran, Iran, where she had been surviving as a refugee after fleeing Afghanistan, described the sea crossing from Turkey to Greece as the opposite of the dangerous navigation of the Channel.

"From Turkey the police were escorting us, making sure it was as safe as possible. Crossing to the UK was very, very dangerous by comparison. It was dark and cold and we were alone, I was scared," she said.

Initially the teenager and the dinghy's other occupants had no idea where in the UK they had landed. Ameena recalls stumbling around in the dark for hours being sick. "I actually called the police but I couldn't tell them where I was, I had no idea." Eventually a passing dog walker at dawn raised the alarm.

After being taken away by officers Ameena never saw her travelling companions again.

The journey from France had begun shortly before midnight on Christmas Eve, their boat heading out from a quiet beach south of Calais, thought to be close to the village of Wissant, Pas-de-Calais.

Ameena's inflatable boat was powered by an outboard motor with the French-based traffickers directing those on board to head straight for the lights on the horizon.

She said that the crossing took three hours and although the wind was not strong, the swell soon turned her stomach.

The teenager's mother had paid the smugglers in advance and Ameena never knew the exact fee for the crossing. Migrants have previously disclosed they paid £6,000 for a seat on a dinghy crossing the Channel. Last Monday a French court sentenced an Iranian imam to two years in prison for helping migrants to try to cross the Channel in inflatable boats.

Despite the vast majority of migrants coming from troubled countries such as Afghanistan, Javid has questioned whether those crossing the Channel are "genuine" refugees and has provoked ridicule by calling for patrol vessels to be redeployed from the Mediterranean.

Charities dealing with the arrivals in Kent claim the home secretary's rhetoric is at odds with the fact that the processing of asylum claims of those arriving by boat are in fact speeding up.

Bridget Chapman of the Kent Refugee Action Network (KRAN), which has supported Ameena since her arrival, said: "The home secretary is also saying that he's sending people back, choosing to pretend that patrol boats in the channel are there to stop people, but the truth is they are bringing people in."

Official figures reveal that at least 716 people, including about 70 children, have crossed the Channel in small boats since the start of November 2018. Yet the truth, added Chapman, is that such numbers are dwarfed by the volume of migrants crossing the Channel into the UK from France who are hidden in lorries.

In a teaching class of around 20 unaccompanied minors run by KRAN in Folkestone last Thursday, almost all apart from Ameena and a teenage boy had arrived in the UK in the back of a lorry.

Present were some who arrived as child refugees aged 15 in 2016 and have since made the port town their home.

Among them was Hadi from Afghanistan's Kapisa province, who hopes to become a construction engineer and who said he had made around 100 attempts to get across the Channel in a lorry before succeeding. "I always made sure I checked that the vehicle number plates said GB because friends have been taken to Sweden or Paris because they had got in trucks heading the wrong way.

"I climbed out near Dartford Bridge, someone must have called the police because they got me soon after and took me to Dover," said the 17-year-old.

Ameena spent three months in Calais living in cheap accommodation before getting the green light for the Christmas Day crossing.

During the waiting period she was in regular contact with her mother who left Tehran with her but is currently in a migrant detention centre in Athens, an existence that Ameena - not her real name for legal reasons - admits makes her feel "sad". She said: "The conditions are very bad inside there, I feel for her so much."

By contrast, the teenager, who speaks impeccable English, says she has made many friends and enjoys life in Folkestone where she lives with a foster family and attends classes run by KRAN.

Ameena turns 18 in August and during the same month plans to move to Canterbury where she will start a course at the city's college. Smiling wildly and pointing to the sky, she says that her ambition is to become an airline pilot.

"That is my dream and I aim to work as hard as possible to achieve it. I love being up there," she said, pointing upwards again.

In the meantime she must wait for her asylum claim to be processed at a time when the rate of migrant arrivals by boat appears to have accelerated. More than 70 people were intercepted on 1 June alone after crossing the Channel on eight boats, a development that Javid described as deeply concerning while promising "to do all I can to stop them".

Activists, however, have called for more help to prevent people from undertaking the journey in the first place.

On Friday a man was charged with people-smuggling after a boat with six people on board, including another child, was picked up off the Kent coast last Saturday after being intercepted by a Border Force vessel. All six said they were Iranian and were taken to Dover where they were handed over to immigration officials.
*Ameena's name has been changed to protect her identity Topics

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Cold, alone and scared: teenage refugee tells of Channel crossing

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Most people were still asleep on Christmas Day when Ameena* landed in England. She remembers stumbling onto the Kent beach in total darkness, retching with sea sickness. "When I arrived I was vomiting everywhere," the teenager told the Observer during the first media interview with an unaccompanied child refugee who has entered the UK by boat.

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In 2021, the number of migrants crossing the Channel has tripled from the 2020 number

Source: The Guardian

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What is the 'Nationality and Borders' bill?

The nationality and borders bill is new legislation aiming to make the asylum system fairer to protect those who are in need, deter illegal entry to the UK and remove asylum seekers who not legally supposed to be in the UK.
However, the new bill will also give the border force more powers to turn away asylum seekers in boats at sea if they have illegally entered the waters and there will now be a higher maximum prison sentence for people who have knowingly illegally entered the UK, even if they were fleeing danger.
It will also give the government more power to strip people of their citizenship if they commit crimes or if it is "in the public interest".

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The Government's flagship Nationality and Borders Bill has cleared the House of Commons after attracting some controversy this week.

MPs gave the immigration legislation a third reading by 298 votes to 231, meaning it passed to the House of Lords with a majority of 67.

The Bill, which seeks to curb English Channel crossings and change how asylum claims are processed, was subject to just nine minutes of debate on Wednesday, after Deputy Speaker Dame Eleanor Laing accused opposition MPs of "delaying tactics".

At one stage she threatened to throw out an SNP MP for repeatedly trying to raise a point of order, while Home Secretary Priti Patel added: "It is appalling that we've seen these delaying tactics today."

What is the Nationality and Borders Bill?

Ministers say the new legislation aims to make the asylum system fairer to protect those in genuine need, deter illegal entry to the UK and remove asylum seekers who have no legal right to be here.

It includes clauses to allow the UK to be able to send asylum seekers to a "safe third country" and to submit claims at a "designated place" determined by the Secretary of State.

Officials believe the Bill gives the potential to allow for offshore processing centres to be set up overseas, akin to policies used in Australia.

The Bill also gives Border Force officers powers to turn migrants away from the UK while at sea, and makes it a criminal offence to knowingly arrive in the UK without permission.

Additionally, the maximum sentence for those entering the country unlawfully will rise from six months' imprisonment to four years.

The Home Secretary said the Bill would tackle illegal immigration and the "underlying pull factors into the UK's asylum system".

Why is the Nationality and Borders Bill controversial?

Plans to strip people of British citizenship were condemned as "uncivilised" and "legally disputable" earlier in the week by former Tory minister David Davis.

Under existing law, deprivation of citizenship can be executed for those people considered to pose a threat to the UK - including terrorism or war crimes - or if they obtained their citizenship fraudulently.

The Bill does not change these circumstances but enables citizenship to be removed without notice if it would "not be reasonably practicable", is in the interests of national security and in the interests of the "relationship between the United Kingdom and another country" - among other reasons.

Home Office examples of where they would strip citizenship without notification include if someone is in a war zone or if informing them would reveal sensitive intelligence sources.

Mr Davis said his amendment to clause nine of the bill would have still enabled the Home Secretary to deprive a person of British citizenship but it removed the right to do it without notification.

The legality of Ms Patel's plans to turn back migrant boats at sea have also been called into question by some peers, including senior lawyers and a former judge.

The Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee has written to the Home Secretary, expressing "concerns" over the legal basis for the so-called pushbacks.

The letter adds to "growing concern both in and outside Parliament" over the policy proposed in a bid to curb Channel crossings, peers said.

Ms Patel insisted the plan has a "legal basis" when questioned by the committee in October, despite concerns being repeatedly raised over its legality and effectiveness which prompted campaigners to threaten her with legal action.

However, the Home Office's permanent secretary, Matthew Rycroft, previously conceded that only a "small proportion" of boats could be turned back.

What have critics said about removing people's citizenship?

The 's Ian Dunt wrote: "The overall effect of this clause is simple. It is designed to prevent people from securing their right to appeal.

"This is supposedly guaranteed in the law and nothing in the new clause nullifies that. Instead, it makes it impossible by virtue of practical reality.

"The people being stripped of their citizenship will very often only find out when they are trying to return to Britain. They are outside the country. And once you're outside the country, it becomes infinitely more difficult to secure your appeal rights.

"Sometimesthe appeals process takes so long as to be useless. It might time-out before someone is even aware the action was taken. In nearly every case it makes it very difficult to secure evidence or instruct lawyers.

"The Government has created a second-tier category of British citizenship, which applies predominantly to ethnic minorities."

Shadow Home Office minister Bambos Charalambous labelled the powers "shameful and Orwellian".

He said existing rules already allow for a citizenship deprivation notice to be delivered to an individual's last known address.

His Labour colleague Imran Hussain, MP for Bradford East, claimed the proposals would have a "disproportionate impact on our BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) communities".

Mr Charalambous added: "There are many people who have dual nationality in the UK and those are the people who are currently in fear of this measure being introduced."

Labour's Tulip Siddiq also said "that ethnic minorities in this country are in fear of this clause."

Liberal Democrat Baroness Hamwee, a former solicitor, questioned the legal validity of turning boats away from the UK.

She said: "Statements, including from the Home Secretary, are that there is a legal basis for the policy of so-called 'turnarounds'. We question that.

"The so-called 'turnaround' policy would force fragile small boats crossing the Channel to turn back.

"It is hard to imagine a situation in which those in them would not be in increased danger or where captains would not be obliged to render assistance."
Additional reporting from Press Association

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The Nationality and Borders Bill explained and why Priti Patel's asylum plans are controversial

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The Government's flagship Nationality and Borders Bill has cleared the House of Commons after attracting some controversy this week. MPs gave the immigration legislation a third reading by 298 votes to 231, meaning it passed to the House of Lords with a majority of 67.

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"It was really horrible. It was a way of dying," al Badri told Reuters as he recalled his crossing to Britain from France. He doesn't know his exact departure point, but says it was near a forest.

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‘I’m going to die’: a migrant recalls his perilous Channel crossing

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Sitting in a small boat with 22 other migrants, lashed by driving rain and heaving waves, Abdullah al Badri thought he was going to drown in the English Channel.

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Why people try to cross the English Channel in migrant boats and don’t just stay in France. 

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27 people died after a boat sank, whilst attempting to cross the English Channel. This has been named the biggest loss of life in the Channel since records began. Many of the people who cross the border are fleeing war-torn countries like Afghanistan, whereas others face persecution in their home country. The question most asked about this topic is why don’t they stay in France? This is because the living conditions for refugees in France aren’t safe. In fact, they are so bad that the European Court of Human rights has condemned France for “inhumane and degrading living conditions” towards refugees. Secondly, people who try to enter the UK are sometimes tied to the country in some way. They might have relatives living here, they might speak the language (instead of being able to speak French) or they might have served in the military, and many people argue that it is our duty to do its part and look out for these refugees.

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Why people try to cross the English Channel in migrant boats and don’t just stay in France

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People are risking their lives to cross the English Channel in migrant boats. Here’s why.