As bombs fall on Ukraine and millions have been forced to flee their homes, the UK government have once again been called upon to step up and support people in need of refuge. Once again, they have failed. A spate of confusing, badly-organised visa schemes have been rushed through in…
Suzie, our Trainee Solicitor at GMIAU, has been reflecting on her first year working with us. She’s been at GMIAU since January 2021, supported by global law firm Skadden through the Justice First Skadden Trainee (JUST) Programme, which is administered by The Legal Education Foundation Justice First Fellowship scheme. We…
As a crisis unfolds in Ukraine, the UK government’s response to people fleeing their homes is once again under scrutiny. They’re under pressure – the limited changes they have made to visa rules for people from Ukraine have been called “woefully inadequate” and “shameful”. At the same time, groups –…
Rupert Everett was a victim of the Windrush scandal. He had been living and working in the UK for over 50 years, since the age of 19. But his life was thrown into turmoil in 2015 when he was told by the Home Office that he would be removed from…
The Nationality and Borders Bill continues to move through Parliament. Since the announcement nearly a year ago of the “New Plan for Immigration”, which would become the Bill, we have written about the many issues that it will cause for the people we support in the North West. Recently we…
Last week in Parliament, the Nationality and Borders Bill passed through the House of Commons. The Anti-Refugee Bill is a cruel and punitive set of laws that breaches international law, means that people can be stripped of citizenship without being informed, that people seeking asylum could be housed in offshore…
In October, we were deeply saddened to learn of the death of Philip Jones. His is a huge loss to the community of LGBTQ+ people in Manchester seeking asylum. Through running the First Wednesday group as well as spending countless hours informally supporting individuals, his presence was a lifeline for…
Last week was a powerful reminder that, in the words of Jo Cox, “we are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us”. Little Amal arrived in the North West to an overwhelming welcome. A 3.5 metre tall puppet of a nine year-old girl,…
As the Taliban advanced on Kabul, we received increasing numbers of calls from people in communities across the North West. They were desperate for help for family members still in Afghanistan. Over the last five years we’ve worked with hundreds of people from Afghanistan. 75 were children on their own…
The government’s new Nationality and Borders Bill will criminalise the RNLI and Afghan women fleeing the Taliban. We need to throw it out. Here’s how. It is impossible to forget the scenes at Kabul airport this summer. Desperate husbands, wives, parents, daughters, sons, trying to save loved ones and flee…