Lambeth Teacher with Lambeth NUT

The scapegoating of Asylum seekers has reached an unprecedented high. There is no significant difference between the Home Secretary, the Tories, the BNP and the Daily Mail. Britain has armed tyrants across the globe, including Saddam Hussein. Britain and USA have the worst record of propping up tyrranical regimes when it suits them - be it Iraq, Israel, Kuwait or even the late lamented Argentine and Chilean juntas.

Yet when the victims of these regimes flee their homelands, we are told that they are 'swamping' our culture.

365 Days too Many

On Wednesday 16th July 2003, the Ay children Beriwan (14), Newroz (13), Dilowan (12) and Medya (8) will have spent their 365th day in detention!

It is 365 days too many The Ay Family Campaign are launching an international Appeal to the Home Secretary to release the Ay family from detention and let them remain in Britain! Yurdurgal Ay and her children were snatched from their home in Gravesend on Wednesday July 17th 2002 and have been held in Dungavel Removal Centre in Scotland for most of the year they will have now spent in detention.

Support for the release of the Ay children grows stronger by the day. (Download leaflet (in PDF format)

• 1. Urgent action is needed because Mrs Ay's lawyers are asking the House of Lords to hear points relating to her case. They may well not answer for some time, but they may say no in the next few days, in which case the Home Office would be looking to remove the family swiftly.
• 2. We are asking people to write/ fax or phone their own MP, as well as to write to David Blunkett. If MPs say that they cannot raise a case where the individuals do not live in their constituency, people can point out that the matter is of wider interest and raises so many issues that are not confined to one constituency . Return to Germany and Turkey would be a disaster for this family - this is more important than bureaucratic rules about which cases MPs may take up. Please ask people to put their own addresses on model letters they send - they want to get a reply and engage the MP on the case.

What you can do:

add your name to the ever growing list of people and organisations who say the children and their mother should be released from detention and given leave to remain in the UK.

Fax/write to the Home Secretary David Blunkett, using this model letter ((PDF Format)), or write your own.

Fax no: 020 7273 3965 from outside the UK + 44 20 7273 3965 Or write to: David Blunkett Home Secretary Home Office 50 Queen Anne's Gate London SW1H 9AT

Please take time to send a copy of anything sent to: Ay Family Campaign c/o NCADC Cambridge House 131 Camberwell Road London SE5 0HF Or notify by email to: ncadc-london@ncadc.org.uk Ay Family Campaign Recent background information: http://www.ncadc.org.uk/letters/newszine36/newszine36.html Full background information: http://www.ncadc.org.uk/letters/newszine33/ay.html Enquiries/further information: Allison Bennett Phone: 020 7701 5197 ncadc-london@ncadc.org.uk

MPs rebel on asylum By Neil Gerrard MP

In early November 43 labour MPs voted against the Government opposing the segregation of children..Of all the proposals in the Nationality Immigration and Asylum Act, banning children of asylum seekers in accommodation centres from mainstream schools attracted most attention.

It is the message behind this proposal which caused anger. It says that these children, and of course their parents, are a problem, and are unwelcome. It is a message for the Daily Mail reader. But the real thinking behind the accommodation centres is nothing to do with whether they would be a reasonable way to support asylum seekers.

The truth is that accommodation centres are about process. What the Home Office would like is a system where asylum seekers go into a centre when they arrive, stay there while their cases are decided as quickly as possible, and if refused go straight to a detention centre for removal. The whole purpose of the centre is to stop them forming community links and becoming integrated. It makes them easier to deport.

Far less attention was paid to some other parts of this Act, partly because sweeping changes were made at the last minute, in both Commons and Lords, leaving no time for proper debate. The proposal which could turn out to be the nastiest of all, and could cut thousands of asylum seekers off from all support, was allowed just 15 minutes for debate in the Commons. In 1996 the Tories proposed that any asylum seeker who applied in-country rather than at a port should be denied all benefits. The courts ruled that parliament could not possibly have intended people to be left destitute, and that councils must use the National Assistance Act and the Children Act for support, and it was this which lead to the pressures on so many councils, especially in London. Now the denial of support is being revived. Any asylum seeker who does not have children, or is considered to have 'special needs' (as yet undefined), will have to convince NASS there were good reasons for making a 'late' application in order to qualify for support. If they fail they will get absolutely nothing.

Unlike in 1996 the alternative of support from councils has now been outlawed. The potential consequences, especially for London and the south east, are horrendous. There will be people left totally destitute. Like other London MPs I now see people who had been dispersed returning to London because they cannot cope wherever they have been sent to. They survive on other people's charity, usually someone they know who often has very little to live on themselves. That problem could be multiplied many times by the new proposals.

This Act, like those in 1993, 1996, and 1999 is entirely based on false premises. It is based on the view that most asylum claims are fraudulent and that most asylum seekers are really economic migrants. What is then necessary is to devise legislation to deter them coming to the UK. It doesn't matter if the legislation is punitive, and hurts the genuine just as much as the fraudulent. It ignores the evidence from the Home Office's own statistics that the numbers of people claiming asylum relate to political turmoil or civil war.

All this is happening while the Home Office fails disastrously. Letters go unanswered, papers are lost, decisions are not implemented. Why can't we do the simple things, and put effort and money into developing systems which make fair decisions in a reasonable time. Above all, why can't the government remember that we are signatories to international agreements that asylum is about giving protection to vulnerable people?

Competition Time

A challenge for any site visitor

Find a sentence in any edition of the Daily Mail that bothers to explain that Asylum seekers - even one Asylum seeker - has fled from a tyrranical regime.

Is there a single line in the past 5 years from this outrageous tabloid that has ever bothered to suggest that any refugee might be fleeing from Afghanistan, Iraq or any of the regimes that they have spent so much time (as it happens correctly) vilifying as tyrranical?

A free year's subscription to Lambeth Teacher for any evidence provided.

New Immigration and Asylum Bill

Below is a letter to David Blunkett, Home Secretary, addressing the issue of the education of children from asylum seeker families.

Rt Hon David Blunkett MP Home Secretary 50 Queen Anne's Gate London SW1H 9AT

3 May 2002

Dear David,

I am writing to you to ensure that the position of the National Union of Teachers is understood in relation to the proposals for education provision in the Asylum and Immigration Bill. I am also writing to the Secretary of State for Education in similar terms.

The National Union of Teachers has voiced support for those who fear that the rights of the child are to be overridden by the demands and pressures resulting from an ever increasing number of asylum seekers: demands and pressures which understandably require the Government to consider how best the necessary support can be given to asylum seekers whilst at the same time protecting others from a diminution of the services and support available to them.

I recognise that many teachers in England where there is a concentration of asylum seekers, are faced with significant demands resulting from increases in pupil numbers. It is likely that those pupils will bring additional needs which have to be addressed by schools. The funding methodology and the funding mechanism currently provide inadequate resources for such schools effectively to provide the level of education and support needed.

Over the years the NUT has been working for a different funding mechanism through the involvement of John Bangs on the Education Funding Strategy Group. Now, as a result of that group's work, I understand that a grant is being considered to meet the needs of education authorities faced suddenly with an influx of pupils presenting particular challenges, such as the children of asylum seekers or refugees. If this is accepted by the Government, it would ensure that schools providing education to pupils of families seeking asylum would be adequately resourced.

The statements of the NUT and the Government are presented through the media as if we were poles apart and yet the principle promoted by the Union seeks to address the issues and problems identified by the Government. Indeed, the recent publication of the Union's pamphlet "Re-learning to learn", advising teachers on the education of refugee children and children of families seeking asylum, was funded by the Department for Education and Skills.

The NUT believes the most effective education for the children of asylum seekers is best provided through mainstream educational establishments, the oversight of which should be the responsibility of the local education authority. Given the proposed new grant, teachers will welcome the additional support on the basis that the necessary resources would be readily available for their schools. The NUT would hope that the need for any limited educational provision within asylum seekers centres would therefore be of a very limited duration.

I believe it would be valuable if you jointly met representatives of the NUT to discuss these concerns.

Yours sincerely,

Doug McAvoy

General Secretary

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