Immigration - new material (82)
01 March 2006
Asylum: from deterrence to criminalisation, Frances Webber. European Race Bulletin No 55, 2006, pp.20. This edition of the bulletin reviews major developments in asylum law between 2002 and 2005, charting the EU's criminalisation of the act of seeking asylum. Webber examines these developments within the context of more than 100 cases from across Europe and draws attention to "the new ways in which the criminal law is being used in the asylum process, as well as against migrants generally." Available from the Institute of Race Relations, 2-6 Leeke Street, London WC1X 9HS, email: info@irr.org.uk
Immigration Law Update, Alan Caskie. SCOLAG Legal Journal Issue 343, May 2006, pp101-105. This article reviews significant court cases from Scotland and England in the field of Asylum, Immigration and Nationality law.
Illegal Migrants: proposals for a common EU returns policy: Report with evidence. House of Lords European Union Committee (HL Paper 166) 9.5.06, pp. 230.
Workers Control not Immigration Controls: a programme for Trades Unions proposed by No One is Illegal. No One is Illegal 1.5.06, pp. 30. "The aims of this pamphlet are four-fold. First to show that there cannot be such an animal as fair or just, or benign or reasonable or non-racist controls. All controls are by their nature oppressive and racist. Second it is to show that immigration controls effect trade unions and trade unionists in the workplace. There are a whole series of issues which hitherto have largely gone unaddressed by both campaigners against controls and by trade unions but which are detrimental to all workers. Trade union resolutions and activities need to get beyond generalities and address these. Third we highlight examples of good trade union practice. Fourth we present a model trade union resolution. Altogether this amounts to a trade union programme of opposition to controls." Available by donation from: c/o Bolton Socialist Club, 16 Wood Street, Bolton BL1 1DY, email: info@noii.org.uk
"Cine y migraciones" (Cinema and migrations), Mugak, n.34, January-March 2006. Mugak magazine celebrates its ten-year anniversary with an issue that examines the role played by films in the portrayal of immigration, with in-depth reports on immigration, "race" and gender in contemporary Spanish cinema, on the portrayal of migrant women, at the international immigration film festival held in Donosti San Sebastián and on the camera as a means of reporting the misery and exploitation suffered by migrants in their efforts to improve their lives in the work of Valencian director Llorenç Soler. The editorial team notes how, ten years on, Mugak has become a well-established and useful tool which has a varied audience and has made it possible to establish relations, including "friendships" with "people who have the same wishes and goals as ourselves".
Kein Flüchtlingsschutz in der EU. Die verheerende Wirkung der Dublin II Verordnung am Beispiel tschetschenischer Flüchtlinge [No refugee protection in the EU. The devastating impact of the Dublin II regulation - the example of Chechnyan refugees], Brandenburg Refugee Council, September 2005, pp 26. The Dublin Regulation lays down the specific criteria that determine the Member State responsible for dealing with an asylum claim and obliges signatories to accept returned refugees if these criteria apply; it is therefore aimed at stopping asylum seekers from choosing their country of asylum. This booklet by the Working Group Chechnya of the Brandenburg Refugee Council demonstrates the devastating impact this asylum policy has on refugees, with the example of Chechnyan refugees fleeing via Poland to Germany, where they are returned again to Poland under Dublin II. In 2004, less than 10% of Chechnyan asylum seekers in Poland were granted Geneva Convention refugee status, the lesser status of "toleration" strips refugees of social security entitlements in a country with an unemployment rate of around 20%. As Polish citi