Whenever Hilda Chehore arrived at work and said a breezy “Good morning” to her social work colleagues, her words fell on deaf white ears. “It was very frustrating,” she recalls. “I was wondering why they weren’t responding. “The others were friends, they met at weekends and in the evenings, so I wasn’t a part of…
The National Audit Office (NAO) report into the government’s response to cheating in English language tests, published today, is a damning exposure of Home Office failure and we welcome its findings. We have been campaigning since 2017 alongside many of the students affected by the catastrophic series of decisions made by the Home Office on this matter, and we've…
“It’s like an empty pocket, an empty stomach, and broken heart, a hopeless future. What can be worse than those things?” Shabbir, Inquisition More than 100 people attended the launch of “Inquisition” on Tuesday 21 May, a short film about the injustice facing tens of thousands of international students who were wrongly accused of cheating…
Speaking in the House of Commons on Tuesday 30 April, the Immigration Minister Caroline Nokes announced a further delay to the Home Office announcement regarding the thousands of students wrongly accused of cheating on an English test in 2014. She was speaking in response to an Urgent Question from Stephen Timms MP, a long-time advocate…
Four out of five migrant entrepreneurs in the UK believe Brexit will have a negative effect on their business and more than a third have considered relocating their business due to the UK’s impending departure from the EU. More than 80% believe they have capabilities that can be used to strengthen the UK economy, however,…
A few weeks ago, we visited The Voice of Domestic Workers, an education and support group for migrant domestic workers in the UK. Many of the women there struggle to access the healthcare they are entitled to. (You can read our editorial on this issue here.) We were there with two representatives of Doctors of the…
I am a 56-year-old toddler in this country. To start learning things from the beginning when you are in your fifties is both a great challenge and a fantastic privilege. But sometimes I do draw on my abundant pre-packed experiences. For example, my experience in collecting and telling human stories. I’ve been doing this since…
On 4 April 2019, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration published a report into immigration fees set by the Home Office. In response, we have published a briefing, calling for an overhaul of the immigration fee system and urgent reductions of those fees to truly affordable levels. We believe the current fees are…
When/if the UK leaves the EU, your status will change if you are an EEA national or if your status here depends on an EEA national. It will be a requirement for you to apply for settled status. As of 30 March 2019, the settled status scheme is officially live. You have until December 2020…
Maslenitsa is an ancient Slavic holiday marking the end of winter and the start of spring. Although originally a pagan holiday, it was appropriated by the Orthodox Church and still remains a popular and widely celebrated holiday in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. Maslenitsa is the eighth week before Orthodox Easter. Many members of the Russian…
