Asylum seekers

07 Mar 2023
The UK's Home Office is expanding its contract with the Portuguese company Tekever, which has supplied live-streamed drone footage captured by a combination of radar, video, and infrafred imagery through a £1 billion contract since 2020; this contract is now being extended to monitor large stretches
News & Analysis

Companies are deploying satellites capable of tracking signals and selling access to the data collected to government agencies. We explain what this nascent industry is selling, why border agencies are among their customers, and why it matters.

News & Analysis

The controversial Police, Crime, Sentencing & Courts Bill includes provisions for 'extraction of information from electronic devices'. It relies solely on voluntary provision and agreement. We analyse the power imbalance between the State and individual - which calls into question 'voluntary provision' and 'agreement' as a basis for seizure of a device and extraction of data. 

News & Analysis

We wrote to the UK Home Office to ask them to stop spying on asylum seekers via the Aspen Card, their response left us with more questions.

News & Analysis

The UK government changes company outsourced to provide the Aspen Card - This is an opportunity to do things better.

News & Analysis

PI joins more than 140 UK migrants’ rights charities, faith groups, local authorities, health institutions and trade unions in a call to the Department of Health calling for an end to Hostile Environment immigration policies in the NHS so that everyone can access the vaccine without fear.

08 Jan 2021
An immigration detention centre has been temporarily closed after several members of staff tested positive for coronavirus. The Home Office said Brook House, near Gatwick airport in West Sussex, has been shut for 10 days. It said a “very small number” of detainees had been moved to Colnbrook
23 Dec 2020
A Sudanese man who had been seeking asylum in Ireland was deported to London just days before the UK capital went into the highest levels of COVID-related restrictions. The man, who is in his twenties, was deported last Thursday despite Irish government assurances to halt such removals during the
05 Jan 2021
The Home Office is pushing ahead with charter flights despite the UK’s new lockdown and soaring levels of coronavirus, in what campaigners say shows “contempt” for both deportees and the wider public. Boris Johnson announced new, stricter coronavirus measures on Monday in an effort to slow the
02 Oct 2020
The Home Office moved dozens of asylum seekers involved in a Covid outbreak more than 120 miles despite an enforcement order saying they should remain in self-isolation for 14 days, the Guardian has learned. Home Office contractors have been accused of being “beyond reckless” in their handling of
30 Sep 2020
Migrants seeking asylum in Britain could be processed offshore under plans being developed by Priti Patel. Officials have ruled out Ascension Island and St Helena as impractical because of their distance from the UK but the Home Secretary is still seeking a third country where asylum seekers could
19 Sep 2020
Thousands of asylum seekers currently accommodated in hotels are facing removal from the UK, the Home Office has announced. A letter from the Home Office, seen by the Independent, states that evictions of refused asylum seekers will take place “with immediate effect” and charities have reported an
30 Aug 2020
Human rights experts have accused the home secretary, Priti Patel, of ignoring legal guidance in an attempt to target child asylum seekers who cannot prove they are under 18. A letter from the Home Office, seen by the Observer, reveals that the government is putting pressure on social workers to
News & Analysis

A new UN experts report shines light on the role of private military and security services in immigration and border management and their impact to the rights of all migrants.

16 Aug 2020
All migrants arriving in the UK since June have been ordered to quarantine, but a Border Force source said that little is being done to ensure the rules are followed and some in emergency accommodation are being given vouchers to go to the shops. Thousands of British tourists returning from France
News & Analysis

PI responds to the plans announced by UK Home Office to make Channel crossings "inviable" for asylum seekers and joins efforts by migrant organisations to call for the UK government to introduce safe and legal routes to the UK.