Resources

Asylum Aid is partnering with the Justice Together Initiative to provide in depth training for IAA Level 2 advisers who want to deliver complex casework at IAA Level 2 and 3, particularly in complex asylum, human rights and trafficking cases. We are seeking expressions of interest from organisations who want to support their IAA advisers to gain increased confidence and expertise in working in more complex asylum, human rights and trafficking cases.

Our challenge to the Home Office’s Rwanda policy was heard in the High Court on 13 and 14 October. This followed earlier hearings on 5-9 September of the cases brought by Care4Calais, Detention Action, the PCSU and a number of individuals, and a hearing on 12 October of a case focused on the data sharing parts of the Rwanda agreement. At the hearing, our barristers presented the evidence and legal arguments to support our case that the Home Office has adopted a procedure for sending people to Rwanda which is unlawful and unfair.

2021 was a year of consolidation for the Asylum Aid team following its re-establishment as a charity in its own right as part of the Helen Bamber Foundation group in August 2020. The focus of the charity’s work remained on providing expert legal representation in the most complex cases going through the asylum and trafficking systems. The ongoing public health crisis as a result of the coronavirus pandemic continued to pose challenges both for the delivery of our services and for our clients, where ongoing delays in decision-making by the Home Office resulted in increased vulnerability to exploitation, abuse and re-trafficking.

We have applied for an urgent interim injunction to stop the government flying refugees to Rwanda until our application for judicial review can be heard. The interim injunction application was made today on the charity’s behalf by law firm Leigh Day. The injunction seeks to prevent any flights taking place, including the one scheduled on Tuesday 14 June 2022, until an application for judicial review of the procedures and arrangements in place to send refugees to Rwanda can be heard by the court.

The government is seeking to introduce a Bill of Rights that would significantly reduce the protections afforded to certain groups, including refugees and survivors of trafficking. The government’s proposals will not only harm the most marginalised but will undermine the human rights protections available to us all.

Asylum Aid's Statelessness Pro Bono partnership with a network of 12 global law firms has been recognised by the LawWorks Annual Pro Bono Awards under the category of Most Effective Pro Bono Partnership. The partnership has been running since 2018 and consists of a large-scale collaborative pro bono project tackling the complex issue of statelessness in the UK. Asylum Aid's legal team works closely with lawyers across the 12 firms, to train, share experiences and suggestions to ensure each application is successful.

We were delighted to hear that Asylum Aid's Pro Bono project, bringing together a collaborative network of city law firms to work on complex Statelessness cases won The Law Society's award for Excellence in Pro Bono this year.  The group consists of 12 global law firms: Akin Gump, Ashurst, Cooley, Dentons, Freshfields, Latham & Watkins, Morrison & Foerster, O'Melveny, Orrick, Reed Smith, Skadden and White & Case.

We put together a response to the Ministry of Justice's call for evidence on Legal Aid and asylum appeals under the online procedure. 

This policy briefing addresses issues relating to asylum applications in the UK by persons who fear persecution relating to their sexual or gender identity or expression.

People who do not comply with sexual or gender identity or expression (SOGIE) norms continue to face persecution in many parts of the world:

At the beginning of 2020 Asylum Aid were part of Consonant, a charity for whom the challenges of the coronavirus public health pandemic proved a hurdle too far. But as a charity with a strong reputation for excellent legal representation and policy work, built over 30 years following its creation in 1985, Asylum Aid was an organisation that the sector could not afford to lose.