Source: Independent Catholic News

A coalition of faith groups and faith leaders have written to to Home Secretary Priti Patel urging her to rethink the government’s proposed New Plan for Immigration, which they say ‘lack humanity and respect for human dignity.’

Signatories include the Jesuit Refugee Service, Caritas, Welcome Churches, the Salvation Army, Quaker Asylum and Refugee Network, UK Welcomes Refugees, the Baptist Union of Great Britain, the United Free Church of Scotland and many others.

The full statement follows:

On 24 March 2021, the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, announced the government’s New Plan for Immigration (NPFI), which was launched alongside a consultation on the proposals. Following the closure of the consultation on 6 May 2021, the government is planning to introduce a bill to enshrine the proposals into UK law.

As a coalition of Christian faith groups and faith leaders brought together by the St Vincent de Paul Society (England & Wales), we believe these proposals lack humanity and respect for human dignity. We believe it would be wrong to create a system in which the way people enter the UK will impact how their asylum claim is processed and the status they might receive.

Many people who are forced to flee their homes in desperate circumstances simply have no choice but to cross borders informally to reach a safe haven; to penalise them for this is to abandon the very principle of international protection. Moves to criminalise and penalise undocumented entry to the UK set out in the NPFI mean it will effectively be impossible for most people to claim asylum in the UK because safe and legal routes for claiming asylum in the UK are extremely limited, and could never feasibly be made available to all who need them. We cannot ignore their plight and reduce it to a statistical act of bureaucracy.

This nation has a long history of welcoming people from all over the world. People who have arrived in our communities through the asylum system are our neighbours, members of our congregations and valued members of our neighbourhoods. We should recognise our common interests of family, community and faith, and embrace the diversity which makes our communities dynamic and vibrant. We call for a rejection of hostility towards people seeking asylum and an end to punitive measures aimed at people who are seeking sanctuary in our country.

We welcome the government’s commitment to resettlement through the new UK Resettlement Scheme (UKRS) and look forward to the announcement of resettlement targets for the years to come, but this must not be at the expense of an asylum system that strives to offer protection to those who need it.

We urge the Home Secretary to embed principles of welcome, protection and integration into the government’s policies. We must treat individuals and families seeking sanctuary on our shores as our brothers and sisters and valued members of our communities. How we respond to those in need has profound implications for who we are as a society. Recognising our obligations to those who seek sanctuary is fundamental to building a just and flourishing nation.

Signed by

Elizabeth Palmer – CEO St Vincent de Paul Society

Ben Gilchrist – Chief Executive of Caritas Shrewsbury

Lizzie Reynolds – Ordinand on placement at Ripon Cathedral

Sarah Teather, Director, Jesuit Refugee Service UK

Emily Holden – Acting CEO at Welcome Churches

Anne-Marie Tarter – Member of the congregation of Ripon Cathedral

Rev Dr Simon Cartwright – Vicar at Walbrook Epiphany Team

Sister Margaret Barrett – Director of Mission, Daughters of Charity Services

Naomi Bennett and Danielle Wilson, Co-CEOs at Red Letter Christians UK

Carmelite Prior of Aylesford in Kent

Barbara Forbes, Quaker Asylum and Refugee Network

Rev Will Leaf, Vicar at St Mark’s Kensal Rise

Claudia Holmes – UKCEN Founder

Sally Smith, Sanctus St Mark’s, Diocese of Lichfield Sally Smith

Catherine Gladwell, Chief Executive, Refugee Education UK

Rev Ian Rutherford, City Centre Minister, Methodist Central Hall, Manchester

Mauricio Silva, Coordinator at Fatima House

Ben Bano & Phil Kerton, Co-Directors – Seeking Sanctuary

Ros Holland, Chief Exec, Boaz Trust Ros Holland

Rev Gerard Goshawk, Six Ways Erdington Baptist Church, Birmingham

Revd Jon Scamman, Vicar of St Thomas’ Church Lancaster

Reynette Roberts MBE, CEO of Oasis Cardiff

Nadine Daniel BEM, Campaigns and Communications Coordinator, UK Welcomes Refugees

Rev Ian Dyble, Priest in Charge, The Weybourne Group of Churches (CofE)

Hugh McLeod, Derby Quakers Hugh McLeod

Sr Margaret Walsh, Patron and Trustee, St Chad’s Sanctuary

Domenica Pecoraro, Kent Refugee Project Officer, Diocese of Canterbury

Patrick Coyle, Chair of Cytûn: Churches Together in Wales

Mark Wiggin, Director of Caritas Diocese of Salford

Julian Prior, CEO, Action Foundation

Church and Peace, Britain and Ireland Region

National Justice and Peace Network

Barbara Kentish, Committee member of Westminster Justice and Peace

Paul Southgate, Chair of National Justice and Peace Network

Christians Aware

Vicar is David Tomlinson, St Paul’s in the Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham

Paul Parker, Recording Clerk, Quakers in Britain

People Not Walls UK

Revd. Lynn Green – General Secretary, Baptist Union of Great Britain

Fr Michael Hartley

Rev Maureen Priddin, Chaplain for Justice and Peace Derby Cathedral, Member of the Derby City of Sanctuary network

John O Fulton, Moderator of the General Assembly, United Free Church of Scotland

Bishop Nolan, President of Justice and Peace Scotland, commission of the Catholic Church in Scotland

David Moore, Easton Christian Family Centre

Rev Canon Simon Gatenby, Christ Church Brunswick, Manchester

South Lancaster Refugee Welcome

Natalie Williams, CEO, Jubilee+

Jo Simister, Derby City Deanery

Lancaster Quakers

The Church at Carrs Lane, Birmingham (Methodist and United Reformed Church)

Fr Dominic Robinson, Chairman Westminster Justice and Peace Commission

Rev’d Carol Backhouse, Christ Church, Lancaster (Church of England)

Rev Alton Bell, Movement for Change and Reconciliation

Fr Peter Hughes SSC, Regional Director of the British Region of the Society of St Columban

Community Church Harlesden

Carolyn Lawrence, Vice President of the Methodist Conference

The Rt Rev Dr Martin Fair, Moderator of the General Assembly, The Church of Scotland

Rev Clare Downing and Mr Peter Pay, Moderators of General Assembly, United Reformed Church

RC Southwark archdiocese

National Board of Catholic Women

Fr Habte Ukbay, JPIC Southwark

Jo Watters, Father Hudson’s Care based in the Archdiocese of Birmingham

Derby City of sanctuary network, Chaplain for Justice and Peace Derby Cathedral

Dean Pallant, Lt Colonel, The Salvation Army

Dr Edie Friedman, Executive Director, The Jewish Council for Racial Equality (JCORE)

Rabbi Aaron Goldstein, The Ark Synagogue

Rabbi Dr Margaret Jacobi

Rabbi Sybil Sheridan – Executive Director, Lyons Learning Project

Rabbi Sylvia Rothschild

Rabbi Kath Vardi

Rabbi Debbie Young-Somers, Edgware & Hendon Reform Synagogue

Rabbi Dr Barbara Borts, Associate Lecturer, Dept of Music, Newcastle University and Honorary Research Associate, Dept of Anthropology, Durham University

Rabbi Daniel Lichman

Clifton Road interfaith committee

By Barbara Kentish, Lead Commission Member for Migrants and Refugees

Being Human in the Asylum System

Westminster Justice and Peace welcomes with true Easter joy and relief the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) report on welcoming refugees, Being Human in the Asylum System.  Those who work for asylum justice, refugee rights and related issues, and indeed any people of good will, were devastated at the end of March to read of Home Secretary Priti Patel’s regressive proposals to change the current system, which so  infamously lacks compassion or justice. 

JRS have issued a ringing mandate to inspire us to new efforts of resistance to this inhumanity. 

The report provides an excellent overview of current policy and practice, the relevant principles of Catholic Social Teaching, as well as harrowing and shocking stories of refugees’ own experience. Much more crucially, it outlines the vision and policies needed for a humane approach to tackling asylum, which brings a ray of light and hope, just as many feel crushed and despairing in the face of the new Government proposals. 

Those already involved in welcome and outreach are all too aware of the many human rights abuses experienced by those seeking asylum in the UK and the New Plan for Immigration, announced with fanfare on March 24^th by the Home Secretary, had us wringing our hands in despair.   

As  the JRS report summarises, current government praxis employs policies including the fostering of a culture of disbelief towards migrants’ stories, the impersonal and unaccountable dealings with cases, which frequently change hands and sometimes disappear, the notorious indefinite detention system, destitution, and of course the hostile environment policy, most recently evidenced in the use of insanitary and crowded disused barracks for housing newly arrived asylum seekers.  

Charity workers and volunteers constantly strive to remember the idealism of the 1951 Convention on Refugees, and the European Convention on Human Rights, to both of which the UK is  a signatory.     Catholics are encouraged by Pope Francis’s clear and frequent statements on the imperative to welcome refugees as brothers and sisters.   The New Plan for Immigration takes into account neither our international nor humanitarian obligations.  Instead its aims are defensive, with ‘fairness’, efficacy, deterrence of so-called illegal entry, and removal of those here ‘illegally’. 

The Catholic Bishops of England and Wales responded quickly to these narrow and harsh plans.  On March 30^th, Bishop Paul McAleenan, Lead Bishop for Migrants and Refugees, who has spoken out many times on the inhuman treatment of migrants on the French UK borders, issued a statement calling for a just approach to asylum that has ‘people and families at its centre’ and recognises the ‘diverse and complex factors that shape the journeys of refugees.’  Echoing Pope Francis’ call for us to welcome, promote, protect, and integrate refugees, Bishop Paul stated: ‘The assistance that we provide to our sisters and brothers fleeing war, poverty, or persecution is a fundamental test of our society.’

Fast-forward to mid-April, and the JRS report which was in preparation some time before the Government’s announcement, is a welcome arrival.  The authors, led by Dr Sophie Cartwright, JRS UK Senior Policy Officer, and including Dr Anna Rowlands,  Professor of Catholic Social Thought & Practice at Durham University, state:

‘This report is not just a reactive publication, responding to new rapidly shifting proposals, but has been produced to aid a richer, longer term discussion of what a good asylum system might look like, and we hope will encourage the reader to inhabit a longer frame of vision.’

And there is no better organisation to formulate this new vision, since the Jesuit Refugee Service has worked with asylum seekers for many years.  The authors state:

‘This report takes experiences of people seeking asylum in the UK over the past 20+ years, building recommendations for what an asylum process which puts protection of refugees at the centre and promotes human dignity could look like.’

The 16 crystal-clear recommendations include,  ‘A focus on protection, respect for human dignity, and rejection of the culture of refusal and disbelief, must be reflected in ministerial planning, caseworker training and Home Office policy documents across different areas of the asylum system,’ and goes on to call for the end of detention, especially indefinite detention, for the right of asylum seekers to work, for dignified living conditions during the wait for claims to be heard, for in-country appeals to be heard, and for the hostile environment policy to be abandoned.  In short, for abuses to end and for asylum seekers to be accorded dignity, compassion and justice.  

One could only have wished for a word or two about the need for safe and legal routes to the UK, so that many do not feel obliged to use dangerous transport. But that is certainly implied in this vision.

Westminster Justice and Peace highly commends this short and hard-hitting report, bursting with the lived experience of asylum seekers, and pulling no punches as to what needs to happen.  The Government consultation on its new Sovereign Borders Bill ends on May 6^th and if we do not ask for these recommendations to be considered and adopted we will certainly have an even more cruel asylum regime than that which is currently in place. 

We recommend reading the report and contacting any legislators who will listen. 

Jesuit Refugee Service – Download the Report