Afghans who worked with British forces have been trapped in Pakistan for months because the gov decided in Nov last year to stop MoD flights and ask the families to find their own homes in UK.
Now the High Court has heard that Rishi Sunak was the person behind that decision🧵
Excl: An Afghan intelligence analyst who played a “key” role in helping the British military in Kabul has been threatened with deportation to Rwanda after fleeing to the UK on a small boat.
He applied for MoD’s Arap scheme 2 yrs ago but heard nothing.
Some news 🚨Excited to say I’m starting as
@Independent
’s Social Affairs correspondent on the 4th Jan. Please do get in touch with any suggestions for what I should cover/stories/tips. DMs are open and email is holly.bancroft
@independent
.co.uk Also always keen for a ☕️
The claimants are hundreds of places down the list of relocations and are facing increasing risk as the security situation worsens in Pakistan.
Read the full story here:
Sunak decided in November 22 that Afghans arriving to the UK should not be housed in hotels - and should only arrive if there was army service accom or other homes for them, lawyers said.
This would leave around 1900 people still in Pakistan when the authorities 1 Nov ultimatum passes, lawyers told the High Court.
Two of those stranded in Pakistan are taking legal action against the PM, home sec, defence sec and foreign sec over the delay.
Lawyers said this direction was made to the MoD initially and "reached the home secretary by internal chinese whispers".
The Afghans in question are eligible for relocation under the Arap scheme, for those who worked for and with the British forces.
Icymi: Immigration minister Robert Jenrick has been rebuked by the statistics watchdog for misleading parliament over the number of foreign criminals who have been referred for help as suspected modern slaves.
The result was that the MoD stopped chartered flights from Pak.
A new requirement came into force that Afghan families had to find their own accommodation in the UK before they could be moved. Effectively leaving thousands of them stuck in Pakistan and very few moving to UK
The families have been stuck, in hotels the gov pays for, for many months with no education for their children. Their Pakistan visas have run out and many now have no legal right to be in the country.
Pakistan has now announced a crackdown on Afghan refugees without papers.
As a result, the MoD has rapidly accelerated plans to move the Afghans into UK service homes - with 59 people brought to UK since 2nd October.
Around 470 will be relocated by the end of the month.
Police stormed one of the hotels and arrested several Afghans. They were only released after the FCDO intervened and there is now an impending 1 November deadline - the date the Pakistan authorities said all these Afghans must leave by.
The government said the hotels were "not ideal" but were adequate "in the exceptional circumstances".
They said the High Commission was monitoring the situation and in frequent contact with Pak to ensure no one is "affected while they await relocation".
A Nigerian man had his bid to remain in the UK rejected by the Home Office over links to India and Lebanon - countries he has never visited.
The decision also contained the immigration history of an entirely different person.
🇦🇫The man, who gathered information to help coalition forces plan operations against the Taliban in Afghanistan, says he was forced to make the dangerous journey because he could not afford to wait for help through official routes following the fall of Kabul.
🇦🇫One British adviser described his work as having “a meaningful and positive effect on the UK’s national security interests in Afghanistan”. Another RAF colleague said his insight “undoubtedly furthered the UK’s military and national security objectives”.
Excl: An Afghan war veteran who served alongside British armed forces is among those who have fled to the UK on small boats and are now being threatened with deportation to Rwanda.
The lieutenant was praised by his coalition forces supervisor as a “patriot to his nation”
🚨 Afghans eligible for UK resettlements schemes but stuck abroad will be brought to Britain as soon as possible - with hotels to house them if necessary, in a government policy u-turn
UK warns Afghans promised sanctuary in Britain cannot be kept safe in Pakistan and Iran
Diplomats issued warning to the government in two risk assessments - details of which were made public after intervention by
@Independent
and
@PA
Foreign Office has told an Afghan refugee that they housed him for 19 months in a UK-funded hotel in Pakistan, and helped him get a visa, by mistake.
They’ve given his family 14 days to leave and said it was all ‘in error’. He says he sold all he had to get to Pakistan.
Exclusive 🚨 Desperate Afghans in hiding from the Taliban have been told they can come to safety in Britain only if their documents are approved by the fundamentalists they are trying to flee.
The MoD have 'apologised unreservedly' after an
@Independent
investigation
💥EXC: Michael Gove made crude sexual jokes about a current minister, used a racist slur and joked about paedophilia in a series of speeches unearthed by The Independent.
🧵
The Windrush victim fighting for compensation after not being able to work or claim benefits for decades
🔴This case is the first challenge to Windrush compensation to be heard in the High Court. It could have wide ranging implications for other victims
Over 3500 Afghans who have already been found eligible for sanctuary in the UK are still stuck in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Thousands more have yet to hear if they are eligible for the MoD's Arap scheme, for those who worked for British forces.
On Tuesday, Pakistan police arrested several Afghans eligible for UK relocation, who had been living under the care of the British government in Islamabad.
They were released only after intervention from the British High Commission.
Your reminder that Raab delayed the evacuation of ppl from Afghanistan during the fall of Kabul because he refused to engage with cases that hadn't been formatted in the right sort of table, according to testimony from an FCDO whistleblower
Some news: after three years at The Mail on Sunday, I'm heading to The Independent as a general news reporter. Will miss the MoS crew but excited to try something new. Do get in touch if there's something you think I should cover!
New: Nearly 10,000 modern slavery victims waiting over two years for Home Office decision
FOI data reveals 9,500 ppl have been waiting over two years for a decision, over triple the number in 2021 and soaring from 397 cases just four years ago.
This is the story of two Afghan special forces units that were set up, trained and paid by the British - and what has happened to them since the West's withdrawal from Afghanistan 🧵
w/
@LHreports
@SkyNews
The Ministry of Defence has launched an investigation after
@Independent
revealed that Afghans were being asked to get papers certified by the Taliban.
The gov have identified 37 applicants who were told to go to Taliban departments to get docs approved
New: The first British Council teacher to be brought to safety in the UK under the government’s Afghan resettlement scheme has spoken of his relief – but urged politicians to help over 100 more left behind who face 'real danger'
ACRS path 3 now running
Massive well done to
@dpg_law
@SulhaAlliance
and others who have been pushing for this- there are still many questions the gov has to answer on how quickly this can be done but a major factor blocking relocations has now been lifted
UK warns Afghans promised sanctuary in Britain cannot be kept safe in Pakistan and Iran
Diplomats issued warning to the government in two risk assessments - details of which were made public after intervention by
@Independent
and
@PA
🚨 Afghans eligible for UK resettlements schemes but stuck abroad will be brought to Britain as soon as possible - with hotels to house them if necessary, in a government policy u-turn
It's been two years since the fall of Kabul and the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan.
Thousands of Afghans who worked with Britain are still trapped in the country or languishing in hotels in Pakistan.
The government has no plan to get them to the UK
New: Ministers urgently considering moving Afghans who worked with British forces to UK from Pakistan, court hears
Judge orders ministers to relocate Afghan refugee stuck in Iran to UK as soon as possible in light of gov docs presented to a closed court
New: Hundreds of Afghans refugees have been quietly moved into military bases round the UK while the government figures out where to house them.
The MoD operation has been dubbed Operation Lazurite, after the mineral in Lapus Lazuli.
Not loads of support at MoD Garats Hay
Afghans who worked for the British army are being denied sanctuary in the UK despite being at risk of execution by the Taliban.
Mechanics, labourers and chefs are among those who have been rejected by the Ministry of Defence’s resettlement scheme.
New: The government has now resettled *22 people* in the UK under pathway 2 of the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme, according to Home Office stats for 2022.
This is up from 4 people, in September 22.
UK government is scrambling to find homes for Afghans eligible for sanctuary in Britain who are trapped in Pakistan after authorities announced a brutal crackdown on refugees,
@Independent
can reveal.
New: Asylum seekers in hotels are being left without access to adequate healthcare, leaving torture injuries untreated, children suffering weight loss, and pregnant women without maternity services, doctors have warned.
A million more people are living in poverty in the UK compared to a year ago, new analysis shows.
Six million of the poorest people in the UK would need to double their incomes to escape poverty
Terrible news this morning as 19 children and two adults killed in a Texas school shooting - America's worst school shooting in nearly a decade.
Biden has urged Congress to end the violence, saying: "When in God's name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?"
Latest here:
#TexasSchoolShooting
#UvaldeShooting
🔴19 children and two adults killed in the shooting
🔴 Gunman identified as 18-year-old Salvador Ramos
Follow latest updates ⬇️
Excl: An Afghan interpreter who served alongside the British army was deported back to Afghanistan from Pakistan after the UK wrongly refused to grant him sanctuary.
He has now been granted eligibility and returned to Pak, thanks to
@DLPublicLaw
Excl: A pregnant mother suffered a miscarriage after she was separated from her husband and left to look after her five children in “deplorable” conditions at Manston detention centre, the High Court has heard.
Details of the case were revealed as part of an application for a
Excl: An Afghan colonel who fought alongside British troops and fled to the UK on a small boat has been threatened with deportation to Rwanda, in a new betrayal of heroic soldiers who supported coalition forces.
Veterans minister Johnny Mercer told MPs today that around 2800 Arap-eligible Afghans will be moved to UK by end of Dec.
He confirms policy u-turn on accommodation given security situation in Pakistan. The PM has asked Mercer to coordinate.
Update: Around 8,000 applications are still waiting to be processed under the Arap Afghan resettlement scheme, latest MoD estimates show.
Gov has been getting through the backlog pretty fast but many still to hear. They had promised to clear by Aug.
Tens of thousands of Afghans waiting to hear if they will be relocated to UK
New figures from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) show that there are still 71,149 applications waiting to be processed under the Afghan relocations and assistance policy (ARAP).
Afghan women stuck under Taliban rule kept from reuniting with their British husbands because of English language requirements needed to come to the UK.
If anyone out there can offer probono legal assistance for 1 family pls DM me!
Thousands of Ukrainian refugees living in hotels as councils struggle to deal with rising homelessness
🇺🇦New FOI data from councils reveals scale of Ukrainians housed in temporary hotel accommodation
Home Office told girl, 5, she must leave UK while mother fights deportation to Nigeria
Mother was given right to appeal refusal but daughter wasn't -
@RAMFELCharity
have now challenged the decision, wc Home Office apologised for
Exclusive: The Home Office is facing legal action over its treatment of tens of thousands of people in the UK who, it’s estimated, are being wrongly blocked from employment and benefits.
The judicial review is being brought by
@RAMFELCharity
New: Labour's shadow def sec has slammed the gov's management of the Afghan resettlement schemes as “one of the most comprehensive failures of ministerial leadership and competence in recent times”.
Comes after
@Independent
@LHreports
@SkyNews
report
Icymi: Hundreds of people who have been promised sanctuary in the UK are still stuck in Afghanistan more than two years after the Taliban takeover, Lord Cameron has said.
He was referring to ACRS pathway that FCDO oversee.
NEW ‘You must help them’: Lone asylum-seeking children reveal trauma of Manston centre 🧵
One 16-year-old said he was forced to sleep on leftover food boxes, while another says he was shouted at for asking for food
Icymi: Military chiefs and MPs have called on Rishi Sunak to keep promises made to Afghan refugees, as they urged the government not to forget its “debt of honour” to those who fought with the UK against the Taliban.
"Phenomenal musician" Harvey Parker, 20, has been missing for four days after leaving Heaven nightclub in London in the early hours of Friday morning.
Met police have just released new CCTV of Harvey walking towards Embankment.
The longest queue I have ever seen in my life - people waiting to get a wristband so they can then be fed into another queue to get access to St Giles’ Cathedral, Edinburgh, where the Queen is lying in rest.
Hundreds of Afghan families, who have already been found eligible for the UK's resettlement schemes, are still stuck in Islamabad because the government insists they must find their own accommodation in the UK before they are relocated.
New: Disabled students and staff face discrimination at leading university, as documents say bullying is ‘rife’
Campaigners said the reported lack of support was "not an isolated incident" and was a "common theme across education".
New: The Home Office is facing legal action over its plans to house asylum seekers at an RAF base.
Care4Calais to argue that RAF Wethersfield is operating as a de-facto detention centre and not suitable for long-term accommodation
These are Afghan families who have been moved from Pakistan to the UK in a number of flights since October.
The evacuation gets them out of immediate danger in Islamabad, where Pakistani authorities are conducting a crackdown on undocumented refugees.
My interview with Pulitzer prize-winning photographer Massoud Hossaini 👇🏻
🇦🇫 He fled the Taliban after capturing the fall of Kabul. Now Hossaini is in limbo in the Netherlands with no idea what will happen to him.
Some real shocking examples of child poverty in responses to
@buttleuk
's survey of frontline workers 🧵
"I delivered a food parcel to a family of 5. Within minutes the children were rummaging through the bags and opened a tin of beans and started to eat them cold from the tin"
Over 1000 Afghans who were promised safe haven in the UK because of their work with the British are still stuck in hotels in Islamabad, Pakistan.
Many of their visas have run out and they fear going outside incase they are deported back.
Disabled students were left without support during the pandemic and over half considered leaving full-time education, according to a survey of pupils at 69 UK universities and higher education providers.
@ChangeDisabled
Pakistan arrested several Afghans eligible for UK resettlement at the end of Sept and FCDO had to intervene to get them released
Authorities have told Afghans without legal right to be in the country to leave by 1 Nov - a problem for UK-eligible Afghans whose visas have run out
More than 1,300 homeless people in the UK died in 2022, with deaths steadily increasing in England year on year, research has found.
@our_MoH
A significant number of deaths are happening in exempt accommodation
UK’s modern slavery programme at ‘breaking point’ as demand from victims soars
@Kalayaan
have warned: "This cannot continue."
They are calling for more first responders to be allowed to make referrals.
New: The Afghan war hero threatened with deportation to Rwanda has told how his wife begged him to flee and leave her behind while he made his perilous journey across five countries to reach the UK.
Read the full interview here 👇
Over 4,600 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children accommodated in hotels since July 2021.
440 have gone missing at one point in time, and 200 are still unaccounted for.
13 of those are under the age of 16, minister Robert Jenrick told the Commons today
"Our civilisation will be judged by the way we treat the most vulnerable"
Senior military chiefs, politicians and diplomats have joined a growing band of supporters calling on Rishi Sunak to prevent an Afghan war hero being deported to Rwanda.
Afghans in hotels are now presenting as homeless to councils after gov served them with eviction notices.
Johnny Mercer said in July that there is 'no tangible reason' why families should be homeless - but LGA now warning they are seeing this happen
Good news! Afghan photographer Massoud Hossaini has been granted a New Zealand visa after a minister there read his interview with
@Independent
last year.
Hossaini said: "I have to find a way to be a citizen again in the world - and maybe in New Zealand I can do that."
Labour have criticised Tory ministers for having a 'public scrap' over the fate of Afghan special forces soldiers who fought with the British, and have called on the government to bring them to safety in the UK.
Thousands more refugees are facing homelessness because government has effectively reduced the time they have find alternative accommodation once they are evicted from hotels.
Charities already seeing rise in need with refugees becoming street homeless.
Veterans minister Johnny Mercer tells the Commons that government is aware of MoD rejections for help for Triple 3 and 4 members - detailed in piece below 👇
"We are re-engaging in that process, to make sure there is integrity in that process," he says.
Icymi: A ‘shameful’ new record as 131,000 children living in temporary accommodation
🏠Almost 105,000 households were in temporary accommodation at the end of March this year
🏠Between Jan and Mar, 1,760 households were made homeless due to rent arrears
‘Cruel and callous’: Families face years living apart if government changes visa rules
@ReuniteDivFamil
are running a campaign to stop a proposed increase in the minimum income requirement
Read more about it here 👇
#journorequest
If you have had your asylum claim withdrawn or are a case worker/charity worker supporting ppl who have had their claims withdrawn, I would like to speak to you!
Pls DM me or email holly.bancroft
@independent
.co.uk
'When we question why people do not use legal routes to come to the UK, this is the answer'
745 Afghans who applied for resettlement scheme for those who helped British forces have been waiting over 2 yrs for a decision, new figs show. w/
@ArchieMitch_
Hakeem Hussain: Mother ‘prioritised drug addiction’ over son, 7, who died alone from an asthma attack
Social workers met to discuss Hakeem two days before he died, with his school nurse warning his life was at risk. But the panel decided not to step in.
Piece on Roman Abramovich - currently leading the website
Chelsea cannot be sold under the current licence. HW Government would consider an application for a new licence for sale, as long as none of the proceeds went to Abramovich.
New: A Syrian family who fled Isis and were accepted for UK resettlement are struggling to support their young epileptic son as they wait years for relocation.
The family have been waiting nearly four years to be brought to the UK.