Recognition as a Refugee in the United Kingdom (Refugee Week 2023)

Dates: Thursday, June 22, 2023 - 12:00 to 13:00
Location: Online

Refugee Week is a festival celebrating the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees and people seeking sanctuary.

Accessing refugee status in the United Kingdom has become increasingly challenging. Parliament has legislated through the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and has introduced immigration rules which raise the bar for establishing a protection claim and facilitate the creation of off-shoring of claimants.

Through the Illegal Migration Bill, if it becomes law in its current form, the legislature will effectively shut the door on the processing of the vast majority of protection claims lodged after the 7 March 2023. Further, the Home Office’s systems for assessing and deciding the claims of those already here also largely stalled through 2021-2022 creating massive backlogs of applicants.

In this talk we will examine the major changes which have been effected refugees coming to the UK in recent times, those that may follow and the justifications offered for the each. We will consider to the effect of these changes on those seeking protection and the how they may still be able to access protection.

David is a Barrister practicing from Garden Court Chamber’s the UK’s Leading Immigration and Asylum Law set. David had more than 20 years of experience representing asylum seekers, acting for protection claimants from countries from all over the globe, and has been described by peers in the 2023 Chambers Directory as a ‘Leading name in the field of immigration and asylum’. He is a Founding Director of HJT Research, a company specialising in the research and communication of information on the human rights records of more than 110 countries and HJT Training which has specialised in the training of refugee and human rights lawyers for more than 19 years.