Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit (GMIAU)

✔️It also outlines our local and national recommendations for change, that can help to rebuild trust and support local political commitments to welcome, sanctuary and safe, secure homes for all residents of Greater Manchester.

This briefing looks at the root causes of the crisis, including the collision of national asylum policies with the erosion of social housing, and how this is fueling homelessness. It also highlights the breakdown of trust between local authorities, voluntary groups, and refugees facing homelessness.

📒 We have published a new Policy Briefing: Refugee Homelessness in Greater Manchester.

Please read and download the briefing here: gmiau.org/refugee-home...

GMIAU Solicitor, Decla Palmer, will be joining Lucy Mair from GCNC in delivering Free Movement training on 29 October.

See below for the details on how to sign up👇

Asylum hotel provider makes £180m profit despite claims of inedible food and rationed loo paper Asylum seekers and charities tell BBC of

Finally!!! The real scandal of the asylum hotels. Why, instead of shining the light on these parasites, months were spent on demonising vulnerable people at their mercy?
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

'The Syrian community in the United Kingdom extends its deepest condolences to the Jewish community in Manchester .... We are horrified by this attack, and we stand in full solidarity with our Jewish neighbours as they grieve'

💚Read the full solidarity message from the Syrian community in the UK...

We at GMIAU are shocked by the horrific attack on the Jewish community in our area, Crumpsall, today. Our condolences and solidarity are with everyone affected.

💚

We're on instagram! www.instagram.com/p/DPRGTYLCKo...

Follow us to keep up to date with our news, insights and publications⭐

(1/3) Yesterday saw Garden Court North & @gmiau.bsky.social come together to host the inaugural North-West Migrants' Rights Conference, a day of humanising, compassionate rhetoric amid such hostility around immigration.

‘Decency or division’: Britain faces era-defining choice, Keir Starmer warns Prime minister lambasts Nigel Farage and the politics of Reform in combative Labour conference speech

Keir Starmer's call for unity rings hollow. Under his leadership, rampant racism has gone unchecked.

It's disingenuous to talk about growth & belonging whilst also announcing tougher immigration rules that create a two-tier system and will devastate our economy.
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Thank you again to everyone who organised, attended, spoke, and supported - including Clyde & Co who kindly hosted us. We left feeling energised, proud and hopeful, but most importantly: ready to continue with our work with a real sense of commitment and solidarity, as we always do.

You can see a recap of the panels on our page...
📖 Speeches from Daniel Trilling and Julia Savage from Asylum Matters
🏡 housing, support & destitution
📫 Windrush and the hostile environment
📋trafficking
⭐️children - age assessments & best practice
🏷️ reporting, removal and detention
📑 looking ahead

Yesterday we co-hosted our North West Migrants’ Rights Conference with @gcnchambers.bsky.social . It was an incredible day of conversations, connection and reflection. We’re so grateful to everyone who came, contributed, spoke, and shared their work and experiences - it was inspiring + energising.

Hi Hannah, that sounds so valuable - please send me an email: annie@gmiau.org - thank you! :)

Garden Court North's Elizabeth Mottershaw on the Housing, Support & Destitution panel.

GCN co-hosted the Migrants' Rights Conference alongside GMIAU.

Yesterday, our brilliant Lindsay Cundall spoke at the North West Migrants’ Rights Conference, hosted by @gmiau.bsky.social and @gcnchambers.bsky.social. Events like this remind us why collaboration and solidarity are essential in the fight for justice and dignity for all migrants.

To close, we had a final message from the wonderful Julia from Aslyum Matters. A brilliant message of positivity and solidarity as we move forward and continue our work as a collective.

Thank you to everyone to attended & participated today. What a brilliant and inspiring conference. ⭐

Panel 6: Looking ahead

Finally, we heard from a range of speakers sharing their lived experience & knowledge on family reunification, the current legal landscape/challenges, and what this looks like as we move forward with our work…

It left us on a note of hope, passion, commitment & solidarity!

Panel 5: reporting, detention & removal

We’re now listening to the next brilliant speakers sharing their work in litigation, community organising, advocacy and campaigns. Their insights are incredibly motivating and thought provoking, and remind us why now, more than ever, we need solidarity 💚

Panel 4: Children - age assessments & best practise

Our speakers shared recommendations for best practise for building trust and representing young people seeking safety.

We also shared some of our resources (all available on our website), and heard from an individual from our All4one group.

We are so grateful you joined us today to share your brilliant research, it was incredibly insightful and interesting - thank you! 👏🏼

As a part of @gmiau.bsky.social panel on trafficking, I shared some of the findings from my research project on the ways migrants workers and victims of trafficking understand labour exploitation, and notions of agency and dignity at work

Panel 3: Trafficking📫

We're listening to 3 speakers share their outstanding work in modern slavery and immigration across the legal and academic fields.

From sharing their experiences of bringing statregic litigation, and of client’s exploitation, to sharing landmark court cases, and so much more!

Also great to hear from speakers about the consequences of the 10 year route from both a lawyer and lived experience perspective, which is something we at GMIAU have been campaigning about for a long time.

The damaging impact that this route has on every aspect of a person’s life is astronomical.

Panel 2: Windrush + the hostile environment 📃.

Listening to survivors of the Windrush scandal & to lawyers helping people to navigate the complex Windrush compensation scheme.

Access to legal support is crucial, but the irrevocable losses people have faced can never be truly compensated.

Panel 1: Housing, support + destitution🏡.

Great to hear from all speakers on: NRPF, homelessness + the political climate.

We have also been lucky to hear from those with lived experience sharing their moving stories of resilience, and the need for change to the housing/hotels accommodation model.

Our Migrants' Rights Conference is underway!

It's great to have Daniel Trilling with us, sharing the context behind why it's so important that we have come together today.

We’ll be sharing more throughout the day…

Shabana Mahmood vows law reforms to prove migrants 'contribute' to UK society The home secretary signalled in her first major interview since taking over the reins that she believed migration "has been too high".

Dehumanisation as policy.
It ignores people's actual lives and experiences in favour of some sick idea that migrants are just resources to be used and discarded at will.
It is incredible how Labour has become, in practice, the most anti-immigration government in decades.
news.sky.com/story/shaban...

If scrapping indefinite leave to remain (ILR) entirely, as Reform would do, is racist, according to Labour, what is making ILR twice as difficult, expensive & humiliating to obtain, as Labour are doing?

This guide can be downloaded directly here, or from our website: gmiau.org/assets/uploa...

Thank you.