ASIRT has recently begun working with ‘Tina’, the intelligent and formidable single mother of ‘Brendan’, who is 13. Brendan is British. He acquired his citizenship from his father, Tina’s ex-partner, who has passed away. Tina, however, is not British. Because of this, she is required by the Home Office to… Read More
Justice For Sale
Today’s the day of the Birmingham Legal Walk, and a team from ASIRT will be joining hundreds of other walkers to raise funds for justice. As recent events, including the Windrush scandal, have demonstrated, the UK’s immigration system is broken. Lives are being wasted and put on hold as… Read More
When Every Child Doesn’t Matter
In a week in which it has been reported both that UNICEF has determined the UK to have the worst record in the European Union for child hunger, and that children living in poverty are routinely being denied access to free school meals because of their parents’ immigration statuses, we… Read More
‘Tell Me How It Ends’
I’ve recently read Valeria Luiselli’s excellent ‘Tell Me How It Ends’, an account of the author’s experience of working as a volunteer interpreter for migrant children at risk of deportation from Trump’s America. In one passage, Luiselli recounts a conversation with her young daughter about her work, in which she… Read More
Access to justice: a right, not a privilege.
March has arrived and with it, finally, the promise of longer, warmer days. But if the winter seems to have been interminably long for those of us with secure immigration status, access to a regular income, and safe, warm homes, I’m struggling to imagine how it might have been experienced… Read More
