A Guide to Engaging Muslim Communities

A new guide from Chartered Institute of Housing, June 2008
John Perry and A Azim El-Hassan
This guide is about engaging Muslim communities – whether mainly social housing tenants (eg Bangladeshi communities in Tower Hamlets, Somali communities in Sheffield) or mainly living in older, owner-occupied neighbourhoods (eg Pakistani communities in Bradford). The emphasis is on engaging with [...]

media reports June 2008

30 June 08

The bare life of immigrants
A new EU directive allows tougher action against illegal immigrants. Meanwhile, Western citizens are able to work around the globe. But for every harsh immigration law passed, for every statement made about the need to keep ‘them’ out, for every immigrant imprisoned, we make ‘the others’ a little less [...]

Weekly news round-up, 29 June

Click here for Media reports, 23 June – 29 June, this week including:

Sarkozy’s controversial plans for migrants to EU
UK drops plans for visitors’ family cash bonds
Highland labour crisis looms as fewer migrant workers seek jobs
Zimbabweans fleeing Mugabe appeal detention in UK
Council and citizens support Dundee woman threatened with deportation
Latin America could halt EU trade talks [...]

Migrants often ignored in community decision-making

Source: Joseph Rowntree Foundation press release
More needs to be done to enable new migrant communities to be heard and ensure resources are allocated openly and fairly. This is according to a report published today (25 June) by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
The report, Community engagement and community cohesion, explored ways of helping new arrivals to the [...]

Swietlica in Leith

Swietlica started in May 2006 in the Fort Community Wing in the Leith area of Scotland’s capital city, Edinburgh.
From the modest aim of setting up a chess club it has become Edinburgh’s largest and most successful centre supporting the new Polish Community.
Run by committed volunteers with some support from Multi-Cultural Family Base , it provides [...]

Four research reports from June 2008

The impact of migration from new EU Member States on native workers
(Dept. of Work & Pensions, June 2008)

Abstract: This paper examines the impact of migration from the new EU Member States on the labour market outcomes of natives in the UK… We find no statistically significant impact of A8 migration on claimant unemployment. In particular [...]

Migrants Rights News – Special Bulletin – June 2008

UKBA singles out BME businesses for fines in crackdown on irregular migrant workers
The UK Border Agency’s recent ‘name and shame’ list shows that the overwhelming majority of businesses fined during May for the employment of undocumented migrants were black and minority ethnic takeaway shops and restaurants.
The release of this information supports wider concerns, expressed [...]

Global outcry against EU immigration directive

The European Parliament has approved stringent new laws for dealing with clandestine immigrants – a move that has come under forceful criticism from the United Nations, human rights advocates and developing countries.
The “return directive” would mean that in most cases in most cases an irregular migrant will be given two options – to return home [...]

Local immigration enforcement

From the Free Movement blog…
I just came across a surprising Home Office press release. Usually, Home Office immigration press releases are recycled and re-used dribble. The ‘new’ ‘points’-based ’system’ (I’d question the accuracy of all of these words) has been announced again and again and again, for example.
This one might just be a bit different. [...]

Open Britain – freedom of movement

Philippe Legrain, writing in Open Democracy

There are far-reaching ways in which immigration controls are not only ineffective but counterproductive. Britain’s new points system traps all our life chances. And there is a win-win alternative within our grasp, writes Philippe Legrain
As moral panic about immigration sweeps Britain, ‘bogus asylum-seekers’ are the focus of particular hatred. They [...]