This month, the organisation Human Rights Watch have released a new report on Eritrea that may be useful for people seeking asylum from Eritrea, or those supporting them.

The report, “They are making us into slaves, not educating us” says that despite the signing of a peace agreement with Ethiopia in July 2018, indefinite military conscription continues. The long running border war has been used as a justification for the repressive system of enforced, indefinite conscription, described as “slavery-like” by the United Nations Commission of Enquiry on Eritrea.

This is a guest blog post by Dr Judith Reynolds. The post explains the different strategies and behaviours to support or improve communication with your asylum/immigration lawyer.

We are delighted to be embarking on a new chapter in the life of the Toolkit, thanks to a grant from the Legal Education Foundation.

We are really excited to be getting out and about, hearing from the people who need our resources most, and taking the Toolkit to the next level.

If you use the Toolkit, please help us by taking part in a short survey.

In June 2019, the Home Office updated its internal guidance on conducting asylum (substantive interviews).

The guidance is a really useful document to read. Although sadly Home Office practice currently falls far short of what is supposed to happen on paper (see our news blog for more on this), it’s helpful for people to know what should and shouldn’t be happening in their interviews. When you know what is meant to be done, it is easier to challenge (either at the time, or subsequently) behaviour that goes against the guidance.

We are very excited to announce the launch of brand new videos about the UK asylum system, a joint project between Refugee Info Bus, Right to Remain and Sara Khyat Art Work.

Based on the Right to Remain Toolkit, with translations by Refugee Info Bus and with stunning animation by Sara, these videos will help people understand their rights at crucial stages of the asylum process.

At this year’s British Society of Criminology conference, the co-developer of our asylum navigation board Dr Victoria Canning explains why we came up with the board, how it works, and why it’s so important.

If you are detained, there can be big difficulties in accessing the legal advice you need to challenge your detention and/or progress your legal case.

As anyone attempting to make an online immigration application in recent weeks will know, the system is in a mess. A right royal mess.

In recent months, many applications have been made online only and the process has been outsourced to a company called Sopra Steria.

Last week, the Court of Appeal made a very important judgement on the Home Office’s policy on deciding the age of young people seeking asylum – also known as “age assessments”.

If your asylum, immigration or human rights application is refused by the Home Office, you may have the right to appeal.

Here’s a few things we thinks it’s useful for people to know if they’ve got an appeal hearing come up.