The Gaza Families Reunited campaign (@GazaFamReunited on Twitter/X) coordinated the below joint letter and sent it to the Home Secretary on 2 April 2024. The letter was drafted in consultation with migrants’ rights (including refugee rights) organisations as well as Palestinians seeking to bring their family members to safety from Gaza.
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2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF
2 April 2024
Dear Home Secretary,
On behalf of behalf of 75 organisations, law centres, law firms, and funders working in the migrants’ (including refugees’), children’s, and human rights’ sectors across the UK, we are calling for you to urgently create a Gaza Family Scheme to enable family members of Palestinians in the UK to reunite with their loved ones and offer temporary sanctuary until it is safe to return.
With each passing hour, the situation in Gaza continues to deteriorate – both due to bombardment as well as lack of access to food or medication. More than 30,000 people have been killed – a third of whom are children – with many more remaining uncounted while trapped under the rubble. Palestinians are currently bracing for Israel’s threatened ground assault on Rafah – formerly claimed as a ‘safe zone’ for civilians – in spite of widespread international outcry, including on the part of the British Government.
Existing immigration routes are insufficient and not working. Palestinians eligible under existing routes cannot make an immigration application to be cleared for entry to the UK unless they have enrolled their biometrics. However, the only visa application centres where Palestinians can actually do so are in Egypt. Unlike in the case of British nationals, for whom the British Government has facilitated evacuation to Egypt, the British Government is not facilitating safe passage for Palestinians in Gaza seeking to reunite with their family members in the UK. Palestinians in Gaza are thus trapped in a catch-22: the British Government is demanding that they register biometrics, but it is denying them a viable way of doing so.
Many families are now being forced to set up crowdfunders in the sum of tens of thousands of pounds to arrange for their loved ones to be evacuated to Egypt by a private company. While it is possible to apply to defer or waive biometric requirements, despite the clearly dangerous (and in some cases, virtually impossible) journey involved in enrolling biometrics in Egypt, almost all of these applications are rejected. Two people have been killed while waiting for a decision on their family reunion visa under existing routes. Even if families are able to pay for their loved ones’ evacuation into Egypt, not all family members are eligible under existing routes and those who are have to pay additional, extortionate visa fees.
It is in this context that Palestinian families in the UK have called for a Gaza Family Scheme alongside a permanent and immediate ceasefire (supported by 71% of the British public, according to a recent poll). Modelled after the Ukraine Family Scheme, the Gaza Family Scheme would enable Palestinians in Gaza to reunite with their immediate and extended family members in the UK – including their partners, children, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, cousins, grandparents, and in-laws – until it is safe to return. It would also include provision for safe evacuation and biometric waiver/deferral, as was done for those fleeing Ukraine. Palestinians arriving on this scheme, as with the Ukrainian Family Scheme, would be able to work, study, and access public funds in the UK while they are granted temporary sanctuary here.
Over 56,000 members of the British public have supported a petition calling for a Gaza Family Scheme to be introduced in the UK. In our view, a Gaza Family Scheme is long overdue to protect human life and the right to family unity until it is safe for Palestinians to return. We, therefore, support the Gaza Families Reunited Campaign in its calls for such a scheme to be implemented with urgency.
Best regards,
Signatories
- Asylum Support Appeals Project
- Bail for Immigration Detainees
- BARAC UK
- Bates Wells Immigration Department
- Birnberg Peirce Ltd
- Care4Calais
- Children and Families Across Borders
- City of Sanctuary UK
- Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ)
- Council for Arab-British Understanding (Caabu)
- Coram Children’s Legal Centre
- Counterpoints Arts
- Coventry Asylum & Refugee Action Group
- Detention Action
- Duncan Lewis
- Evesham Vale Welcomes Refugees
- FODI (Sunderland)
- GARAS
- Govan Community Project
- Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit
- Haringey Welcome
- Helen Bamber Foundation
- Here for Good
- Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association (ILPA)
- Islington Law Centre
- Jesuit Refugee Service UK
- JustRight Scotland
- Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights
- Leigh Day Immigration and Asylum Team
- Manchester Amnesty International group
- Medact
- Migrant Champions Network
- Migrant Democracy Project
- Migrants in Culture
- Migrants Organise
- Migrants’ Rights Network
- Migration Exchange
- Migration Justice Project, Law Centre NI
- Music Action International
- New Citizen’s Gateway
- North West Migrants Forum
- One Life To Live
- Orchid of Siam
- Paul Hamlyn Foundation
- POMOC
- Praxis
- Rainbow Migration
- RAMFEL
- RefuAid
- Refugee Action
- Refugee Council
- Refugee Legal Support
- Reunite Families UK
- Revoke CIC
- Right to Remain
- Riverway Law
- Room to Heal
- Safe Passage International
- Samphire
- Scottish Refugee Council
- Social Workers Without Borders
- Southeast and East Asian Centre
- St Augustine’s Centre, Halifax
- Student Action for Refugees (STAR)
- the3million
- The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI)
- The Pickwell Foundation
- The Voice of Domestic Workers
- Together with Migrant Children
- Voices in Exile
- Waltham Forest Migrant Action (WFMA)
- West London Welcome
- West of Scotland Regional Equality Council
- Women for Refugee Women
- Work Rights Centre