The Migrants’ Law Project is a legal and public legal education project, hosted by Islington Law Centre. We work to enforce, advance and defend the legal rights of asylum seekers and refugees and other vulnerable migrants through securing substantive changes in policy and practice.
Asylum seekers, migrants, and refugees often struggle to ensure that their basic human rights are recognised and respected in the UK. Their ability to access and assert their rights is entirely dependent on their capacity to negotiate a complex legal system. There is an acute shortage of quality legal advice and representation for this vulnerable group.
The MLP works towards addressing this imbalance by providing advice, support and training to organisations working with vulnerable groups, and where necessary, using our legal expertise to assist or lead on legal challenges.
You can find out more about how we work through the case study of our work on the Detained Fast Track here.
Our work has three main aspects:
Advice and representation
We provide expert legal advice and support to organisations working with migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. The MLP assists groups in developing effective legally informed strategies and tools for negotiation with the UK Border Agency and other government bodies. We represent individuals or organisations to litigate in the public interest where it has not been possible to achieve a just outcome through negotiation. Through this work, we seek to tackle systemic problems around issues including, among others, detention, destitution, and protection of fundamental human rights.
Co-ordinating legal strategy
We are a point of contact for practitioners, NGOs, groups and activists working with migrants, refugees and asylum seekers to share information about current issues of concern. We run a forum sharing details of legal developments, training notes, and provide an online space for forum members to discuss issues of concern and share strategy, tactics, and developments.
Public Legal Education
The MLP promotes legal education and debate on issues surrounding representation of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. This work provides an understanding of the immigration and asylum legal process and develops skills to enable non-lawyers to negotiate more effectively with the Home Office and other governmental and quasi-governmental bodies. Training is provided for free and training notes are available via the online resource. We also provide briefing notes and updates on important legal developments. For more information please see the Key Issues area of the site, which holds a range of resources on key issues facing asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants in the UK today.
Staff
Solicitors: Sonal Ghelani, Daniel Rourke, Christine Benson
Training and Outreach Officer: Amy Grey
Project Coordinator: Katie Commons
Please explore the website to find out more about our work, including engaging with our public legal education through our Key Issues resources and forum, or by contacting us. You can find us on Twitter here.
You can support our work here.
The Migrants’ Law Project is part of Islington Law Centre, registered charity number 268468. Islington Law Centre’s VAT registration number is 330653972.