Local Media Must Do Better (The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, June 2026)

What does irresponsible immigration reporting look like in practice? This 5-minute read from the Bureau examines how Reach, the UK’s largest local news organisation, published ONS migration data across its 100+ regional titles in ways that conflated Ukrainian refugees with Channel arrivals, generated unmoderated comment sections filled with dehumanising language, and handed a megaphone to far-right rhetoric. This sort of clickbait, designed to drive traffic, has a human cost that never shows up in the newsrooms.

Immigration and the NHS: The Evidence (The Health Foundation, June 2026)

When immigration is consistently framed as a driver of NHS pressure, what does the evidence actually show, and why is the political narrative so far from the research? This 23-minute briefing from the Health Foundation synthesises studies on migrants’ use of NHS services, their contributions to NHS funding, and their role in the NHS workforce. The findings challenge dominant narratives at almost every point: migrants use the NHS less on average, likely contribute more in taxes and charges than they cost in services, and account for around one in five NHS staff in England. The briefing also presents new polling showing the public significantly overestimates migrant service use.

How UK Immigration Is Used by Billionaires as a Distraction (That Decolonial Channel, May 2026)

Who decides who belongs and who profits when governments turn hostile towards the people that keep it running? In this 34-minute conversation, That Decolonial Channel speaks with Nick Beales, Head of Campaigning at RMJ, about how the hostile environment was constructed, why Labour is extending it, and what settlement proposals mean for the hundreds of thousands of who were promised something different. The case is made that scapegoating migrants is not an accident of bad politics but a function of class interest, a distraction from the billionaire-funded agenda that has hollowed out public services.

Exiled for Existing (Media co-op, June 2026) 

What does it feel like to be forced to leave everything you have ever known simply because of who you are? This 6-minute short film, made by LGBTQ+ refugees and asylum seekers in Scotland, gives voice to people who fled countries where queer identity means jail, violence, or death. In their own words, participants describe forced marriages, public beatings, family rejection, and a Home Office process that retraumatises even as it demands disclosure.

A Tribunal Win Has Shone a Light On a Broken System (The Guardian, June 2026)

What does it take for an exploited migrant worker to get justice? This short editorial from The Guardian uses Shabin Shaji’s employment tribunal win against his employers to illuminate a system that has consistently failed the workers it recruited. Shaji paid £17,000 to an agent, travelled from south India to Stafford, and spent a year living off scraps waiting for shifts that never came. The piece welcomes recent enforcement action but argues that without fines, sector-wide visa portability, or adequate redress, the tribunal route will remain the exception.

Local Media Must Do Better (The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, June 2026)

What does irresponsible immigration reporting look like in practice? This 5-minute read from the Bureau examines how Reach, the UK’s largest local news organisation, published ONS migration data across its 100+ regional titles in ways that conflated Ukrainian refugees with Channel arrivals, generated unmoderated comment sections filled with dehumanising language, and handed a megaphone to far-right rhetoric. This sort of clickbait, designed to drive traffic, has a human cost that never shows up in the newsrooms.

Asylum by Algorithm (Lighthouse Reports, June 2026)

What happens when the Home Office deploys AI facial-recognition technology to determine whether asylum seekers are children or adults, and its own internal evaluation reveals the system misclassifies children at will? This short summary of an investigation from Lighthouse Reports exposes the Home Office’s contract to supply “facial age estimation” technology at the UK border. Drawing on a leaked internal evaluation data, the investigation finds the system is significantly less accurate for girls, for Sub-Saharan Africans, and for people who have experienced trauma,  groups which make up a substantial percentage of those making the journey.

The Fiscal Impact of Immigration in the UK (Migration Observatory, June 2026)

When politicians claim immigration costs or benefits the public purse, what does the evidence actually show, and why do different studies looking at the same period reach such wildly different conclusions? This short briefing from the Migration Observatory synthesises decades of research on immigration and UK public finances. It finds that while the fiscal impact of migration is consistently small, it varies enormously by visa route, age, and methodology, with dynamic lifetime estimates typically positive. Given the relevance of fiscal arguments to the current debate on settlement, this is a valuable read.

Public Support for Migrant Welfare Access (Negash et al, June 2026)

When people say they oppose migrants accessing welfare, which migrants do they mean, and what sort of welfare? This 17-page article in the European Political Science Review presents a vignette experiment findings from over 3000 respondents in Germany and the UK, testing public attitudes towards welfare access across four migrant categories  and four service types. The findings document what the authors term “segmented welfare chauvinism”: opposition to migrant inclusion is not uniform but can vary depending on a whole number of factors, including the type of support and migrant identities.

Producing ‘Fraud’ at the Welfare-Migration Nexus: (Dickson & Rosen, 2026)

What happens when the legal question of whether a child is “in need” is irresponsibly replaced by the question of whether their parents are fraudulent, and what risks emerge? This 11-page article in the British Journal of Sociology traces the emergence of what the authors call the “counter-fraud turn” in children’s social care, drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with NRPF families and interviews with local authority workers and advocates across multiple London boroughs. The piece shows how gatekeeping  in Lewisham has expanded across London. The consequences of such are stark, with mothers being questioned as to why they had another child, and a woman fleeing domestic abuse told that there was nothing that could be done.

Settlement, Citizenship and Integration (HoL Justice and Home Affairs Committee, June 2026)

Are the government’s earned settlement proposals fair, evidence-based, or likely to work? This 112-page report of the 2026–27 session draws on 11 evidence sessions, 20 witnesses, and over 600 written submissions to answer that question, and the majority conclusion is a clear no on all counts. The Committee opposes both the extension of the settlement route from five to ten years and its retrospective application, finding that the proposals would undermine integration, increase poverty, and damage the UK’s reputation, without a credible evidence base to justify any of them.

Immigration and the NHS: The Evidence (The Health Foundation, June 2026)

When immigration is consistently framed as a driver of NHS pressure, what does the evidence actually show, and why is the political narrative so far from the research? This 23-minute briefing from the Health Foundation synthesises studies on migrants’ use of NHS services, their contributions to NHS funding, and their role in the NHS workforce. The findings challenge dominant narratives at almost every point: migrants use the NHS less on average, likely contribute more in taxes and charges than they cost in services, and account for around one in five NHS staff in England. The briefing also presents new polling showing the public significantly overestimates migrant service use.

How UK Immigration Is Used by Billionaires as a Distraction (That Decolonial Channel, May 2026)

Who decides who belongs and who profits when governments turn hostile towards the people that keep it running? In this 34-minute conversation, That Decolonial Channel speaks with Nick Beales, Head of Campaigning at RMJ, about how the hostile environment was constructed, why Labour is extending it, and what settlement proposals mean for the hundreds of thousands of who were promised something different. The case is made that scapegoating migrants is not an accident of bad politics but a function of class interest, a distraction from the billionaire-funded agenda that has hollowed out public services.

The Roof Coalition and Social Justice Lawyering (Lawmanity Podcast, June 2026) 

Can you win without winning in court? In this 39-minute episode of the Lawmanity Podcast, host Jen Ang speaks with housing and human rights lawyer Fiona McPhail about the Roof Coalition, a voluntary coalition of law firms, third sector organisations, and grassroots activists that raised court actions to stop SERCO changing the locks on appeal rights exhausted asylum seekers without any court process. The legal challenge may have ‘failed’, but the campaign protected hundreds of people from homelessness, secured lasting changes to legal aid, and built a working model of collaboration between lawyers and frontline organisations.

Voices of Asylum Support in Scotland (UofG Law Podcast June 2026) 

What does it actually feel like to live on asylum support, and what do the rules around financial entitlements mean in practice for those navigating them? In this 47-minute episode of the University of Glasgow Law Podcast’s “Voices of Asylum Support in Scotland” series, British Red Cross Voice Ambassadors join students to examine the financial support available to people seeking asylum, including entitlements for pregnant women and parents. The conversation blends legal expertise and lived experience, with those who have claimed asylum themselves describing the reality of getting by on support amounts far below what most people assume.

Immigration Roundup Podcast: May 2026 (Free Movement, June 2026)

What happened  in May, and what does it mean for those in the system and those advocating for them? Isaac Abraham, a solicitor at the Islington Law Centre, joins regular host Jasmine for this 45-minute episode of the Free Movement monthly roundup. The conversation covers the King’s Speech and the latest immigration statistics showing falling net migration and asylum claims alongside a steadily growing appeals backlog, the surge in sponsor licence revocations and the damage this is causing to workers in health and care, and other relevant topics.

Exiled for Existing (Media co-op, June 2026) 

What does it feel like to be forced to leave everything you have ever known simply because of who you are? This 6-minute short film, made by LGBTQ+ refugees and asylum seekers in Scotland, gives voice to people who fled countries where queer identity means jail, violence, or death. In their own words, participants describe forced marriages, public beatings, family rejection, and a Home Office process that retraumatises even as it demands disclosure.

Inside the Billion-Dollar Business of Getting a Visa (Al Jazeera English, June 2026)

What happens when governments outsource the visa application process to private companies that profit regardless of the outcome? This 17-minute episode of Al Jazeera’s The Take features Lighthouse Reports’ investigation into VFS Global, the world’s largest visa-processing firm, which reveals how a system that handles billions of applications has become an enormously lucrative business built on the desperation of people seeking to move. The piece asks whose interests are served when the machinery of migration is handed to the private sector, and what accountability looks like when profit and denial go hand in hand.

The Impact of Proposed UK Settlement Reforms on Migrant Care Workers (Tulia Group, May 2026)

What happens when the government tells tens of thousands of care workers, recruited specifically to fill a crisis in the social care sector, that it is moving the goalposts on settlement, retrospectively? This 96-minute launch event by the Tulia Group presents the findings of its report, along with personal testimony from migrant care workers. Researchers, employers, and sector leaders discuss what the proposed changes to settlement rules would mean not just for the individuals who built their lives around a promise, but for the social care system that depends on their labour, the families they support, and the employers who sponsored them in good faith.

Meet the Midwife Helping Pregnant Asylum Seekers (Sky News, June 2026)

What happens when you are a pregnant asylum seeker, navigating a hostile environment while facing a statistically higher risk of severe, life-threatening complications in childbirth? This 4-minute video report from Sky News introduces Emma, an asylum midwife in Coventry who is working to bridge that gap. It follows her work showing how she provides dedicated, holistic care to pregnant refugees and asylum seekers from pregnancy through to when their baby is 10 weeks old, highlighting the vital importance of this specialist role in a system where language barriers, communication gaps between agencies, and a simple lack of information can deter women from seeking the essential maternity care they are entitled to, and deserve.