This press release from the Medical Justice campaign describes a high-court victory in which it was found that removal of asylum seekers with less than 72 hours notice (so-called "dawn raids") are illegal, and must stop.

Although many people will feel that any forced removal of asylum seekers is wrong, the issue becomes partcularly acute when people are snatched from their homes with no warning. These people are sometimes part-way through a legal appeal process, and being snatched with no warning means that they're denied due legal process. Many of these people also have serious medical problems which cannot be treated in the places to which they are removed, which effectively means a death-sentence. Yesterday, the UK legal system finally caught up with its own tail when it acknowledged that this practice denies asylum seekers the fundamental human rights to which they are entitled under UK and European law.

This is a significant victory for anti-deportation campaigners in Leeds, Newcastle and Manchester, and for many vulnerable people who should now be able to sleep a bit better than before.