Category: Events

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Channel Crossings

See also https://statusnow4all.org/concerns-about-the-use-of-army-barracks/

Updated 1 February 2023: Gov.uk: Leadership of small boats operations returns to the Home Office

The Small Boats Operational Command (SBOC) will bring together the government’s response to small boats with 730 additional staff.

Read more: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/leadership-of-small-boats-operations-returns-to-the-home-office

Telegraph: Stop migrant boats or face defeat, Suella Braverman tells Tories

Home Secretary tells The Telegraph the party’s reputation for competence is ‘on the line’ and crossings must be tackled to win election

Read more: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/01/30/suella-braverman-tories-wont-forgiven-fail-stop-channel-migrant/

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Concerns about the use of army barracks, hotels, housing

This post is being updated with reports of examples of atrocities around the army camp accommodation and hotels, and other Home Office housing

For information about Detention Centres – IRCs – Hassockfield/Derwentside please see here: https://statusnow4all.org/detention-centres-ircs/

For information about off-shoring/exporting people seeking asylum/Rwanda please see here: https://statusnow4all.org/exporting-people-seeking-asylum-rwanda/:

Update 16 December 2022: from our signatory organisation RAPAR:

PRESS RELEASE from @raparuk 16th Dec. 2022: Whistleblower speaks out about safeguarding, racism and scabies at Serco’s asylum “hotel” in Warrington

https://buff.ly/3hygtgQ

and:

Please help raise money for Shay Babagar and @RAPARUK to build on Shay’s 35-day hunger strike to challenge Serco’s treatment of ‘hotel’ residents seeking asylum.
Justgiving: https://buff.ly/3BDx5dO

Campaign flyer: https://buff.ly/3j4CG6D
About campaign: https://buff.ly/3VYnZ3B

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StatusNow4All Newsletter December 2022

DECEMBER 2022 NEWSLETTER

Welcome to this edition of SNN newsletter where we are covering a number of items that will be of interest to everyone involved in migrant and refugee solidarity work.

The first article analyses the change of tone in the public debate about immigration and invites to work together to make 2023 a year marked by the progression toward a progressive, rights-based immigration policy.
The second reports a conference on housing justice and highlights the challenges faced by migrant women.
Finally we update on the Status Now Network’s strategy weekend, now definitely planned on 27th -29th January 2023.

We wish you a restful winter holiday and a happy new year.
Continue reading “StatusNow4All Newsletter December 2022”
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I Was Not Born A Sad Poet by Loraine Masiya Mponela

THURSDAY, 24 NOVEMBER 2022: Migrant Voice Ambassador and activist Loraine Masiya Mponela launches her first book

Migrants’ rights campaigner, activist and Migrant Voice Ambassador Loraine Masiya Mponela will launch her first poetry book this Saturday in Coventry, at the Herbert Arts Gallery and Museum.

The collection, titled I Was Not Born A Sad Poet, features 21 poems about Loraine’s life and experience of going through the British asylum and immigration system.

Loraine recently spoke with Migrant Voice about her book and her fight to have her refugee status recognised. She said: “This book has been documenting my own experiences as an asylum seeker. But a lot of these are collective experiences too.”

She finally received her status in August this year, but she told Migrant Voice she will continue to advocate for a better system for all asylum seekers, “until the last person is free.”

Migrant Voice - Migrant Voice Ambassador and activist Loraine Masiya Mponela launches her first book
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European campaigns for regularisation confer and protest in Brussels

March to Brussels 2022: Over two hundred people representing migrant and refugee rights organisations met in Brussels over the weekend September 30 – 2nd October to reinvigorate their collaboration across European networks.

The years of the Covid pandemic have had their impact on human rights activism in this area, which depends on people meeting face-to-face and finding ways to get beyond the national differences that distort transnational solidarity.  But as the gathering got underway it was clear that participants were able to report on an upturn in their work, from across Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Greece as well as the UK, who all at strong representation in the discussion.

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StatusNow4All newsletter July 2022

Welcome to this edition of SNN Newsletter!
We are covering a number of items in this issue that will be of interest to everyone involved in migrant and refugee solidarity work.

First up is the report on our campaign for better asylum seeker accommodation. Our SNN colleagues in the North West are particularly active in this area and after a first online event during Refugee Week are now planning new initiatives to fight for better provision of safe and decent homes for people in the asylum system.

The second article is dedicated to the campaign “Our place is here” developed by Kanlungan together with other organizations in defense of the rights of domestic workers.

The third item reports on the SNN event organised during Refugee Week which assembled a roundtable of activists to discuss where we have got to with the campaign against the hostile environment and the steps that need to be taken for this to go forward.  The key idea is the project underway to organise a People’s Tribunal on Migration Justice over the course of the next 12 months which will draw on the evidence of violation of the rights of migrant people to indict Government policies and help forge the sort of alliances we will need to bring about change.

The appalling news about the deaths of at least 37 people at the border between the Spanish enclave of Melilla and Morocco is the subject of our fourth feature. In response to this massacre at the hands of the Spanish civil guard and the Moroccan police authorities the Transnational Migrant Platform has launched an appeal for solidarity and action to force an inquiry into how the tragedy happened. 

Finally, our fifth article focuses on the important role assumed by the Union, particularly by the Public Services and Commercial Union (PCS), in the fight against the Rwanda offshore plan and stresses the need to fight all together for the rights of migrant and native workers in the UK.

In addition to these items we also have information on the call for a public demonstration outside the Royal Courts of Justice on 19 July to coincide with the opening of the judicial review hearing on the legality of the Home Office’s Rwanda refugee removal plan.  Do join us at this protest if you can. 
Continue reading “StatusNow4All newsletter July 2022”
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In solidarity with the family of those who have died at the borders of Melilla on 24 June 2022

1 July 2022 :Transnational Migrant Platform – Europe: Massacre of Migrant and Refugee people at Europe-Africa border (Communique working group of the 45th session Permanent Peoples Tribunal)

In solidarity with the family of those who have died at the borders of Melilla on June 24 2022 and with those who organized the actions on July 1 in Rabat and in Melilla

This massacre in Melilla of 29 persons on Friday June 24th is the latest most visible instance of the unacceptability of Europe’s border externalization and militarization policy and its outsourcing of its responsibility in immigration and refugee policy to its neighbouring countries. 

A Relentless spiral of deaths

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Refugee Week – Events in June 2022

You’ll find below information about some of the events in June 2022

Refugee Week: https://refugeeweek.org.uk/

25 May 2022: Migrants Organise ONLINE RALLY: End The Hostile Environment! #10YearsTooLong #SolidarityKnowsNoBorders :

Details of the coming campaign in June will be released at an online rally on 25 May 6pm , featuring a powerful lineup of speakers on the frontlines of the fight for migrant justice. Make sure to register here to receive further information about the week of action! (see below)

Here is a video of the rally:

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Status Now Refugee Week event

Event on 20 June 2022: Status Now Refugee Week event: How do we campaign against the hostile environment?

Updated 14 July 2022: Report of Status Now Refugee Week event: The Hostile Environment – How do we hold the Government to account? Report of a roundtable discussion

Status Now Network organised a roundtable discussion event during the course of Refugee Week at the end of June.  The theme of the discussion was holding the Government to account for its hostile environment policies.

Contributors to the discussion included Zoe Bantleman of the Immigration Law Practitioners Association, Julius-Cezar MacQuarie, organiser of the Night Workers Charter, Francesca Humi of Kanlungan, and Loraine Mponela, chair of Status Now.
Participants considered how the Government’s hostile environment policies continued to operate today, five years after the revelations of the Windrush generation scandal, and what campaigning work needed to be undertaken to continue to challenge their corrosive effects on the rights of migrant and refugee people.


The report of the discussion can be read here…

Report of Status Now Refugee Week event: The Hostile Environment – How do we hold the Government to account? Report of a roundtable discussion

Status Now Network (SNN) took up the invitation to organise an event during the course of this year’s Refugee Week and set up a roundtable discussion on the current state of the resistance to hostile environment immigration policies.

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Status Now newsletter: June 2022

10 years of hostile environment: It’s time to change!

Last month marked the tenth anniversary since the then home secretary, Theresa May, declared the aim of building a hostile environment for migrants in the UK.

The policies which followed have produced scandal after scandal, with the infamous undermining of the rights of people from the Windrush generation of Caribbean migrants being only the most well-known.  There is scarcely any group of people who came from abroad – whether they be refugees, migrant workers, students, or the family members of people settled here who haven’t felt the harsh consequences of this set of policies.

The government made the mistake of thinking that the hostile environment would be popular with the majority of people in the UK, but that hasn’t been the case.  Right from the early days of its ‘Go Home vans’ campaign, through to the refusal to provide sanctuary to asylum seekers corralled on the wrong side of the English Channel, the shocked response to what was inflicted on Windrush generation people, and taking in solidarity shown to migrant workers in the key posts that kept the country running during the worst period of the Covid pandemic, more and more people have been showing a willingness to take the side of people who are trying to settle into normal lives in the UK.

The Status Now Network grew out of this popular reaction to the hostile environment.  We are working today to win greater recognition of the injustices being inflicted on people settling in the UK, and for the solidarity that will be needed to defeat the threat that the hostile environment poses to their lives.  Our demands remain:
End the hostile environment!
Status Now, for all!
 
The Hostile Environment: How do we hold the Government to account?
 
The Home Office’s immigration policies have taken a battering over the course of the last few years. The public response to Go Home van campaigns and the Windrush generation scandal has shown increased awareness of the injustice being inflicted on migrant and refugee people.

Despite the mounting tide of criticism, Priti Patel and her colleagues have stuck firmly to the line of the hostile environment and are continuing to plot a new offensive against migrants and refugees that will come straight from the ‘culture wars’ playbook.
How should the grassroots migrant and refugee rights movement square up to this challenge? What sort of projects do we need to embark on that will unite the different sites of resistance to immigration policies and consolidate a united front opposition to entrenched racism in this area of policy?

The Status Now Network is working to open up a discussion about the role that a People’s Tribunal might play in indicting government policy and relating all its aspects back to a full frontal assault of all working people in the country today.

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JCWI report launch: “We also want to be safe”

Event: Tuesday 18 January 2022: JCWI: Report launch: “We also want to be safe”: undocumented migrants facing COVID in a Hostile Environment

New research from the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants shines a spotlight on the devastating impact of Hostile Environment policies on undocumented migrants during the pandemic. Join us on Tuesday 18 January 2022 for the launch of the new report.

Chaired by Clive Lewis MP
With guests:

  • Caitlin Boswell, report author
  • Francesca Humi, Kanlungan Filipino Consortium, contributor to the report
  • Blessing, contributor to the report

“We also want to be safe”: undocumented migrants facing COVID in a Hostile Environment

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STATUS NOW 4 ALL – MIDLANDS: Join us online as we commemorate this year’s International Migrants Day 2021 #IMD2021

StatusNow4All Midlands

STATUS NOW 4 ALL – MIDLANDS: Join us online as we commemorate this year’s International Migrants Day 2021 #IMD2021 This is an online event.

Date: 18th December 2021: Time 1-2PM.

This event is organised by Status Now 4 All signatories based in the Midlands as part of the International Migrants Day 2021. Among other speakers, we will hear from a number of organisations signatories about why they support the Status Now 4 All campaign, how you or your organisation too can be part, and why this campaign is important for all of us. There will also be creative performances.

Here is the recording of the event:

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Zoom event: CARAG 15 December

On Wed, 15 December 2021, 13:00 – 14:30 GMT: Come join CARAG community as we mark this years International Migrants Day. Together We Can Make Change.

About this event: As CARAG community we want to celebrate ourselves through creativity, community and togetherness. Come along and celebrate with us. This zoom session will be full of songs, dances, poetry and spoken word among others.

Eventbrite link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/carag-international-migrants-day-celebrations-tickets-224774966977