Immigration
The day before the local elections in England, the UK government announced that it had started rounding up asylum-seekers and would ‘detain’ them pending their deportation to Rwanda later this year.
The prime minister’s press secretary denied that this was a cynical move to increase Conservative votes in the elections, claiming that: ‘For our part, there really is not a day to lose when people are dying in the Channel.’
Crocodile tears and detention of asylum-seekers…
On 22 March, the house of commons voted down seven of the house of lord’s amendments to the Nationality and Borders Bill on its return to the commons.
In other words, MPs have reconfirmed that it will be a criminal offence to arrive in the UK without official entry clearance.
Under the bill, you can be imprisoned for up to four years if you enter the UK unofficially – for example, in a small boat across the Channel.
This will also apply to Ukrainians entering the UK…
As PN went to press, the trial was continuing at Chelmsford crown court of the Stansted 15, activists who face years in prison for using lock-ons to ground a charter flight for 10 hours. The 15 prevented the deportation of 60 undocumented immigrants to West Africa on 28 March 2017.
The defence argue that their action was to prevent the human rights abuses that deportation charter flights involve.
The first defendant to give evidence, Benjamin Smoke, described his…
On 4 May, six immigrants detained in a US prison ended a six-day hunger strike after authorities granted their demands at the Northern Oregon regional corrections facility in Wasco county, Oregon, USA.
The action was inspired by waves of hunger strikes since 10 April by immigrants in the North-West detention centre (NWDC) in Tacoma, Washington state.
The NWDC is the largest immigrant detention centre on the US West Coast, housing over 1,500 immigrants awaiting deportation.…
Image La Linière refugee camp near Dunkirk, France. Photo: Mid-Wales Refugee Action
">
Lotte Reimer: In December, a group of volunteers from Mid-Wales Refugee Action went to work at La Linière refugee camp near Dunkirk, France. Mainly from Machynlleth and the surrounding area, they brought much needed supplies of sleeping bags, blankets and clothes donated by people across mid-Wales. For a week, they volunteered with Kesha Niya, a…
The fulcrum of the southwest Florida town of Immokalee is a dusty parking lot called by the old residents ‘The Pantry’ after the tienda (shop) located there. This is Immokalee’s labour…
In this issue, we are offering some resources for campaigners struggling for peace and justice in post-Brexit Britain. Here is an excerpt from Linda Stout’s invaluable book, Bridging the Class Divide – and other lessons for grassroots organising. In this book, Linda explains how she, a white woman who grew up in poverty in rural North Carolina, founded and built up…
With hundreds of volunteer leaders and 65 member groups across Oregon, the Rural Organising Project is a powerful example of a statewide social justice organisation with a statewide strategy. At the centre of their work for peace, justice and democracy is an organising strategy to develop anti-racist politics, leadership, and action in rural white…
On 18 October, immigrant activists in San Francisco blocked a bus carrying foreign nationals in the custody of immigration officials, shouting: ‘Undocumented, unafraid!’, part of a growing US campaign of nonviolent resistance to the deportation of ‘undocumented’ Latinos.
During October, activists chained themselves to the tyres of buses carrying immigrants to court, blocked traffic on Capitol Hill, surrounded Tucson police when they targeted two immigrants during a traffic stop,…
The Anti-Raids Network (ARN), founded by the Latin American Workers’ Association, has been disrupting immigration raids at restaurants and shopping centres by the border agency (UKBA). They’ve reminded police that they can’t demand proof of identity without a reason, and informed people of their rights. The ARN also film arrests and take lapel numbers as another tactic for documenting illegalities.
The ARN began in February 2012 after UKBA raided the queue for a gig by Puerto Rico…
