In September 2024, the UK Home Office published a contract – it’s offering to pay NGOs in the UK and abroad millions of pounds to help it take people away from their communities and remove them from the UK.
This contract is dangerous, and deeply unethical. Along with 33 other organisations in the UK and overseas, we wrote to the Home Secretary, rejecting this attempt to make NGOs complicit in the Government’s anti-migrant agenda.
Read the letter and full list of signatories below:
Dear Home Secretary,
As you will be aware, the Home Office is currently seeking to contract civil society organisations to support the department’s removal and deportation agenda. We, the undersigned civil society organisations, stand united against this attempt to make us complicit in the department’s harmful and divisive anti-migrant agenda.
We work day in, day out with people navigating an extremely complex immigration system that too often denies people the chance of a fair hearing. Millions of people are shut out of access to justice because of the crisis in immigration legal aid, and millions more are subject to the ongoing culture of disbelief at the Home Office.
Under this contract, NGOs would be funded to provide ‘reintegration support’ in 11 countries. These include places whose nationals have a high asylum grant rate in the UK’s asylum process, (for example, 79% of applications from Ethiopian nationals were granted at initial decision in 2023). The list also includes countries whose nationals have a high rate of having their asylum claims treated as withdrawn. For example, 54% of Albanian people seeking sanctuary in the UK had their asylum claims treated as withdrawn in 2023, meaning they have not had their claims decided under the UK asylum system – despite this, they are at risk of removal. We are therefore concerned that the removals and deportations envisaged under this contract risk returning people to countries where they face grave danger, especially given the systemic issues with the UK’s asylum and immigration decision-making processes which mean so many people are denied their rights.
Pursuing an agenda of removals and deportations will tear communities apart, in the face of overwhelming evidence that a new approach is needed. Many people at risk of removal have lived in the UK for years or even decades, and have put down roots here. Evidence shows that our complex and punitive immigration system causes people to slip through the net on long pathways to settlement because of extortionate visa fees, complicated application forms or simply a personal crisis.
This attempt to co-opt civil society organisations is particularly concerning given the financial challenges our sector faces. Organisations supporting migrants – many of which were the latest target of far-right violence just last month – are struggling for funding. This is particularly acute for organisations that rely on legal aid funding, given that legal aid rates have not increased since 1996. Offering to pay struggling organisations to further the Government’s political agenda and potentially put the communities we support at risk is, we believe, deeply unethical.
We – civil society organisations that support and stand in solidarity with migrants – reject this attempt to make us complicit. We know that policies of deterrence do not work – rather, they have been shown time and time again to be divisive and dangerous.
Our communities, and the people we work with, need real change. This starts with the UK establishing functioning routes to safety for people seeking sanctuary; a fair and effective asylum process; an end to removals and deportations which tear our communities apart; affordable visa fees and a fundamental shift in the Home Office’s culture of disbelief, to benefit all our communities.
Yours faithfully,
Yasmin Halima, Executive Director, JCWI
Aderonke Apata, Founder and CEO, African Rainbow Family
Maya Esslemont, Director, After Exploitation
Anna Rudd, Director, Assist Sheffield
Zita Holbourne, National Chair & Co-Founder, BARAC UK
Thomas Martin, Director, City of Sanctuary Sheffield
Sian Summers-Rees, Chief Officer, City of Sanctuary UK
Mesud G, RETA Executive Director, Consortium of Ethiopian Human Rights Organizations (CEHRO)
Traci Kirkland, Head of Charity, Govan Community Project
Denise McDowell, Chief Executive, Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit (GMIAU)
Joanna Pienkowska, Policy and Campaigns Coordinator, Haringey Migrant Support Centre
Lucy Nabijou, Coordinator, Haringey Welcome
Maddie Harris, Director, Humans for Rights Network
Jonathan Griffin, Chief Executive, ILPA
Gisela Valle, Director, Latin American Women’s Rights Service (LAWRS)
Alan Robertson, CEO, Lewisham Refugee and Migrant Network (LRMN)
Aderonke Apata, Founder and Chairperson, Manchester Migrant Solidarity
Lara Parizotto, Executive Director, Migrant Democracy Project
Nazek Ramadan, Executive Director, Migrant Voice
Karen Pearse, Director, Positive Action for Refugees and Asylum Seekers (PAFRAS)
Minnie Rahman, Chief Executive, Praxis
Abi Brunswick, Director, Project 17
Nick Beales, Head of Campaigning, RAMFEL
Tim Naor Hilton, Chief Executive, Refugee Action
Mia Hasenson-Gross, Executive Director, Rene Cassin
Eiri Ohtani, Director, Right to Remain
Dr Wanda Wyporska, Chief Executive, Safe Passage International
Hannana Siddiqui, Head of Policy, Campaigns and Research, Southall Black Sisters
Mariko Hayashi, Executive Director, Southeast and East Asian Centre (SEEAC)
Susan Cueva, Trustee, Southeast and East Asian Women’s Association (SSEAWA)
Mariam Yusuf, Chair, Status Now 4 All
William Gomes, Director, The William Gomes Podcast
Nick Watts, Director, Together with Migrant Children
Leyla Williams, Deputy Director, West London Welcome