Last week on 22 January 2026, Right to Remain hosted our Radical Solidarity Hub – Safety is not conditional: organising in response to the Earned Settlement proposals. The session was co-delivered with These Walls Must Fall, a network of lived-experience campaigners, who are organising for power. During the session, one of the campaigners, Ven, delivered this powerful statement on behalf of everyone in These Walls Must Fall. Right to Remain believes that our struggle for migraiton justice must centre those with the lived experience of the Hostile Environment. We stand in solidarity and fight with them, always.

My name is Ven, I am a campaigner with These Walls Must Fall. Today I am speaking not only for myself, but for so many people who are living inside this system quietly, people you may never meet because the system has trained us to stay invisible to survive.

I have been in the immigration system for nearly 20 years. Twenty years of waiting. Twenty years of uncertainty. Twenty years of trying to do the right thing, trying to stay strong, trying to keep going when my body and mind were exhausted. People hear “20 years” and they think it must be impossible, but that is the reality for many of us. It is not a short chapter. It becomes your whole life.

I have struggled with my health for a long time, and when you are unwell in this system, it’s not just illness you are fighting, you are also fighting fear. Fear of a letter. Fear of a phone call. Fear of one decision that could destroy everything you have tried to build. Fear that if you speak up, you will be punished. Fear that if you stay quiet, you still be punished.

I have had dreams like everyone else. I have tried to study, to improve myself, to contribute positively to society and communities. I have qualifications-degrees, but I want to be honest in this system, so much of that has felt wasted. Not because I don’t have talent, not because I’m not willing, but because the system blocks you at every stage. You train. You qualify. You grow. And you are still treated as if you are nothing. As if you are a burden. As if you are a problem to be managed, instead of a human being to be respected.

And even now, after everything, I am still required to report every month. Month after month. Like a punishment that never ends. Reporting is not a simple appointment; it is a place where people disappear. It is where people are detained. It is where you walk in and you don’t know if you will come back out. You can’t explain that fear to someone who has never lived it. It stays in the way you live your life.

I was told there was a route, a protection route, a path to settlement. I believed in it. I tried to follow it. But it failed me. And now we are being told that the new proposals will be even worse. Longer routes. Harder conditions. More punishment. More control. More reasons to say no.

What I want you to understand is this, when policies are designed like this, they don’t just delay settlement, they delay recovery. They delay stability. They delay family life. They delay healing. The delay dignity. And for people living with health problems, trauma, or poverty, delay is not neutral. Delay destroys.

These proposals talk about “earned settlement” and “good character “like they are simple ideas. But I want to ask. How do you “earn” stability when the system keeps you unstable on purpose? How do you prove “good character” when you are punished for surviving? When you are forced into hardship, forced into dependence and then judged for it?

This is not just about paperwork. This is about lives. This is about people who have followed the rules, stayed compliant, reported when told, waited when told, suffered silently when told, and still we are treated like we don’t belong.

Today, I’m speaking for the people who are too scared to speak. For the people who are exhausted. For the people whose mental health is breaking. For the mothers who are caring for children while carrying fear every day. For survivors of violence who stay in dangerous situations because they are afraid of the Home Office. For the people who work and still cannot rest, because they don’t know what tomorrow will bring.

We have been holding this pain in our communities for years. We have been organising by ourselves, protesting, campaigning, teaching each other our rights, supporting each other at reporting centres, showing up when people are detained, picking up the pieces when people are released with trauma. We have done this work while being labelled as unwanted.

But I want to say this clearly, we are not asking for special treatment. We are asking for basic humanity. We are asking for safety. We are asking for fairness that does not punish poverty, illness, trauma, or caring responsibilities. We are asking for a system that does not keep people in limbo for decades.

And to the wider public, to allies, to professionals, to decision makers, if you are listening, I need you to understand silence is not neutral. If you have safety that we do not have, use it. Speak when we cannot. Stand beside us when the risk is too high for us. Do not wait until this becomes normal, because for us, it has been normal for a long time.

I have survived nearly 20 years in this system. But surviving should not be the only goal. We deserve to live. We deserve to heal. We deserve to belong.