On 27 February 2025, Right to Remain hosted an online Community Discussion on Immigration Raids, and the new Home Office guidance which seeks to ban refugees from citizenship. 

We decided to host this meeting in response to the recent uptick in immigration raids across the UK, and the increasingly hostile set of legal and policy changes made by the current government. It is clear that the government is making immigration enforcement a top priority – and that it intends to continue with raids and deportation attempts, as well as punishing laws and policies which attempt to sow further division. These attempts are spreading fear in communities, and people are understandably anxious about what this means.

What did the session cover?

After our Community Organiser Maggy set the scene and outlined the reasons why we arranged this meeting, our Legal Education Officer, Leah, ran through the basics of immigration raids. This section was an overview of immigration raids: what they are, what your rights are, and how to support your community.

All the information we covered is in our updated legal update on Immigration Raids. Please share this legal update widely. 

We also shared the Migrants Rights Network report on Immigration Raids, which details the functions of immigration raids in more detail.

The purpose of this meeting was not to provide definitive anti-raids training, or to offer step-by-step advice on how to stop a raid, but rather to share basic information about how raids work, and to encourage groups to link up with anti-raids groups in their local areas. Resistance to immigration raids is possible, and when people are informed and united it becomes easier to resist. 

After this, we heard from Imade from WAST (Women Asylum Seekers Together) in Manchester. Imade spoke about the impact that immigration raids have on communities. Immigration raids spread fear, and have hugely detrimental effects on the mental and physical effects on migrants in the UK. 

Then we heard from Ellen from PILC (Public Interest Law Centre) about plans to challenge the Home Office’s recent immigration raids approach, which targets specific businesses in ways that is discriminatory on grounds of race and disability. 

After that, we created space for groups to speak in breakout rooms to consider the following questions: 

• How are the people in your community/the people you work with affected by raids?
• Is there an anti-raids group in your area?
• What can you do if there is no anti-raids group in your area?
  

Citizenship Ban

In this meeting we also made time to discuss the updates to the Home Office’s ‘good character’ guidance which amounts to an effective ban on citizenship  for certain refugees. 

Yumna, our Senior Legal Education Officer, talked through the changes made to the Good Character Guidance. The changes bar certain refugees from making applications for British citizenship, based on their mode of entry. 

Jonathan from Refugee Action spoke powerfully about how these changes make refugees feel unwelcome, and create a sense of permanent limbo. This is the epitome of a two-tiered system, where access to British citizenship is only available to certain groups of people. Jonathan reminded us just how dangerous this language can be – last year’s racist riots were the culmination of divisive rhetoric and scapegoating of migrants by politicians. 

Next steps

We hope that this meeting is the start of many more localised conversations about immigration raids and how we can collectively resist. Resistance starts with people being informed about their basic rights, and understanding how immigration raids operate. 

During the previous government’s Rwanda plan and mass detention efforts, many communities across the UK came together in solidarity with migrants affected to say: ‘not on our watch’. This time is no different, we will resist again. Stay informed, stand together!