Join us at Right to Remain, These Walls Must Fall campaigners, John McDonnell MP and others (more speakers to be confirmed!) for an online rally against the expansion of immigration detention on Wednesday 18 November, 6pm-7:30pm. 

This is a critical moment 

The government plans to expand Campsfield and Haslar to around 1,000 detention spaces, exposing more people, families and communities to the harm of immigration detention. We’ve written more about how we’re challenging these plans through the public inquiries here.

But this isn’t just about more detention spaces. The government is building permanent infrastructure to support an expansion of immigration enforcement, creating the capacity to detain more people following raids and laying the groundwork for more forced removals.

We don’t know what will happen at the next general election, or who will form the next government. But we do know that what is being built now will still be there for whoever comes next. 

You will likely be very aware by now that our tiny team at Right to Remain is doing everything we possibly can to stop the expansion of Campsfield and Haslar. Despite our very limited capacity, we’re throwing everything we have at this because we believe the stakes are simply too high not to. 

We’ve even launched a national petition, despite our longstanding scepticism about petitions as a tool for change!

But we know that we cannot do this alone. 

We need you to join us

We’re bringing people together for an online rally, to hear from people with lived experience of detention, campaigners and those challenging these plans, and to build momentum around our collective opposition. 

We’ll share what we’ve been doing to challenge detention expansion through the public inquiries, while These Walls Must Fall will speak about their experiences of detention, its impact on people and communities, and their recent work with the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Immigration Detention.

We’re also grateful to be joined by John McDonnell MP, whose constituency includes Harmondsworth and Colnbrook detention centres and who has a long history of standing alongside people detained there. We will be confirming more speakers soon!

This is also a space for us to come together, draw hope from one another and commit to practical actions in our own communities to build solidarity and strengthen collective opposition to detention expansion.

We say this often: solidarity is a verb. 

In the meantime, please sign and share our petition to help spread the word.

And if you’re part of a group or organisation, could you join JCWI, Asylum Matters and 45 other groups and organisations to endorse our statement opposing the expansion of Campsfield? Read more about who has endorsed us so far and why in our blog here.

Every signature and endorsement helps demonstrate the strength of our collective opposition to detention expansion.