Solidarity with people who are reporting at Solihull Reporting Centre, in the West Midlands! Join BIRCH Network in Birmingham on 25 June online to discuss how to support people who are signing/reporting and at risk of detention.

Our friend, BIRCH Network in Birmingham, is hosting an online meeting to discuss how people might be able to offer support to those who have to report at the Home Office Immigration Reporting Centre in Solihull. Detentions, deportations and removals are rising, and they want to offer support to those facing these issues and work collectively to resist, organise and mitigate some of the impacts of these hostile policies.

The online meeting is on 25 June, from 6pm to 8pm. You can find more information and also book your place here. Speakers include Gee Manoharan from AVID who will share his insight about reporting and detention and Helen Groom from the No To Hassockfield Campaign who has experience of solidarity action with people who report in Middlesbrough.

During the Rwanda crisis last year, the government suddenly began rounding up people seeking asylum and threatened their removal to Rwanda, causing wide-spread terror in our communities and upending peoples’ lives. Many people were detained and remained in detention, even after the then Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, announced that the the cruel Rwanda plan was paused.

The Rwanda crisis revealed two things. Firstly, that there was a huge gap in our communities’ knowledge about reporting and detention. And secondly, that there were lots of people who are prepared to stand in solidarity with people targeted by the government’s Hostile Environment.

Reporting is when people seeking asylum or going through the immigration system to secure their right to remain are asked by the Home Office to ‘report’ at one of the reporting centres in the UK. This is a terrifying experience for many, because there is a possibility that you can be detained when you report. Our These Walls Must Fall campaigners know this all too well. Many of them report regularly themselves and have been involved in providing support to those who report in Manchester and in Liverpool. There are 13 Immigration Reporting Centres across the UK.

Since the Rwanda crisis, together with These Walls Must Fall, Right to Remain has been sharing our knowledge and experience of reporting, detention and supporting people who report and at risk of detention. This became particularly urgent since the Labour Government made it clear their intention to increase raids, detention and deportations in August last year (which was repeated many times since in their press releases and communications), while reducing the asylum backlog: many caught in that backlog have had difficulties accessing adequate legal advice and representation.

In addition to webinars and events we hosted specifically during the Rwanda crisis, we have also organised Solidarity Sessions on the topic of reporting, detention and deportation in Birmingham (where BIRCH Network shared their insight gained from supporting people who report), Nottingham, Sheffield and Newcastle. Our aim is to equip our communities with critical knowledge to prepare themselves for these enforcement activities, to highlight radical solidarity actions that are quietly but powerfully taking place across the UK and to bring more people into this expanding circle of solidarity with people who face immigration enforcement activities.

We strongly encourage people who are interested in supporting those who report at Solihull Reporting Centre to join the BIRCH Network meeting on 25 June. Please share the information widely.

Also, don’t forget our Toolkit pages on immigration detention and reporting, include information about how to prepare in case of detention.

Right to Remain Team