Hi John,
Imagine if you’d arrived from Barbados in 1961 when you were nine. Imagine having gone to school in the UK and worked here for decades, and that your children and grandchildren had grown up here.
Then imagine being fired from your job because you couldn’t prove your immigration status.
That is exactly what happened to Michael Braithwaite – a special needs assistant based in London. After 56 years of living in the UK, he was stripped of his livelihood for no other reason than not having the ‘right’ documents.
And sadly Michael’s case is not a stand-alone. Since 2012, tens of thousands of people have been affected by the government’s inhumane ‘hostile environment’ policies, which set out to make immigrants’ lives as difficult as possible here in the UK if they can’t document their status. Many have even been threatened with detention and deportation.
Enough is enough. Help us stop the hostile environment for migrants in the UK by signing our petition to the home secretary Sajid Javid.
|
|
The hostile environment makes borders part of everyday life
It’s not only migrants who are affected by these brutal policies. By encouraging this kind of discriminatory behaviour, people of colour and people seen as ‘foreign’ are more likely to be asked for ID documents when trying to rent a home, access public services or get a job than people seen as white and British.
The hostile environment has a huge impact on people who run and deliver services too. By requiring frontline workers such as doctors, employers, landlords, bank staff and teachers to check people’s immigration status or share data with the Home Office, these draconian policies have broken the trust between essential and sometimes lifesaving services and the communities they serve.
In many cases, people are not able to send their children to school, seek urgent medical care or report a crime for fear of being reported to immigration enforcement and potentially losing their job or being detained or deported.
This has to end. Help stop these inhumane policies by emailing home secretary Sajid Javid today.
|
|
We have the power to end the hostile environment
Thanks to public pressure from people like you, government ministers have been forced to apologise for the atrocious treatment which some of the ‘Windrush generation’ have received as a result of the hostile environment policies.
And that’s not all. Last year the Home Office announced the suspension of immigration checks on bank accounts and data sharing between NHS Digital and the Home Office. And in March the High Court ruled that the ‘’right to rent’ scheme, which requires landlords to check the immigration status of tenants to prevent illegal immigrants from renting properties, is "discriminatory" and breaches human rights laws.
But the problem has not been solved. Because the heart-wrenching stories of migrants being denied healthcare, housing and jobs are not an accident. They are a deliberate policy on the part of the government. And that policy continues under the home secretary, Sajid Javid.
Please take a moment to sign the petition and demand home secretary Sajid Javid ends the inhumane hostile environment policies for good.
|
|
The foundations of the hostile environment have started to crack. When we campaign together we can bring about real and sustainable change for the better. Thank you for your support.
Best wishes,
Jonathan Stevenson
Campaigner at Global Justice Now
P.S. Our campaign successes depend on people like you. With your help, we could ramp up our campaign and fight the government's hostile environment for immigrants. Will you support our campaign by donating today?
|
|
|
|
