These Walls Must Fall Campaigners against the Hostile Environment in Sheffield 'Voice for Voiceless Immigration Detainees Yorkshire' are calling for an end to mandatory reporting at Vulcan House and for others to join their campaign, and call for an end to the Hostile Environment and to halt Priti Patel's 'New Plan for Immigration': https://www.migrantsorganise.org/?p=30142 .
Sheffield says: We are here, we are not going to stand for the ongoing harrassment and detention of our friends and neighbours! We stand in solidarity to fight this racist practice in our city!
WHAT IS HAPPENING ON THE DAY?
8:30-9:30am - Picket outside the Building with banners. To join the picket, it would be good to know you're coming, please email Otto on otto.wolf.95@gmail.com
12:45pm-1:15pm - Noisy Demo! Bring pots and pans, vuvuzelas, anything that makes a loud noise. It would be good to know you're coming, please email Otto on otto.wolf.95@gmail.com
4pm - Letter Hand In. We will be handing in a letter to Vulcan House management showing the harm they cause to us and our community. Join us to hand in the letter!
4pm-6:30pm - Rally with speeches, music and snacks. Speakers with experience of the hostile environment and allies will be speaking outside Vulcan House. We will share some food and drink and come together. Please join us!
WHAT IS MANDATORY REPORTING?
Vulcan House in Sheffield, like many Home Office reporting centres, is a site of state monitoring, intimidation and trauma for migrants in Sheffield, that serves only to fuel the hostile environment. Our friends and neighbours have to come into the office to 'report' on a weekly, fortnightly, or less frequent basis. At any point they could be detained in a detention centre, and racism, intimidation and bullying from staff is rife.
Shifts in practice to phone/text contact during the pandemic showed that mandatory, in-person, reporting is an unnecessary and overreaching form of control on the lives of Sheffield people who already face marginalisation and illegalisation. Migrants who switched to text or phone reporting under the first lockdown reported massively reduced stress, and now demand that in-person reporting and other types of surveillance are stopped, for good.
We also demand an end to the use of immigration raids vans in our city. Our friends and neighbours are regularly locked in vans and attempts are made to deport them - but statistics show this doesn't even serve the function the Home Office claims it should. It is simply a form of intimidation and we say - NO MORE. LEAVE OUR NEIGHBOURS ALONE.
We call on the management at Vulcan House to end mandatory reporting for migrants. We call on them to stop using racist raids vans. We demand an end to the hostile environment and a halt to the New Plan.
We are planning a whole day of action to make our demands heard and show the staff we mean business. Join us, join the struggle!
In the coming fortnight we will add more information here about the New Plan for Immigration which will effectively end the right to seek refuge in the UK, and why Sheffield should strongly oppose it, and more about reporting.
This event is organised by supporters of the These Walls Must Fall campaign:
South Yorkshire Migration and Asylum Action Group (SYMAAG)
ASSIST
Voice for Voiceless Immigration Detainees Yorkshire (VVIDY)
These Walls Must Fall (TWMF)
Sheffield Against Asylum Evictions (SAAE)
Sheffield Trades Council
One Rainbow Bridge Network
Anti Raids Sheffield
Sheffield Against the Policing Bill
Amnesty Sheffield
Hope and Dignity Hearth (Ubuntu Emotional Healing Initiative)
Mount Pleasant Park FC (MPPFC)
Sheffield for a Green New Deal
Sheffield Transformed
Extinction Rebellion Sheffield
Sheffield Labour Left
We invite other groups to also co-host the event with us, join our movement and show a strong local opposition to the intimidation of migrants in our city.