Migrant Rights Are Under Attack. Help Us Fight Back.

The same Government that scrapped and vehemently opposed the Rwanda deportation policy is now replicating its harms - rushing deportations, expanding detention, and tearing families apart without due process or accountability. 

In just one week, three major policy announcements have changed the landscape for people facing detention and deportation. 

We are already receiving calls to our advice line from people impacted and know many more people will need our urgent legal support in the coming weeks.  

We’ve faced this before and we can do it again. For the past 25 years we’ve been here for people in detention. We stand up to injustice, and we win. 

When the Government tried to deport people to Rwanda, hundreds of supporters like you helped us act fast. Together, we secured bail for every single person we supported. 

Now, we need your help again. We’re raising £10,000 to ensure we can respond quickly and powerfully to the likely increase in detention caused by these new policies and the opening of new detention centres. 

Donate now

What’s happening? 

The Government is dismantling migrant rights through a deliberate and dangerous strategy to remove more people from the UK.  

The UK–France Scheme 

The UK–France scheme barters with people’s lives, swapping asylum seekers between countries through an unworkable “safe route” that will exclude most, breach the refugee convention, and cause detention and trauma. People are already being detained and we are deeply concerned about the lack of access to translators, legal advice and the retraumatisation of this vulnerable group. We’re receiving calls to our advice line from people terrified they’ll be detained under this scheme as well as people who have been detained. 

“Deport Now, Appeal Later” 

This policy forces people to challenge deportation decisions after they’ve already been deported. We challenged this before and won. In 2017, BID supported the Supreme Court case that ruled this approach unlawful. Since then it has been used in a much more limited way, but now the Government is expanding the policy to 23 countries with large diaspora communities in the UK.  

Sped-Up Deportations 

The Government has announced plans to speed up deportations for people in prison. But rushing removals denies justice. Without time to fight their cases, people who have strong legal claims to stay in the UK will be deported. Our research shows how hard it already is to find immigration legal support from inside prison. These rushed removals will result in the routine exiling of people from the UK despite having valid human rights claims to remain. 

New and Expanded Detention Centres

The UK is reopening and expanding immigration detention, including Campsfield House and Haslar. Families will be separated, vulnerable people retraumatised, and urgent legal support will be critical.

We’ve done this before and with your help, we’ll do it again. 

We’re raising £10,000 to be ready to support people affected by harmful policies and to provide urgent legal advice. 

Your donation will help us: 

• Provide urgent legal advice and representation to people in detention 
• Apply for immigration bail and challenge unlawful detention 
• Defend the right to appeal deportation from within the UK 
• Support families facing forced separation 
• Hold the Government accountable in court and in public

Donate now