We started the year with then Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, announcing a new bill – less than twelve months later, it’s made its way through parliament to become the Border Security, Asylum, Immigration Act. In a year punctuated by extreme news, from the constant stream of cruel policy proposals to co-ordinated far-right violence, this received very little media coverage – but that doesn’t make it meaningless … on the contrary, it provides a legal backbone to the policies that are being proposed.

In the face of adversity and injustice, people are increasingly speaking out and standing in solidarity with marginalised and racialised communities, and it’s been heartwarming and inspiring to see support for people seeking safety growing and becoming more visible across the country. 

Of course, no December newsletter would be complete without the obligatory ‘difficult conversations’ guide. Let us know if you find it useful. We value your feedback. 

Ways you can help us build solidarity:

🧡 Join us and share this newsletter with friends and family. Help us build a movement for change!
🪧 Get a poster to display in your window.
📲 Come and say ‘hi’ on Bluesky, Instagram and Facebook.
👋 Get in touch: [email protected] – it’s always a pleasure to hear from you.

Wishing you all a wonderful, restful and restorative winter break – and festive season if you celebrate. 

In solidarity,
Anne

Campaigning for change

Clockwise: Together with Refugees action outside the Home Office and Citizens UK colleagues sharing evidence in Parliament.

Over the last year, we have worked with two national coalitions: Together With Refugees and Citizens UK, and in December, we were directly involved in the following initiatives. 

We signed onto a Together with Refugees letter, and a few days later, on 5th December, we joined coalition members for an action outside the Home Office to reject recent policy proposals affecting people seeking sanctuary. 

WFMA Chair, Peter Ashan, addressed campaigners, raising some important points: 

“Waltham Forest Migrant Action has first hand experience of people on the sharp end of the asylum system. People coming to our weekly drop-in, many facing multiple challenges and feeling anxious about their immigration status, their inability to afford costly visa applications, the general lack of security and opportunity, and increasingly public animosity.

Over the years, we’ve seen how anti-migrant rhetoric has been whipped up in politics and the media. More recently, we’ve witnessed disturbing attacks targeting hotels, including in nearby Epping, housing people seeking asylum and now, a surge in co-ordinated far-right violence, rooted in racism and Islamophobia, risks dividing our communities. 

The Home Secretary’s recent proposals make a mockery of human rights and basic human decency. They risk pushing people, who have fled wars, persecution, torture or climate catastrophe, into appalling situations where they face destitution, detention, or deportation. 

We want a world of compassion not cruelty.”

He also reminded everyone to mark their diaries for 28th March 2026, for the national march against the far right. 

We also worked with colleagues at Citizens UK Waltham Forest to call on our local MPs – Stella Creasy MP (Walthamstow), Calvin Bailey MP ( Leyton and Wanstead), and Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP (Chingford and Woodford Green), to join a Parliamentary event with Alex Norris MP, Minister for Border Security and Asylum, chaired by Anneliese Dodds MP. 

Colleagues from St Barnabas Church represented Waltham Forest at the meeting and we were pleased to have support from Stella Creasy MP. We look forward to continuing engaging with her and others on these pressing issues. 

London Migration Film festival

One of our new trustee, Safiyyah, recently represented WFMA at the debut of the London Migration Film Festival 2025. Behind our little information stall, she had the chance to connect with many people, sharing information about our work and hearing their own stories and questions about the reality of migration. 

She attended the screening of ‘Ghost trail’ – a powerful and harrowing viewing filled with stories of displacement, loss and resilience. It captured the raw pain of a Syrian refugee trying to deal with the aftermath of unspeakable torture and forced migration.

The evening reinforced tenfold both the importance of providing safe spaces for these stories to be heard, and for the storytellers to be able to exist with dignity and belonging. Behind every policy debate and media headline, there is a person still simply trying to belong, still searching for safety and still trying to rebuild.

Migration is not just a number or statistic, it is someone’s mother, child, brother or friend. We owe it to them to listen, to continue strong in the work we do here at WFMA and to create communities where their futures are not treated as negotiable. Stories like these are not only a reminder of what people have survived, but of what we must all fight to change. 

Order your poster today!

Like us, many of you have expressed dismay at the aggressive political tactics that are targeting people seeking safety. More than ever, our community must show solidarity with migrants. One of the ways you can do this is by displaying a poster at your window.

You can order posters or request the pdf for home printing by emailing [email protected], stating your preference. Please expect a seasonal delay.  

Posters are free, but donations gratefully received. 

---

In the News 

New legislation 

Right to Remain provided an excellent summary of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025, that made it on the statute book on 02 December 2025. The latest in a long series of immigration laws: Nationality and Borders Act 2022, Illegal Migration Act 2023 and Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024. 

Essentially, it builds on previous Acts and reinforces them. One of the changes is that the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024 has been repealed, along with the many provisions of the Illegal Migration Act that were brought in to facilitate removals to Rwanda, such as mandatory inadmissibility and the duty to remove – e.g. people arriving to the UK ‘without permission’. BUT, as we have seen in recent months, under the new ‘one in – one out’ treaty with France, people arriving by Channel crossing are being ‘removed’ and sent to France. 

And in case you wondered, the main reasons the Safety of Rwanda Act was so swiftly repealed are that it was impossible to implement and exorbitantly expensive. Looking for evidence, led me to this very interesting, in depth piece: Q&A from The Migration Observatory that delves into the policy itself as well as the implications that might have been. 

The new Act also creates new criminal offences and powers, mainly around so-called ‘organised immigration crime’ and also gives stronger powers over phones and data. So, overall there is more control, and more personal information can be copied, stored and shared between different government bodies. In addition, the law contributes to a general shift towards more immigration enforcement and criminalisation of migration – i.e. more raids, more detentions, and more deportations.

Migrants Rights Network raise an important point from the outset about the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act. ‘For the first time, the counter-terror framework is being used as the primary approach to migration policy. What this means is that excessive powers are able to be brought in with regard to surveillance, pre-crime policing and sentencing’. And, of course, border surveillance is big business for companies such as US-based defence Anduril Industries.’

For more detailed information and updates about the legal context and implications, please also refer to Right to Remain, Free Movement and Migrants Rights Network.

Goodbye Human Rights

In the current context, it’s no surprise that PM Keir Starmer, and Justice Secretary David Lammy, are pushing to water down the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Aligning themselves with some of the most extreme Europeans representatives including Italy, Hungary and Denmark, they called to “tighten the treaty’s interpretations. The people most affected would be those who currently rely on Article 3, covering torture or inhuman treatment, or Article 8, which protects family life, to argue against removal.”

It’s not difficult to see how it all ties up. Let’s make no mistake, curbing human rights is a race to the bottom that will harm us all – as will moves to increase surveillance. Facial recognition is now a frequent occurrence – including on our own High Street.

---