Spring is here and with the first rays of sunshine usually comes a sense of hope and renewal … but in a year that has already brought more misery than the last, it can be difficult to shake off feelings of anxiety and helplessness.

Last month, we responded to the government ‘earned’ settlement consultation and added our name to the JCWI powerful letter rejecting the racist and classist proposals. We know some of you did too. We’d kept our expectations low – thankfully. On Monday, we got a taste of the Home Secretary’s intentions. Yesterday, as we listened to her speech, our worst fears came true. 

From ICE violence in the US to war in West Asia, the news section is awash horrifying tales. If nothing else, it serves as a constant reminder that we must continue to focus on building solidarity in our community and, when we can, take action. Last week, constituents in Gorton and Denton showed us that change is possible. 

We often hear: ‘I really want to do something’. Well, I have some good news. There are so many ways in which you can show up, support migrant justice and turn solidarity into a verb. 

🔸 WFMA joined the Together Alliance and we will be marching in Central London on 28th March against the far-right. Join us! If you need convincing, read the Hope Not Hate report in the Resources section. We will be sharing more information soon about plans for the day. 

🔸 Build solidarity: check the events list below and share it with your family, colleagues and friends.

🔸Make a donation to WFMA – every single penny goes to our support centre and helps migrants directly. 

🔸 Put a poster in your window, take a picture, post it on social media and tag us! 

Never hesitate to get in touch: [email protected].

In solidarity,
Anne

Looking for an opportunity to make change happen in our community – and beyond? Grab your diary, join us and make your voice heard:

🔸 07 March: Waltham Forest Anti-Raids Network stall, outside Wood Street Library on Troubridge Square, E17 3HB.

🔸 11 March: Settlement is a Right – Rally in Parliament Square, between 3.00 and 4.00 PM, organised by Praxis. Bring posters and placards.

🔸 From 11 March – multiple dates: Everybody to Kenmure Street, various locations across London. 

🔸 12 March: The Migrant Art of Coping, an evening with Dr Sohail Jannesari to discuss his groundbreaking new work of non-fiction, Housemans Bookshop. 

🔸 18 March: Don’t Move the Goalposts: Extra Time for Fair Settlement for Everyone – Action outside the Houses of Parliament, Victoria Tower South Gardens, Westminster, SW1P 3JA, between 12:30 – 2 PM. 

🔸 24 March: Resisting NHS Charging exhibition launch, organised by Patients not Passports Waltham Forest, in partnership with Waltham Forest Council, WFMA and St Barnabas Church, Walthamstow Central Library from 5.45 – 6.45 PM. Free and all welcome.

🔸 28  March: Together against the  far-right – gathering from 12.00 PM on Park Lane and departing around 1.00 PM. 

🔸 22 April – Waltham Forest Citizens Assembly – will include a hustings style panel with local candidates. Save the date – more details to follow soon. 

🔸 7 May: Local elections are not far away. They are likely to be some of the most contested elections in recent years. Of course, we expect immigration to be high on the agenda. First, make sure you are registered to vote. The deadline is Monday 20 April 2026. Encourage those around you to register and vote. Finding out who is standing in your area is not particularly easy. Nominations open on 27 March 2026 and close at 4:00pm on 9 April 2026. You can either check the council website or Who Can I Vote For as they get updated.

📣 We will be in touch with specific asks and actions you can take soon. 

Shabana Mahmood’s announced on Monday that she’s replacing permanent status, by which refugees could apply for settlement after five years, with a massively scaled down version: temporary status with reviews every 30 months and forced return if someone’s country is deemed safe by the UK government. But somehow, she failed to acknowledge that the world is more unsafe by the minute. 

In addition, yesterday she reiterated the policies that had been announced in the autumn, including;

  • suspending study visas – confirmed countries are Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan – starting this month, and no skilled workers’ visas will be issued to people from Afghanistan. Women will be particularly impacted by these two decisions;
  • making asylum support optional. In reality this policy is not new, but reaffirms that the government is happy to push people seeking safety into poverty or illegal work to survive; and 
  • increasing the English language requirement for settlement to Level B2 from March 2027

She also proposed a pilot project which suggests deporting families whose asylum claims weren’t successful – including their children – if they refuse the £40,000 incentive to return home. She added that a consultation was underway into “the handling of children and others in order to effect a smooth removal”. 

Her decisions are beyond devastating and will impact tens of thousands of people seeking safety, causing further chaos and heartbreak. What these measures won’t do is serve as a deterrent – people are escaping precarious, life or death situations. What other options do they have? We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again – and again – we need more safe routes.

The UK is pressing ahead with hardline policies in response to Reform UK’s promise to create an ICE-style deportation agency – if they are elected. Their toxic rhetoric is effectively shifting the debate further and further to the right. In case you missed it, a Guardian study last week showed just how hostile the rhetoric from Labour and Conservative MPs has become. 

We’ve all seen the violent tactics ICE use to arrest, abduct, detain and deport people. Figures show around 70,000 people are in detention, nearly 400,00 arrested and another nearly 400,000 deported. The American Immigration Council analysisis chilling: traffic stops, illegal racial profiling, workplace enforcement, home arrests – nowhere is safe. The list of people killed by ICE has been growing since January 2025 – 32 people killed in custody in 2025, eight this year, including two on the streets. ICE are terrorising entire neighbourhoods. But communities are resisting and fighting back. Take note.

Deportations aren’t only happening in the US and the UK. The EU voted to allow member states to deport migrants to so-called ‘safe’ countries, including Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, India, Kosovo, Morocco and Tunisia. Only Spain has made compassionate choice and plans to regularise around 500,000 undocumented migrants. The decision is a win win. It will provide a lifeline to people who have faced endless discrimination from denial of rental contracts to wage theft and workplace harassment, and also makes economic sense. 

In other news, Rwanda is taking legal action against the UK over loss of earnings after the so called ‘Rwanda Scheme’ was scrapped.

The media and politicians are obsessed with immigration and would have us all believe that it is the main issue on everyone’s minds. Yet, according to the ONS, when asked, people cited these as the important issues facing the UK today*: 

  • Cost of living (88%)
  • NHS (86%)
  • Economy (71%)
  • Immigration (60%) 
  • Crime (58%) 
  • Housing (55%)

*The information is from data collected from 3 December 2025 to 4 January 2026, based on adults in Great Britain.

And finally, Safe Passage are taking the Home Office to court over their shocking suspension of Refugee Family Reunion. They are challenging it on three grounds:

  • It has no rational justification, as it creates pointless burdens for applications that are likely to be granted anyway.
  • It ignores the best interests of children by leaving them exposed to exploitation or trapped in war zones.
  • It violates the Equality Act, as it hits women, children, and disabled people the hardest.

Exposing the far-right 

Hope not Hate’s State of Hate 2026 report is just as you expect – terrifying. It provides an in-depth analysis of how groups like ‘Unite The Kingdom’ and ‘Restore Britain’ are forcing Reform UK into more extreme positions – we are seeing how this is directly impacting immigration policy – and the role of the British media in normalising hate. It exposes billionaire links, including to Elon Musk and his social-media platform X, as well as the role of tech more generally. It delves into the rise of racial nationalism, the growing confidence and aggression by much of the movement – including the idea that ‘civil war is inevitable’.

There is a section on anti-immigration narratives that looks at “perceptions vs reality’. You will not be surprised to read that the number of ‘people who arrive to the UK on small boats’ is hugely overestimated:

These are just tiny snippets of the most comprehensive report you will find on the subject. 

Hostile Housing

Migrants Organise and Medact co-authored a new report Hostile Housing that exposes how asylum accommodation in the UK is actively harming the health and wellbeing of people seeking protection. It argues that the current for-profit housing model prioritises “containment over care”, embedding hostility into everyday living conditions and contributing to what researchers describe as “triple trauma”: trauma from conflict, trauma during migration, and trauma caused by Britain’s hostile asylum system.

Drawing on a survey of 60 people living in asylum accommodation — predominantly in so-called asylum hotels commissioned by the UK Home Office, the findings reveal widespread overcrowding and unsafe living environments. Residents reported damp and mould, poor ventilation, lack of privacy, and little or no access to cooking facilities. These conditions were directly linked to respiratory illnesses, deteriorating mental health including anxiety and depression, and a pervasive feeling of imprisonment rather than safety or stability.

Beyond the physical conditions, the report highlights how strict rules around meals, visitors, and daily movement strip people of autonomy and compound existing trauma. Much of this accommodation is operated by private contractors such as Serco, Mears Group, and Clearsprings Ready Homes, with the report showing how profit is prioritised while living conditions remain harmful and unsafe.

The report calls for an urgent shift away from large-scale hotel use, barracks, and contingency accommodation towards safe, community-based housing that offers privacy, dignity, and access to proper facilities. They urge the removal of excessive controls and surveillance over residents’ lives and recommend transferring responsibility from private contractors to properly funded local authorities. At its core, the report demands an asylum housing system rooted in health, human rights, and compassion, not deterrence and profit.