Solidarity Knows No Borders

60+ events, 12 cities, and thousands of people taking action: the Solidarity Knows No Borders Week of Action to End the Hostile Environment

By admin • 22 June 2022

From June 13-19, the Solidarity Knows No Borders Community of Resistance held #10YearsTooLong: Week of Action to #EndtheHostileEnvironment.

With 2022 marking ten years since the Hostile Environment was embedded into policy, the Solidarity Knows No Borders Community (a community of 60+ migrant organisations and groups working in solidarity to end hostility and racism against migrants and refugees) called the week of action to mark the legacy of resistance to Britain’s hostile immigration system.

Over the week of action, a variety of organisations held over 60 actions in 12 different cities and online, and demonstrated the power we can have when we come together.

Actions took many different formats—protests, picnics, trainings, art installations, film, manifestoes, carnivals, gigs, leafleting and more. And from defeating the Rwanda flight, to the #JusticeForSimba campaign victory, to telling the Home Office to #AbolishReporting, to connecting climate justice and migrant justice, to all of the new people that we have brought into our movement this week, the week was full of campaign victories and crucial opportunities for movement building.

As a member of the Solidarity Knows No Borders Community, Migrants Organise organised and co-organised several actions during the week, including a lecture with award-winning author Kamila Shamsie, an art installation on immigration reporting and GPS tagging (with the Abolish Reporting campaign), a digital privacy and security workshop (with Voice of Domestic Workers and Reconfigure), and a Carnival of Resistance (with JCWI, Regularise, Remember & Resist, Fridays for the Future).

You can see a map and list of the actions below, and on the Week of Action landing page:

Map of actions for 10 Years Too Long: the Solidarity Knows No Borders Week of Action to End the Hostile Environment. Use the icon on the top left to browse a list of actions.

Hundreds of people came together to protest the Rwanda Deportation Flight on Monday 13th of June outside the Home Office in Central London.Photo by Moeez Ali.
Abolish Reporting London ‘Stop Watching Us’ Exhibition launch event on Friday 17th of June which explored the history of surveillance and criminalisation of migrants and the ongoing resistance.
Protest outside HCA headquarters in support of workers at London Bridge Hospital demanding increased pay and better working conditions. Organised by IWGB Union as part of the Solidarity Knows No Borders Week of Action.
Photo of barbed wire fence outside Brook House with a placard reading 'Solidarity Across Borders' stuck in wires.
Hundreds of people showed up to a solidarity demo outside Brook House detention centre on Sunday 12th of June ahead of the scheduled Rwanda Deportation flight.
A crowd gathers for a demonstration outside Sheffield City Hall to protest 10 years of the Hostile Environment and present the People’s Bill, a document co-produced by people with lived experience of the immigration and asylum process.

The week of action may be over, but this summer of resistance is just beginning!

If you joined the week of action and want to keep up the energy, join the Solidarity Knows No Borders Community on July 19 for a New Joiners call, open to everyone who wants to join us in building an alternative world based on dignity, justice and welcome. Register now, and bring a friend!