On June 7, migrant justice community organisers from around the UK gathered in Manchester for the first-ever Abolish Reporting Campaign national gathering.
On June 7, over 40 migrant justice community organisers (collectively representing 49 groups and campaigns) gathered in Manchester for the Abolish Reporting National Gathering, the first such event since the Abolish Reporting campaign started in 2021.
Co-hosted by Solidarity Knows No Borders Merseyside, Right to Remain, These Walls Must Fall and Migrants Organise, the Abolish Reporting National Gathering brought together people from across the UK who are organising in their communities to end immigration reporting and the hostile environment—and ultimately grow a world built on principles of care, not surveillance.
Programme of the Abolish Reporting National Gathering
After hearing from everyone in the room through an organising rounds question, the Abolish Reporting National Gathering began with an informative research presentation from Lauren Cape-Davenhill (University of Leeds). Lauren’s presentation, titled Home Office Surveillance in Our Communties: ‘Alternatives to Detention,’ shared findings from her research on the impacts of Home Office community-based surveillance methods, in particular GPS tagging and reporting. Attendees shared questions and reflections raised by Lauren’s presentation.
Maggy Moyo from Right to Remain facilitated a panel highlighting key organising stories that have shaped the Abolish Reporting campaign. On the panel, Sarli (Migrants Organise) traced the history of the campaign through collective action, for example at the End the Hostile Environment demonstration at Vulcan House Reporting Centre (Sheffield) in April 2024. Ven (These Walls Must Fall) highlighted the importance of building trust and power locally, drawing from experiences organising in Manchester. Manono (Merseyside SKNB) articulated the connections between reporting, detention and deportation, illustrated through her own experiences of reporting and her experience as part of the victorious Free Fatou campaign. Nina (Merseyside SKNB) reflected on the impact of organising around local reporting centres last summer, as the Government threatened to whisk people away to Rwanda just ahead of a nationwide escalation of far-right mobilisation. The speakers shared organising wisdoms and called on attendees to organise and take action.
Over a delicious lunch, many attendees kept the conversation going through 1-2-1 organising conversations. Then, attendees split into small groups to share priorities and key issues with each other and identify potential opportunities for action. Through these small group discussions, attendees built foundations for stronger organising relationships, cross-pollination and collaboration with each other. While summarising his small group’s discussion for the plenary, Pious (Voice of Voiceless Immigration Detainees Yorkshire) encouraged us towards collective action. He shared an anecdote about the power of demanding dignity and accountability from the Home Office, illustrating the adage “power concedes nothing without a demand.”
Next steps and impact
In line with Pious’s story, the National Gathering closed with a plenary discussion about next steps, resources needed, and priorities for the campaign in the lead up to the Solidarity Knows No Borders national organising summit this autumn. Attendees shared their own calls to action—one notable example being the National Day of Solidarity to End Immigration Detention (October 18)—and invited others to take part.
Overall, the Abolish Reporting National Gathering was a fantastic day which aimed to strengthen collective organising power and create collective commitment to action to resist immigration reporting: a tool of surveillance and a key pillar of the hostile environment, connected to detention and deportation.
Attendees who shared feedback gave the day an overall 4.72 out of 5 stars, with 90.6% of attendees agreeing that they felt more prepared to take collective action with the Abolish Reporting campaign as a result of the National Gathering. Many attendees particularly appreciated the opportunity to connect with groups “doing similar work in different places” and “hear the history of the Abolish Reporting campaign, where it started and where we are now—understanding reporting alongside different pillars of hostile environment.”
About the Abolish Reporting campaign
Abolish Reporting is a national campaign calling for a world built on principles of care, not surveillance. Anyone waiting for a final decision on their application to live in the UK can be required to regularly travel to “sign on” at an Immigration Reporting Centre. Every appointment carries the risk of being randomly taken to a detention centre and threatened with deportation. Reporting conditions—whether in-person or via telephone, e-mail, or GPS anklet—amount to unfair, unjust and unnecessary harassment of migrants, and must end!
Launched by members of the Solidarity Knows No Borders community in 2021 following successful efforts to halt in-person reporting during COVID-19 lockdown, the decentralised campaign has grown to include individuals and organisations across Britain, many with experience of reporting. The campaign has taken collective action outside over half of the reporting centres in Britain, in our communities and online, for example calling on the Home Secretary to suspend immigration reporting during far-right riots in Summer 2024.
Our vision is for care, not surveillance: we want to see a society which welcomes all migrants and treats them with dignity. We believe that migrants should not be punished or surveilled, but rather, they should be supported and treated justly. Our demands:
- We demand an end to reporting conditions and the immigration bail regime, for everyone.
- We demand Immigration Enforcement and surveillance out of migrants’ lives.
- We demand the Home Office enforcement functions be defunded and abolished.
- We demand that funds spent on Home Office and enforcement systems be diverted and invested in community support and care for migrants.
The Abolish Reporting campaign is organising for a world built on principles of care, not surveillance. Get in touch for support organising locally to Abolish Reporting, or check out resources to challenge reporting here!
