Migrants Organise was recently named in a far right political party social media post as an organisation that “should be stripped of their funding and banned”.
As a migrant justice organisation we are often told to justify ourselves, tone down our message, or to work silently in isolation. But we refuse to apologise for our work, read our statement below.
Migrants Organise is an award winning and life changing organisation that organises with migrants and refugees for welcome, dignity and justice.
We believe in a world where migrants and refugees can live with dignity, not as shadows or statistics, but as equal members of society, free from fear, free from discrimination, free to move, to belong and to thrive.
For over 30 years, we’ve opened our arms to thousands of people arriving at our doors looking for a community. We’ve trained thousands of volunteers, developed mentoring schemes and built neighbourhood welcome initiatives, reunited families and above all else built a powerful and relentless solidarity movement.
Anti-migrant attacks on our work
Amongst many other charities, Migrants Organise was recently named in a far right political party social media post as “taxpayer-funded charities pushing to bring more migrants” concluding that “these organisations should be stripped of their funding and banned”.
Posts like this, alongside so-called ‘journalistic investigations’ about the sources of our funding seek to delegitimise the mission of our work, fuel divisive narratives about migration, and ultimately silence us.
There is no story to uncover here. Over the years we have had the support from various foundations, public bodies and individual supporters who value our bold vision of a world where people can live in safety and with freedom. A small piece of this funding includes grants from local authorities, much of it emergency funding during a pandemic, to help destitute and frightened people survive.
We follow a standard charity funding model – and all grants and donations are listed in our annual accounts. Our accounts are publicly available.
With the far-right on our streets again, we know that this type of so-called ‘reporting’ and social media posting is designed to generate consent for further mistrust, violence and hate directed at us and the people we work with.
The system is hostile by design
Hostility and racism are not just a passing phase, but core parts of today’s social, cultural, political and economic realities.
As a migrant rights organisation we are often told to justify ourselves, tone down our message, or to work silently in isolation.
Over the past several years we and many other charities have been made so unsafe – many organisations no longer share photos of their work or share public addresses because the threat of violence is real.
For our members it is even worse. Their lives are impacted by policies designed to do harm, in order to appease the far right.
This is not a failure of the system— it is the system, oppressive and hostile by design, and it has now been completely normalised.
Today’s immigration and asylum policies are built on a colonial legacy of state and imperial racism. This week’s new Immigration and Asylum Bill proposes further entrenchment of segregation and poverty.
Successive governments have learned to package harm as governance, and cruelty as unavoidable, and it is essential for organisations and grassroots movements to challenge these harms.
We will not pretend that solidarity with migrants is something to be smuggled past the public.
Amidst all of this dehumanisation, we won’t give up.
Britain has long been home to numerous movements for racial and migrant justice. These movements made significant contributions to challenging racism in Britain, whilst being instrumental in securing workers, women’s rights, climate action all whilst building solidarity with the international anti-colonial struggle.
When our founding members came together in 1993 they brought together different communities from Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia, Morocco, Spain and the UK to name a few. Like today, these communities were facing huge challenges so they came together to build the solidarity needed to welcome and care for each other.
They refused to be pitted against each other, they rejected the notion of “deserving” and “undeserving” migrants. They refused to normalise cruelty towards migrants. Together they built an organisation and vision based on common ground and unity.
We are proud to continue this work.
When communities have been divided, we’ve brought people together. When people have faced hostility we’ve stood with them.
We know that these kinds of attacks are becoming more frequent. This is a coordinated attempt to silence our solidarity. Now is not the time to retreat.
Please continue to amplify our work, turn out for actions, speak out and organise with your community.
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