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Dear supporters, 

Dear supporters,

We’re taking a stand against the new Border Security Bill. This new legislation builds on the legacy of cruel immigration laws and aims to turn migration into national security issue. Join us by saying NO to the Bill and ask your MP to vote against it.

Meanwhile, the Government is busy boasting about rising immigration raids. In the last few months, Immigration Enforcement has turned its terrorisation of raids into a spectacle by sharing footage on the internet and with the media. We want to send a clear message that our communities don’t consent to raids, and hold Enforcement to account. That’s why we’ve finally launched our new website on Immigration Raids, which includes a historic heat map showing areas across the UK where six or more immigration raids occurred between 1st January 2022 and 30th September 2023. This website also includes a reporting tool, allowing you to log immigration raids that happen in realtime in your area! Find out more below.

And to round off this month’s newsletter, we share a timely Words Matter explainer on why we don’t use the language of ‘smugglers’ or ‘smuggling gangs’. We also have more information on an upcoming event on AI in the asylum system, and a collaborative zine with National Survivors User Network on the theme of mental health and migration!

There are plenty of ways to get involved with us too: we are recruiting for three trustee positions, and we are also looking for one more person to join Team MRN at the Brighton And Hove 10k in April.

Finally, we just wanted to say a massive thank you to all our supporters- those who have been with us for a while, and also those who have just joined. We couldn’t have made the impact we have made without your support, and we hope that you will stick around so that we can keep making change!

In solidarity,
The MRN Team

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Stand Against the Border Security Bill

Video Explainer

The Border Security Bill marks the first time a counter-terror framework has been used as the primary approach to migration policy. But what does this mean? 

A counter-terror enables the Government to bring in or expand powers that would otherwise be seen as excessive and extreme. This includes the expansion of powers to seize people’s devices at the border, and to criminalise intermediaries or those providing supplies/ information meant to assist the travel of an undocumented migrant.

You can find out more about what this Bill will do by watching our video explainer below.

Write To Your MP

This racist, cruel Bill is yet another example of this Government ignoring its own responsibility for creating the situations of harm that are pushing people seeking asylum into the hands of intermediaries in the first place.

We’ve called on MPs to vote down the Bill, but we can’t do this alone. And so we call on all those who stand in solidarity with migrants to email their MP by using our letter tool below.

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Stand Against Immigration Raids

Immigration raids are a racist intimidation tactic, designed to instill fear and disrupt communities. 

We are watching the raids, but we can’t do this alone.

Our new Raids website allows you to report and log immigration raids in your areas. The information from this form will be checked weekly and imported into a reporting map. Explore the new site below:

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Other Updates

Words Matter

• Explainer: Intermediaries, Not “Smuggling Gangs”.  The language of “smuggling gangs” is used to justify anti-migrant legislation. Using the language of intermediaries puts emphasis on the policy decisions that force migrants to turn intermediaries in the first place: the criminalisation of alternative, safer routes. Let’s use this language instead.

Hostile Office

• Event: AI Under Watch (18 March 2025, Bethnal Green) Are you part of an organisation that works with migrants, including refugees, and want to learn about the use of AI in the immigration and asylum system? Following the publication of our AI Under Watch report, we’re hosting an event to discuss the findings from the project, listen to insights from some of the participants who co-created the resource, and collectively explore how we can resist.
• MRN Quoted in The Morning Star: Our Head of Policy & Comms discussed the racist and Islamophobic “good character” test, as well as the cruel updates to the “good character” Home Office guidance, which narrow the pool of who can claim citizenship by targeting people who came to the UK via dangerous routes. 
• MRN Quoted in The Canary: Our CEO discussed the Border Security Bill, and how it is explicitly designed to target and restrict the movement of racialised people and frame them as a national security threat.

Who Is Welcome?

• Collaborative Zine with NSUN: Trauma, Mental Health and Migration. Immigration systems exacerbate and create trauma and mental ill-health, whilst mental health systems also exert harm on racialised and migrant communities. That’s why we must call for abolitionist and anti-oppressive approaches to mental health, that move away from punishment, and towards community, compassion and justice.

Get Involved

• Trustee Vacancies: Chair, HR Trustee, Income Generation Trustee (deadline to apply: 12 March 2025, 9am).
• Fundraise for us: Brighton And Hove 10k on 6 April 2025 (deadline to apply: 13 March 2025).

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Sector Vacancies

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If you want to support our work…

…would you consider making a donation?

We are a small team that receives minimal funding. To keep us going, we need all the help we can get, so we can achieve more in 2025.

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