MIGRANT solidarity campaigners are to launch a wave of mass action next month against the government’s hostile environment for migrants, declaring that its cruel policies have lasted for “10 years too long.” 

The week of action, running from June 13 to 19, marks 10 years since then home secretary Theresa May first declared her intention to create a “really hostile environment for illegal immigrants” on May 25 2012. 

The policies seek to crack down on undocumented migrants by making it difficult for them to work illegally and to access housing, banking and healthcare.

Opening an online rally, hosted by the Solidarity Knows No Borders network to mark Wednesday’s anniversary, Zrinka Bralo of Migrants Organise vowed to ramp up resistance against the hostile environment and the new Nationality and Borders Act. 

She said that “solidarity actions will be happening around the country to make it loud and clear that the hostile environment must end,” adding: “Even if it takes another 11 home secretaries, we will stand in solidarity until we win.” 

The rally heard harrowing stories of victims of the hostile environment, who spoke of being forced into destitution and exploitation and others too scared to seek medical care for fear of being reported to the Home Office and being hit with huge medical bills. 

They including Simba, a refugee from Zimbabwe who was handed a £100,000 bill for emergency hospital treatment after suffering a stroke in 2019, leaving him paralysed along his left side. 

His stroke could have been prevented by medication for a blood-clotting condition, but as a refused asylum-seeker, Simba was not entitled to receive it on the NHS. 

“I was engulfed by so much fear for such a long time,” he said.

“Over time, I got worse and worse and, as a result, I am a casualty of the hostile environment, because what I lost I will probably never get back.”

Mimi Jalmasco told the rally that Ms May’s 2012 policy of scrapping visa rights for overseas domestic workers like her had put her at risk of exploitation by her foreign employer, who physically abused her. 

“We became the sacrificial lamb of the political game of the then Conservative-Liberal government,” she said. 

Andrea Martinez, a volunteer at Filipino migrant advocacy group Kanlungan, said: “We work in situations described as poor, difficult, dangerous, dirty and dehumanising, yet we are continuously made targets of hostile and racist government policies.”

The rally also heard from key figures across Britain’s migrant solidarity movement, including former Liberty director Gracie Mae Bradley, who stressed that ending the hostile environment would benefit everyone in society. 

The aim of the policies, she explained, is to “co-opt everyone in society into immigration enforcement,” but this also means that “all of us are subject to more surveillance, more data-sharing, more checks and conditionality when we try to access services.

“The hostile environment is a problem for everyone.”

She also highlighted how the policies have been met with fierce resistance over the past decade, citing successful campaigns to stop data-sharing between hospitals and schools with the Home Office. 

The week of action will see dozens of protests, workshops and events held across the country to demand an end to the hostile environment. Find out more at firmcharter.org.uk/week-of-action.