Sanctuary in Chichester members (supporters and volunteers) submitted joint and independent responses to the recent consultation on the Home Office’s New Plan For Immigration. The general view among our members and other organisations working with refugees and asylum seekers is that the plan is unworkable, not fit for any of the purposes it was designed for, contrevenes human rights, relies on false premises (as did the questions in their consultation forms) and dishonesty, does not tackle the cause of the asylum system costing so much and having huge backlogs (i.e. the system being broken) and will ultimately send more people to their deaths.

Below you can download the responses written by Roger Pask, SiC Founder and Trustee, which had input from other SiC members, and from the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Accosiation – a member of which is also a SiC member.

What can you do? Become an activist by engaging with immigration causes on social media and writing to your MP, asking them to represent your concerns. Amnesty explains how writing to your MP can influence policy and law; “...all MPs can table written questions – these questions will go to the most relevant Government Minister (foreign issues to the Foreign Secretary, issues on prisons to the Justice Secretary etc) – and there is no need for MPs to agree with the sentiment of your question in order to table it. […] If MPs are sympathetic to an issue they can also ask a question in person in the Chamber at Oral Questions, which rotate between the different Government departments monthly. MPs also have the ability to write or talk to a Minister, so even if your MP isn’t the Foreign Secretary or Defence Secretary, he or she can take your question directly to them and feed back to you. It’s always good to remember that MPs prefer to tackle issues that directly affect their constituents or those which a lot of their constituents care about. The more you can demonstrate that a lot of people in your area want the change you’re asking for, the more an MP will be influenced to act.“

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