Four years on from the widespread national and community resistance that ended the Rwanda deportation plan, we call on all individuals and organisations to mobilise and resist the UK government’s so-called ‘family returns’ proposals and consultation. The consultation is open for individuals to respond via email. Use our tool to send a response rejecting the proposals to the Home Office.

These proposals would see children handcuffed and violently physically separated from their parents and family members; forced deportations of people seeking safety; enforced destitution and denial of meagre resources from groups already made destitute by state policy; and an effective abolition of the right to appeal - when access to justice is already unacceptably eroded and legal aid deserts abound.

The proposals constitute an assault on the UK’s already fragile justice system; further eroding fundamental rule of law principles and flouting protections for refugee and human rights put in place after the 1940s with the intention of preventing further crimes against humanity.

In a context where this government is seeking to largely abolish jury trials; using secretive counterterrorism powers to criminalise migrants, protesters and their lawyers; boasting publicly about mass deportations and raids; and has already made refugee status temporary through an immigration rule change – bypassing parliamentary scrutiny; we have clearly entered a period of dangerous state authoritarianism and a rapid slide towards fascism.

The proposals are inhumane and brutal. They violate the basic dignity of people, and we reject them entirely. Send our response in to the Home Office now.

This response is based on a statement co-signed by JCWI, Asylum Matters, Women for Refugee Women, Migrants' Rights Network, Beyond Detention, Hibiscus, Association of Visitors To Immigration Detainees (AVID), Routes, Thread Ahead, Latin American Women's Rights Service (LAWRS), Middle Eastern Women and Society Organisation (MEWSO), and Southeast and East Asian Women’s Association (SEEAWA).