Hi there! Yep, we're the next set of mid-twenty year olds running a half marathon - sorry. However, we are not spurred on by recent heartbreaks or looming existential crises ;) Instead, we're lacing up our shoes to champion a cause close to our hearts: ending immigration detention. Ambitious? Perhaps. But our mission is clear - we're raising funds for Bail for Immigration Detainees, a charity dedicated to providing free legal aid to those held in UK immigration detention while advocating for its abolition. As caseworkers we've witnessed firsthand the transformative impact of BID's services on individuals navigating a system designed to obstruct access to support and legal counsel. In a racist system where obtaining advice and securing release from detention is an uphill battle, BID's work is essential.

Since 1999 BID have supported over 46,000 people to get out of immigration detention and have borne witness to and evidenced many gross abuses of state power.

In the UK, the Home Office have the power to lock people up indefinitely, without trial for the purpose of immigration control. However as evidenced by the Windrush Scandal, they have a history of terrible decision making with horrific consequences. Last year they had to pay out £9.3 million of compensation to people they wrongfully detained. Additionally their decisions fail to take into consideration racial biases in the criminal justice system, “institutional ignorance and thoughtlessness” towards race within the Home Office and the UK’s colonial past therefore reproducing racial trauma and injustice.

In March 2019 parliament’s Home Affairs Select Committee condemned the "careless and cavalier" approach of the Home Office and raised serious concerns about a catalogue of failings leading to rising self-harm and suicide in detention centres:

"The Home Office has utterly failed in its responsibility to oversee the safe and humane detention of individuals in the UK, that too often it does not follow its own policy and guidance, and that a series of safeguarding and case-working failures have led to people being wrongfully detained, held in immigration when they are vulnerable and unnecessarily detained for too long."

BID has been helping people exercise their right to liberty alongside campaigning for the end of Immigration detention for over 20 years. Our advice line received over 7,000 calls last year and we were able to get 334 bail grants, that's a success rate of 86%!

Even though most people working at BID are volunteers, we still need money to keep going. We are hoping to raise £1,500 - the cost of running the advice line for six weeks - to help BID continue to provide free legal advice and representation to people in detention in the UK.

It would mean the world to us if you could contribute to this work and give us a lil motivating push to run through the knee pain and blisters! Every little helps, even just the price of a coffee or pint :)

Thank you for standing in solidarity with people in immigration detention - no one is illegal, freedom of movement for all!