Serco, drop your racist immigration contracts!

Serco uses its sponsorship of the Black Talent Awards to showcase its commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to the public.

However, Serco is one of the main contractors profiting from the UK’s Immigration System which has been found to be racist by design and to ‘disproportionately impact’ people of colour.

We see through Serco’s attempt to clean its image and refuse to let them use cultural events to cover up how they profit from cruel and racialised hostile environment policies.

Enter your postcode below to email Serco demanding that they drop their racist immigration policies.

Name *

Your email *

Subject

<div>Dear Caroline Mayhead – People Director, Serco Citizen Services UK,</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Serco’s sponsorship of the Black Talent Awards does not show a commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity - it shows your hypocrisy when you continue to enable the surveillance and detention of racialised communities in the UK.</div>
<div> </div>
<div><strong>While we celebrate the Black Talent Awards and share its mission to recognise Black Talent in the UK, we will not let Serco cover up how you profit from racialised violence.</strong></div>
<div> </div>
<div>We are now calling to you to end contracts for the UK’s hostile environment policy, which was deemed by the Home Office’s own assessment to <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/home-office-hostile-environment-racist-b2279836.html">“disproportionately impact” Black and Asian people.</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div><strong>Serco, you cannot say you support diversity, equity and inclusion when you are profiting from racialised violence and misery from your detention centres and <a href="https://www.refugee-action.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Asylum-In-The-UK-A-Front-Line-For-Racial-Justice-Briefing.pdf">asylum accommodation.</a></strong></div>
<div> </div>
<div>Abri wrote to Women for Refugee Women from inside Yarl’s Wood: <em>“Really things are not as they seem, to Serco we have a price tag, we are part of million pound business deals, and our pain is Serco’s profit, And while we are in these premises they have the power to do as they will with us, because after all we are just parcels that need to be sent to a different address by all means necessary. And they call this justice?”</em></div>
<div> </div>
<div>Serco runs Derwentside, the UK’s main detention centre for women, <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/inside-derwentside-immigration-centre-uk-home-office-detention-women-mental-health/">notorious for distressing conditions</a> and featured in a June 2023 investigation which highlighted <a href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/horrific-levels-violence-racism-among-30315340">"horrific levels of violence and racism"</a> among Mitie and Serco staff. Serco also runs Yarl’s Wood Detention Centre where a Serco employee made allegations of sexual and physical abuse by staff, and which has been described as a form of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-47802425">"kidnapping" and "modern slavery"</a> by an asylum seeker held there. </div>
<div> </div>
<div><strong>Serco, you cannot say you support diversity, equity and inclusion when you are profiting from racialised surveillance.  </strong></div>
<div> </div>
<div>Micheal (pseudonym) is a client of Bail for Immigration Detainees who, despite arriving to the UK as a baby, is facing deportation and is being tracked by the Home Office 24/7. He is forced to wear an ankle tag supplied by Serco about which he said:<em> “I suffer from more scrutiny in public, the police stop me, people stare, they think I must have committed a grievous crime for me to put on GPS tag. Obviously, I’m a Black male with a monitor on my ankle, the stereotype is just flashing before everyone’s eyes.”</em></div>
<div> </div>
<div>Serco is currently profiting from the <a href="https://privacyinternational.org/news-analysis/5323/two-court-judgments-one-regulatory-decision-bricks-fall-around-uks-gps-tagging">24/7 location monitoring of asylum seekers</a>, migrants and people facing deportation who are British in all but paperwork. This has been widely condemned by national and international public bodies including the<a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/concluding-observations/ccprcgbrco8-concluding-observations-eighth-periodic-report-united"> United Nations Human Rights Committee,</a> <a href="https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/media-centre/news-and-blogs/2024/03/ico-finds-the-home-office-s-pilot-of-gps-electronic-monitoring-of-migrants-breached-uk-data-protection-law/">the Information Commissioner's Office</a> and the Independent <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/an-inspection-of-the-global-positioning-system-gps-electronic-monitoring-of-foreign-national-offenders-march-april-2022">Chief Inspector of Immigration & Borders.</a> And,<a href="https://privacyinternational.org/news-analysis/5323/two-court-judgments-one-regulatory-decision-bricks-fall-around-uks-gps-tagging"> courts </a>have recently found some individuals had been unlawfully tagged.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>These are just a few voices from the many affected by your harmful business operations. Your continued involvement in racialised violence and discrimination undermines your values of Trust, Care, Innovation and Pride. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>We strongly encourage you to take immediate action and end all contracts for the implementation of hostile environment policies. </div>

To show you're an actual person, what is 5 + 2 ? *

If you would like to sign up to BID's email mailing list to receive information about BID's research, campaigns, events and appeals please tick the box below. Please note you can unsubscribe at any time by emailing enquiries@biduk.org.

Sign me up

BID's privacy policy is available here.

Data will be processed by Organic Campaigns: Privacy policy. Acknowledgements