Sandford House, 41 Homer Road, Solihull, is the Home Office Reporting Centre where refugees from across Birmingham and the West Midlands are forced to ‘sign on’ as much as twice a week. Many refugees have gone to sign on at Sandford House and then without warning, they have disappeared. Snatch squads in prison vans also operate from Sandford House, forcibly snatching families and vulnerable people in dawn raids where they are subsequently incarcerated in Britain’s network of detention centres for as much as three years with little chance of bail. They then face the prospect of being forcibly deported back to war zones or oppressive regimes from whence they fled. Many people are also unlawfully detained in detention centres by the Home Office.

There was a demonstration last November at Sandford House, where Iraqi Kurds in conjunction with Birmingham’s Anti-Racist Campaign (ARC) attempted to deliver a letter of protest in response to the Home Office’s moves to deport Iraqi Kurds to unsafe, occupied Iraq. They were refused an audience with Home Office personnel, who directed police to remove the demonstrators from Home Office property. Home Office management looked nervously through the glazed frontage of the immigration centre as protestors chanted, "Close down Sandford House!".

Birmingham NoBorders is against detention, deportation and all forms of border control. No Border is a global network that demands freedom of movement for all people.

If you’d like to get involved with Birmingham NoBorders you could email us at
noborders-brum-contact@aktivix.org
or join our mailing list.