About URBC

Unis Resist Border Controls (URBC) is an 8-year, migrant-led national grassroots campaign within UK higher education, composed of migrant university staff and students working to end the Hostile Environment policy, end the effects of marketized higher education on migrant staff and students, and fight for border abolition.

History

URBC started on the 5th March 2016 at SOAS, called by the Justice4Sanaz campaign to

“create meaningful and sustainable discussion and action with other anti-racist, migrant rights grassroots campaigners and groups around the situation concerning non-EU international students, academics, and university workers within the neoliberal university system.“

After this meeting, URBC was established and a statement was written, endorsed by over fifty academics, activists and students that demanded the,

“fundamental end to UKVI and PREVENT surveillance and intimidation of non-EU international students, scholars and university workers. We want to see universities and unions take a strong stand against such policies and to cease using these racist and xenophobic measures to disenfranchise and marginalize non-EU international students, scholars, and university workers. We want to see provisions in place for non-EU internationals to be able to seek recourse against their higher education institutions without it affecting their visa-status and/or having their precarious immigration status repeatedly threatened.  We call on British students, lecturers and university workers to not collude or be complicit with the border controls culture on university campuses.”

Our manifesto

In 2017 we established a manifesto that listed our principles and demands. URBC advocates for the following:

  1. Free education
  2. Free movement
  3. All migrants are matter- not just those who are white and/or middle class.
  4. We demand an end to the migrant NHS surcharge.
  5. We demand an end to the surveillance of students. This includes UK Visa & Immigration (UKVI) monitoring of the attendance of migrant students and migrants university staff members. We also demand an end to the Prevent strategy.
  6. If a migrant student or university staff member encounters immigration problems, we demand that Student Unions and the university provide pastoral care and legal support in resisting the detention and deportation of migrant students and staff.
  7. Migrant students and university staff should be able to take legal recourse against their institutions without their precarious immigration status being used against them in order to silence them from speaking and taking action against any wrongdoings by their institution.
  8. We demand that universities stop working with and/or investing in the arms trade, fossil fuels, and the prison and border industries that are responsible for creating war, environmental devastation, and carceral violence that affects in particular working class Black and people of colour.

Workshops & Educational Outreach

For over three years, URBC has conducted resistance workshops at universities, DIY spaces and migrant-rights events around the UK that help students, staff and migrant rights activists understand how the hostile environment policy and border controls operates inside higher education. These workshops also provided ways of giving practical solidarity and resistance on the ground to protect migrants students, academic staff and university workers.  URBC has also both hosted & co-hosted national and regional conferences on resisting the hostile environment policy and other aspects of UK’s xeno-racist immigration laws. URBC also publishes zines that discuss aspects of the hostile environment policy within higher education.

Some of our past events:

Casework support

URBC has also been instrumental in stopping the deportation and continued detention of international students, as seen in the case of Shiromini Satkunarajah and Ahmed Sedeeq. Thanks to our efforts, both Shiromini was granted leave to remain, and Ahmed has been  granted humanitarian protection for five years. 

Research 

In June 2018, URBC launched a survey study to collect data on how the hostile environment policy is exercised within all higher education institutions in the UK. We received 184 responses to our survey. The findings from this study was published in The Guardian in November 2019. During the COVID-19 lockdown, we conducted a joint study with the Migrants’ Rights Network on the effects of UK’s lockdown policy on Tier 4 international students. The results of this study can be found here. Currently, URBC members are analysing data from our COVID-19 Technology and Monitoring study that concluded on the 24th July 2020. The findings of this study will be released before the end of October 2020. 

Protests & Direct Action

Organising demonstrations against the hostile environment policy and borders is also an important part of our work. On the 18 December 2018, we helped organise protests against the conviction of the ‘Stansted 15’ and wider hostile environment policies. There were events in 18 cities across the UK and in Ireland. We also co-organised a Hunger For Freedom Solidarity Demo at Yarl’s Wood on the 30th June 2018 that was attended by migrant rights activists from Brighton, Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds, London, Manchester, and Nottingham.

Work with URBC

Interested in joining URBC or having us host a workshop? Email us at: UnisResistBorderControls[AT]gmail[DOT]com