Residents gathered today outside Sheffield’s Home Office to show their disappointment in the UK’s uptick in deportations of asylum seekers. 

The focus of the demonstration was to show the state of asylum seekers in the UK with the new deportation policy under the Labour government, said Melinda Mo Martinez from City of Sanctuary, Sheffield. 

The policy, introduced by Keir Starmer’s government since coming to power, says that “foreign criminals and immigration offenders” will be sent back to their home countries, and not Rwanda, unlike the Conservative government’s policy. 

She said: “For me and my organisation, the most important thing is to show that behind all the data, they [asylum seekers] are human beings.

“This is not about Black, Brown and Asian people against White people, this is about fascists against our community.”  

She said that the larger community in Sheffield also feels like asylum seekers across the UK are being treated like second-class citizens, referring specifically to their allowance: £49.18 per person per week, at a time when the average cost of groceries in the UK is upwards of £50 per week. 

Manuchehr, a spokesperson for the South Yorkshire Migration and Asylum Action Group (SYMAAG), said that he feels deportations have increased after the Labour government was elected to power. 

He referred specifically to the Labour government scrapping the Conservative government’s Rwanda charter flights, that violated international law and human rights, for a policy where “innocent and vulnerable asylum seekers are being sent back home to dictatorial regimes.” 

He said that the UK should divest from nations in dispute, referring specifically to Israel, Afghanistan and Iraq, and instead invest back in asylum seekers that are escaping persecution in their home countries. 

Megan, who is involved in activism around the city, attended the demonstration because she felt the government has created a hostile environment towards asylum seekers across the country to distract the public from their own failings. 

She said: “It feels like they’re fueling the far-right, it doesn’t even feel like they’re just pandering to them anymore. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that his [Keir Starmer’s] policies have grown increasingly more hostile.”

The demonstration was held ahead of International Human Rights Day, which is next week, on 10 December 2024.