ON Tuesday June 14, Stop Deportations activists took to the streets outside Colnbrook Immigration Removal Centre in a final bid to stop the first deportation flight of Priti Patel’s racist “Rwanda plan.”

Members of our group blockaded roads leading out of the detention centre, to stop asylum-seekers from being transported to the deportation flight.

Some lay in the road, chained together with lock-ons to form a human barricade, while others held a banner which read: “Stop racist deportations” and chanted “No borders, no nations, stop deportations.”

The brutality of the Rwanda plan, and our inability to rely on the legal system alone, meant that we were left with no choice but to take direct action.

The Home Office originally intended for up to 130 people to be on the flight to Rwanda, however a combination of direct action, mass protests around the country, sustained campaigning and urgent legal action meant this number was brought down to zero by the end of the day.

While lawyers were attempting to challenge the deportations, the action we took to halt the traffic at Colnbrook gave vital time for the remaining asylum-seekers, who were in the process of being taken to the flight, to win their cases in court.

For some, it wasn’t until the very final moments before the plane was due to take off that they received the news of the injunctions, ushered in by a decision in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

While it was ultimately court injunctions that prevented the remaining people from being deported to Rwanda, the power of direct action should not be underestimated.

Action was taken outside by protesters and by the detained asylum-seekers themselves; some resisted when they were being taken to the flight in an attempt to further delay it, while others had gone on hunger strike earlier in the week. 

Writer Audre Lorde reminds us that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.”

Indeed, while we can use the law to challenge racist policies, we cannot rely on the law to protect our communities by itself.

It is only by organising on a mass scale and by continuously targeting and disrupting the implementation of these racist policies — by making ourselves “ungovernable” — that they can be decisively defeated.

Halting the flight is only the first step towards dismantling Britain’s violent border regime.

The asylum-seekers set to be on the flight continue to suffer under the “hostile environment” and as a result of Britain’s oppressive, inherently racist, immigration controls.

While being taken from their cells in the detention centre to the flight, many reported being physically and verbally abused — including being handcuffed, restrained with harnesses, kicked and punched.

After receiving their injunctions, all of them have been taken back to a high-security detention centre to await an uncertain future.

Our fight is far from over — we must step up our efforts to resist and fight against every part of this country’s immigration system, from the hostile environment, to closing detention centres, to the Rwanda plan — as it criminalises and brutalises those that cross borders.

This is why Stop Deportations looks to the power of community organising and direct resistance to dismantle a system that is built on and sustained by racism.

We stand with others in the anti-raids movement, with those working to end immigration detention, with the aim of not only resisting the worst of this government, but challenging the entire system, to create a world beyond borders.

We have seen in the past few months the immense power of collective action, with hundreds resisting immigration raids in their communities in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Peckham and Dalston, taking to the streets in mass protest, and putting their bodies on the line to stop vehicles taking people to be deported to Jamaica or Rwanda in their tracks.

We need as many people as possible to join this next stage of the fight.

There are many ways to contribute: whether by joining your local anti-raids or CopWatch group, supporting people in detention with Soas Detainee Support, supporting the battle against prison expansion led by groups such as CAPE and SWAP working to liberate LGBTQIA+ migrants with Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants, organising migrant workers with IWGB, contributing to our collective political education through groups like Abolitionist Futures and Books Against Borders, or stopping deportations with us. 

Together, we can stand up to this government and show that we believe in communities, not cages, that we believe in care, not cruelty, and that we will implement these values through acts of mutual solidarity to disrupt the state’s brutality.

We cannot chip away at the system any more, we must destroy it entirely.