Report of the first Kids Against Raids and Borders Meeting

​On Sunday 20th November, about 20 children and adults came together for the first ever Kids Against Raids and Borders meeting. There were wide ranging discussions about the ways that racist violence is carried out through government agencies and individual actions.

Young people talked about their experiences of racism and everyone talked about developing strategies to avoid or stop harm creates by racists.

One 14 year old suggested using Snapchat to share resources about what Immigration Enforcement vans look like and what to do when you see an immigration raid or if a family member is questioned by an immigration officer (don’t talk as you can refuse to answer their questions). The group discussed how to raise awareness among their peers about the school census and what immigration controls actually involve, and ideas included making comics, leaflets and zines.

Young people also broke out into their own space to discuss ideas without adults dominating their conversation. Using memes like the Mannequin Challenge was an idea that KARB will look into producing.

Kojo from Against Borders for Children did a presentation and Q & A on the Government’s Foreign Children Database and the ongoing boycott of nationality questions on the school census. The campaign recently won a concession which now means pre-school children are now exempt from the nationality questions but 5 – 19 year olds will still be targeted in January.

We also watched a video of a Shutdown Yarls Wood demonstration by Sin Fronteras and they talked about how to make links with those in detention.

The next meeting will be set in the New Year. All are welcome to attend so contact us for more information and to keep updated.

Open Letter: #BoycottSchoolCensus continues – time for politicians to act!

Schools ABC logo

When we urged a boycott of nationality and country of birth data collection in schools, we feared the School Census would be used for third party purposes, including immigration enforcement. We didn’t know then that it already was.

It turned out that children’s names, home addresses and school details are handed out regularly to the Home Office, which has requested information on almost 2,500 individuals in the last 15 months.

How can anyone trust the Department for Education’s (DfE) assurances that that these new ‘foreign children lists’ will be used to support children’s education, and will not be given to the Home Office, when the National Pupil Database is already being used to target children?

Growing opposition to the policy now includes politicians across party lines in the House of Commons, following a successful motion of regret in the House of Lords. The National Union of Teachers has also felt compelled to remind the government that “schools are not part of policing immigration”.

In September we wrote to Justine Greening and asked her to scrap this risky and divisive policy. But the DfE plans to press ahead with it in January, when nationality and country of birth data will be collected from every child in state-funded education in England.

All schools and parents can respond ‘not yet obtained’ or ‘refused’ to these questions without fear of sanction.

We urge all politicians to speak up for the rights of migrant children and families, and to say no to foreign children lists.

Signed

Against Borders for Children

BARAC UK

defenddigitalme

Institute of Race Relations

Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants

Latin American Women’s Rights Service

Liberty

Migrants’ Rights Network

National Union of Students – Black Students’ Campaign

Open Rights Group

Privacy International

Refugee Council

Right to Remain

Southall Black Sisters

House of Lords Votes against Government’s foreign children database policy

“…[T]here is real concern among members of different ethnic groups about victimisation and being targeted. I am afraid that this proposal has all the hallmarks of racism…

 

Children are children, and to use their personal information for immigration enforcement is disingenuous, irresponsible, and not the hallmark of a tolerant, open and caring society”

 

– Lord Storey, Liberal Democrat Peer who moved the motion of regret

Against Borders for Children is pleased to report that on the evening of Monday 31st October, the House of Lords passed a motion of regret against the government’s policy to draw up a foreign children database through the Department for Education.

This is an important step towards a significant victory for children’s rights to privacy, equality, and education. Ever increasingly, the government tries to co-opt ordinary people into the business of border control, whether they’re doctors, employers, or landlords. Last night’s motion sends a clear signal that government efforts to create a ‘hostile environment’ for migrants are facing a concerted backlash, and that immigration enforcement has no place in our schools.

We now call on the government to respect the vote and abandon the collection of nationality and country of birth data through the School Census. Especially as childminders and nurseries will be expected to collect nationality data from children as young as 2 years old on 19th January 2017 for the Early Years Census and Spring School Census. We will continue to urge parents and carers to refuse to answer these questions. We also ask schools, and professionals working with children not to put these questions to children and parents and instead to use “Not Yet Obtained” or “Not Known” for the relevant censuses.

“Parents are upset, not just about how this information might be used but because these questions are asked at all. They are fundamentally intrusive in the same way that the listing of foreign workers would be.”

 

– The Earl of Clancarty, Crossbencher

The Statutory Instrument enabling this policy was rushed through without scrutiny during the summer recess and the Lords have highlighted flaws with the legislation. Nationality and country of birth information for many pupils has already been collected through the Autumn School Census (PDF). However, some schools asked parents to provide birth certificates, passports, or other identity documentation, even though Department for Education guidance stated that this was not necessary.  Other schools asked only non-white children for the information, which is clearly discriminatory.

Parents are legally entitled to refuse to give nationality or country of birth data, but this right was often not communicated to them, causing significant confusion and distress. Our campaign has received hundreds of flawed forms, complaints and concerns from parents, children and school staff. We also welcome that the National Union of Teachers has released a statement in response to the policy reminding the government that “schools are not part of policing immigration”.

The Department for Education has stated that the new data is being collected to help it assess “the scale and impact of pupil migration on the education sector”, and that it will not be accessible by the Home Office. However, a recent Parliamentary question revealed that existing data on almost 2,500 individuals was requested by the Home Office between July 2015 and September 2016 for the purposes of immigration enforcement. Lord Nash had stated that country of birth and nationality data will not be held on the National Pupil Database due to its sensitivity, but previous DfE assurances on its data security and sharing with the Home Office have been proven to be false.

We and the thousands of parents and teachers who support us will continue to campaign to ensure that school is a safe place for all children, wherever they may come from. We look forward to more parliamentary opposition to the collection of nationality and country of birth information from children. The government must destroy the data it already has, and end data-sharing between the Home Office and Department for Education for immigration enforcement purposes.

 

Migrant youth are asking for your solidarity on Monday

sinfronteras

Last weekend, ABC met with a group of young women and girls from Sin Fronteras – a youth project that is part of the Latin American Womens Rights Service – to talk to them about the campaign, and the upcoming debate in the House of Lords.  The talk came during a workshop in which the group were creating a zine on equal rights in education, including information to raise awareness of the new DfE policy.

Members of the group spoke about their experiences with the new country of birth and nationality data collection, with some being shocked when they discovered they actually had the right to refuse this information.

“I got a letter from school asking for my nationality and country of birth – it didn’t say that we can refuse, we thought it was obligatory”.

All expressed their dismay at the data collection and its link to immigration, particularly given that the Home Office and the police have been granted access to the National Pupil Database (NPD) on numerous occasions over the past 4 years.  They voiced anxiety at what the policy could mean for those whose families are undocumented, and also at how this data collection might link to Brexit, for those with non-British passports.  Even with the assurance that their families would face no sanctions if they refused to provide this data, group members worried that such refusal could in itself mark them out from their British counterparts:

“If we say ‘refused’ on the form, could they not use that to know we are undocumented?”.

This is why we called on British parents and children to also support the boycott –  no group should be singled out by their rejection of this policy, nor should the fight against it fall only on the shoulders of those it most directly affects.

It is difficult to offer sufficient reassurances with such a discriminatory policy causing real fear and anxiety for young people and their families.  The first School census day (6th October) to include this data happened in the same week the Home Secretary announced the policy for companies to report the number of foreign national employees.  While the government have since declared that these lists will not be made public, they will still be constructed, and secretly held by the government for future planning.  

It was also revealed today that in the last 14 months, the Home Office has asked the Department for Education for access to the school records of almost 2500 children, including for immigration enforcement purposes. Such a hostile environment makes it easily apparent that we must do all we can to have this policy repealed.  The group expressed determination to fight for the rejection of this policy, and persuade others around them to do the same.

“Now we are conscious that we, as migrant youth, can refuse to give this information and oppose this legislation that will affect the opportunity we have to educate ourselves freely. As young Latin Americans living in London, we believe that we have the same right to education and that it shouldn’t be a privilege of citizenship or migrant status.”

The group urged everyone to contact members of the House of Lords ahead of the debate on 31 October, writing to a Lord they already know; the Lord Watson, Labour’s Education Spokesperson in the House, or even on Twitter at @LabourLordsUK & @LibDemLords using #EducationNotDeportation and #BoycottSchoolCensus.  

The debate will be a chance for Peers to vote to show that they want the policy to be scrapped. Having them understand the depth of worry over the policy can help to persuade them to make this happen.  So many have expressed their outrage and disbelief at this policy, and by expressing yours, you still have time to make a tangible difference.

ABC Day of Action: Contact your local MP and councillors!

Today, Thursday 6th October is School Census day in England. Academies and local authority schools will be electronically submitting school census data to the Department of Education. 

Against Borders for Children is calling today a Day of Action to protect immigrant children in England.

For the first time ever, the school census includes immigration data, i.e. country of birth and nationality of pupils in Primary and Secondary Education and young people in sixth forms attached to a secondary school.

Schools are asking parents to send this data in but parents have a right to refuse providing this information. However some schools are not making this right clear to parents.


Against Borders for Children has already taken action by sending a letter to Justine Greening with over 20 other organisations. Now we are asking everyone in the UK but especially in England to contact their political representatives to raise concerns about this new policy and the manner that some of this data has been collected.

Please take 5 minutes today to email and/or call your local councillor, your local MP and even your school board of governors.

If calling your MP, you can use the following text:

I am a constituent of yours and I am concerned about the new nationality and country of birth questions on the Department for Education’s School Census. 

I have heard in the press that schools have been asking parents with foreign sounding names to bring in their passports and non-white British children asked to hand in their birth certificates.

The National Pupil Database will permanently store this information and it will be accessible at an individual level for other government departments including the Home Office that recently announced it wants to publish lists of firms that hire foreign workers. I worry that a future policy will be to make public all the schools with large numbers of foreign pupils. 

I would like you to ask the Schools Minister to withdraw this policy and delete country of birth and nationality data from the National Pupil Database and also remove these questions from the Early Years and Schools Censuses.

Please also email your local MP and copy us in at hello@schoolsabc.net also send us any responses you get!

Get involved and look at our resources page.

VIDEO: “I have the right to go to school and feel safe”

Young people from the Latin American Women’s Rights Service project: “Sin Fronteras” and the advocacy group Jawaab UK have come together to make this powerful video to promote our campaign.

Please share this and remind parents that they have until Wednesday 5th October to opt-out or their children’s immigration data may be obtained and sent to the Department of Education where it will be permanently and irreversibly stored. Parents will not be able to ask for this information to be deleted after this date, so the opt-out is crucial to protect their child’s data.

You can use our letter template to opt-out and email/write to your school TODAY.

Over 20 organisations sign Against Borders for Children letter to Justine Greening

Today as reported in The Guardian, over 20 leading organisations including Liberty, the Refugee Council, the Institute of Race Relations and the Latin American Women’s Rights Service have written to the Secretary of State for Education, Justine Greening to oppose the child migrant census policy.  The letter is in support of the Against Borders for Children (ABC) campaign, launched earlier this month to overturn a new policy which seeks to collect immigration data on every child aged between 2 and 19 in England. See our letter here.

The policy has been in effect from the start of term and caused some confusion as some schools have unlawfully asked parents of non-white British children to bring in passports and birth certificates. Like ABC, the organisations who have co-signed the letter are concerned that this data could be used in future by immigration enforcement against individual children and families. The campaign is urging parents to refuse to take part, as they are legally entitled to do, as part of a national boycott.

The Department for Education (DfE) has explicitly linked this policy to immigration in the past, saying it is “to assess and monitor the scale and impact immigration may be having on the schools sector”. In 2013, 

The Home Office and the police already have access to information on the National Pupil Database, but most parents and school staff do not know about plans for this information to be added to the National Pupil Database or that existing data is already being used by third parties.

Gracie Mae Bradley, from Against Borders for Children, said:

“It’s inspiring to see so many of this country’s leading organisations with an interest in migrants’ rights come on board with this campaign. The pressure is now really on the Secretary of State to change her mind and abandon this risky and unnecessary policy.

“School should be a place where all children are treated equally. In the context of a ‘hostile environment’ in which employers, landlords and even healthcare workers are being turned into border guards, we believe this new requirement could be used to add school administrators to the list. We are also deeply concerned that this data will be made available (without time limit) much more widely outside the schools system, which cannot be acceptable.

“Over the coming weeks we expect the organisations opposing this divisive approach to be joined by many more, and for parents and schools to join the boycott and protect young people from this dangerous threat to their privacy.”

Don Flynn of the Migrants’ Rights Network, a signatory to the letter, said:

“This proposal risks all the vital work that teachers have been doing to promote trust between schools and the parents of migrant pupils.  A decade of real advance in the schools which serve migrant communities will be placed in jeopardy if it seems that education is being compromised by an agenda driven by immigration enforcement priorities.

“People in migrant communities across the UK have been thrown into great uncertainty about their future as a result of the Brexit vote and the harsher tone of the public debate.  The DfE should not be adding to this anxiety by introducing a measure which will inevitably increase the sense of being watched and scrutinised by state agencies with a view to future deportations.”

Carolina Gottardo, Director of Latin American Women’s Rights Service, a signatory to the letter, said:

“No child is illegal. There should be a clear dividing line between access to education and immigration control. School’s recent requests for data on nationality and country of origin is already leading to the discrimination of children from ethnic minority and migrant backgrounds. This is unacceptable. Children should not be targeted on the grounds of their race, colour or nationality and teachers should not be placed in a position of “de facto” immigration control officers. The provision of this data is not reasonably justified or required by legislation.”

Our letter to Justine Greening, Secretary of State for Education

Download the PDF of this letter (signatories correct for September 2016)

Dear Secretary of State,

Collection of nationality and country of birth data in the Early Years Census and School Census

We are writing regarding changes to the Early Years Census and School Census, announced in May 2016. We are concerned that schools and other education institutions have been instructed to collect country of birth and nationality data on pupils aged 2-19 for the express purpose of helping the Department for Education ‘assess and monitor the scale and impact immigration may be having on the schools sector’, in the context of an effort to investigate ‘education tourism’ begun by your predecessor.

Nationality and country of birth data is already collected through the National Census, and teachers also already gather data on ‘English as an additional language’. The crucial issue is that the way that information has been collected up until now has meant needs were assessed without connecting immigration data to a child’s name or home address at national level. If the Department for Education wishes to make further resources available to schools, existing data sets should suffice. No explanation has been given as to how this extra data will assist in targeting provision to the schools and children who need it.

We are also concerned about children and families’ right to privacy. Although parents are not legally obliged to provide immigration data to schools, this right of refusal is not being uniformly communicated. School Census data is submitted to the National Pupil Database, which currently holds records on around 20 million people. A Freedom of Information request by Defend Digital Me has revealed that this data is already shared with other public authorities such as the Home Office and the police. Third parties, including newspapers, have also been granted access.

Without assurances to the contrary, our grave concern is that the new data collected will be shared with the Home Office and therefore potentially used for immigration enforcement purposes. We have already seen data sharing between the Home Office and other departments increase since the government announced its commitment to creating a ‘hostile environment’ for undocumented migrants. Such measures deter vulnerable children and families from accessing essential services, exercising their human rights, and participating on an equal basis in our communities.

Given the rise over recent years in xenophobic sentiment in the British media, as noted by the United Nations, newspapers granted access to the data may use it to single out and stigmatise schools attended by migrant children. Racist and xenophobic hate crime has soared since the EU referendum, extending to vandalism of migrant community centres, assaults on individual children, and murder. At this critical juncture, every organ of government should be moving to affirm the rights to dignity, safety and equality of all migrants in our society, rather than potentially exposing them to further attack.

Migrant children are not tourists or a problem whose impact needs to be mitigated. They are an integral part of what ought to be an open, multicultural and flourishing society. We would request that you reverse the requirement on schools to collect immigration data in advance of the first deadline for data submission, October 6 2016. We would also ask that you commit to protecting all children from the stigma of xenophobia, and the violence that accompanies it.

Yours sincerely,

Gracie Mae Bradley, Founding Member, Against Borders for Children
Zita Holbourne, Co-Founder / National Co-Chair, Black Activists Rising Against Cuts
Sabir Zazai, Chair of Trustees, City of Sanctuary
Jen Persson, Coordinator, defenddigitalme
Remi Joseph-Salisbury,  Founding Member, Critical Race and Ethnicities Network
Nick Dearden, Director, Global Justice Now
Liz Fekete, Director, Institute of Race Relations
Rizwan Hussain, Founder and Director, Jawaab
Saira Grant, Chief Executive, Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants
Carolina Gottardo, Director, Latin American Women’s Rights Service
Bella Sankey, Director of Policy, Liberty
Stephanie O’Connor, Chair, London Campaign Against Police and State Violence
Wayne Myslik, Director, Migrants Resource Centre
Don Flynn, Director, Migrants’ Rights Network
Malia Bouattia, President, National Union of Students
Jim Killock, Executive Director, Open Rights Group (signed 27 October 2016)
Gus Hosein, Executive Director, Privacy International
Jabeer Butt, Deputy Chief Executive, Race Equality Foundation
Rita Chadha, Chief Executive, RAMFEL
Maurice Wren, Chief Executive, Refugee Council
Lisa Matthews, Coordinator, Right to Remain
Pragna Patel, Director, Southall Black Sisters
Suresh Grover, Director, The Monitoring Group
Gargi Bhattacharyya, Co­Convenor, UK Coalition of Black Trade Unionists

Template: Letter to School Governors

The following model letter is an example of key points to put to your school governors. You can add your own personal experiences and stories to the letters, or change the text to reflect your own personal concerns, or you can send the letters as they are.

Dear [Board of School Governors / use governor’s name if you know it]

I am writing to you as a parent to express my serious concerns about the government’s forthcoming plans to collect nationality and country of birth information of school children between the ages of 2 and 19. This data is to be added to the National Pupil Database, which is accessible by various third parties including other government departments, journalists, and individual citizens. The BBC and Schools Week have stated that the collection has evolved from a previous plan to share the data with the Home Office.

This comes in the context of a rise in racist and xenophobic attacks following the vote to leave the EU, and increasingly hostile attitudes in the media towards the use of public services by migrants. The data to be collected will be directly useful to those seeking to target ideologically motivated attacks on individual schools with large migrant populations.

More urgently, this policy effectively deputises school staff as agents of immigration enforcement. This will bring the borders into the classroom, and the fear of attracting the attention of Home Office Immigration Enforcement may lead parents to keep their children away from school. I believe that all of these factors put the wellbeing of schoolchildren at risk.

As things stand, parents are not legally obliged to submit this information and I believe that the school has a duty to make them aware of this.

Since the purposes of the expanded census collection and the new use of school census data by the Home Office since 2015 have become clear after campaign pressure and press scrutiny, the National Union of Teachers has called for this use of pupil data to end, emphasising that “schools are not part of policing immigration”.

The national subject association  for EAL, NALDIC says, they “would like to urge the Department for Education to reconsider its position urgently” “…nationality should not be conflated with EAL proficiency.  They are separate issues.”

This issue is of great importance to me and I hope that the school will act on it. As such, I request that you will raise the following points at the next governors’ meeting. In order to protect the best interests of all school children and to avoid a breakdown of trust between parents and school staff, the school should:

  1. Make all parents fully aware of their right to refuse or retract this information
  2. Adopt a positive policy not to comply with the gathering of nationality or immigration status data
  3. Support the lawful boycott organised by the Against Borders for Children campaign

More information about policy and its dangers, links to press reports, and other resources, can be found at schoolsabc.net.

Yours,

[Your name]

Template: Letter to local MP

The following model letter/e-mail is an example of key points to make to your MP. You can add your own personal experiences and stories to the letters, or change the text to reflect your own personal concerns, or you can send the letters after filling in your details.

To find your MP’s contact details, visit They Work For You

If you receive replies to your letters please send them to hello@schoolsabc.net

Dear [MP’s name]

I am writing to you as a constituent to express my serious concerns about the government’s collection of information on the immigration status of school children between the ages of 5 and 19.

While there is no mention of the data being used for immigration enforcement in the school census guidance, its use is part of a strategic goal to create a hostile environment for migrants and data about individual children is being sent to the Home Office, with 2,462 records sent between July 2015 and September 2016 in what Lord Storey has described as “another way.. to make people who live in the UK but were born abroad feel unwelcome”.

This comes in the context of a rise in racist and xenophobic attacks following the vote to leave the EU, and increasingly hostile attitudes in the media towards the use of public services by migrants. More urgently, this policy effectively deputises school staff as immigration enforcers, bring the borders into the classroom, and the fear of attracting the attention of UK Visa and Immigration enforcement may lead people to keep their children away from school. I believe that all of these factors put the well-being of schoolchildren at risk.

I am calling on you to look further into this issue and to do everything in your power to stop this policy. I would like you to write to the the Department for Education about the potential dangers of the new policy and to raise the issue (in Parliament and more broadly) to ensure that parents are aware of their lawful right not to comply with these requests for nationality status information.

More information about policy and its dangers, links to press reports, and other resources, can be found at schoolsabc.net .

Yours,

[Your name]
[Your address]