Serco, if you care about Black talent drop your racist immigration contracts!

Dear Caroline Mayhead – People Director, Serco Citizen Services UK,

As artists, organisers and advocates for justice, we see through Serco’s attempts to clean your image and refuse to let you use cultural events to cover up how you profit from cruel hostile environment policies.

Serco’s sponsorship of the Black Talent Awards does not show a commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity - it shows your hypocrisy when you continue to enable the surveillance and detention of racialised communities in the UK. While we celebrate the Black Talent Awards and share its mission to recognise Black Talent in the UK, we will not let Serco cover up how you profit from racialised violence.

We are now calling to you to end contracts for the UK’s hostile environment policy, which was deemed by the Home Office’s own assessment to “disproportionately impact” Black and Asian people.

Serco, you cannot say you support diversity, equity and inclusion when you are profiting from racialised violence and misery from your detention centres and asylum accommodation.

Abri wrote to Women for Refugee Women from inside Yarl’s Wood: “Really things are not as they seem, to Serco we have a price tag, we are part of million pound business deals, and our pain is Serco’s profit, And while we are in these premises they have the power to do as they will with us, because after all we are just parcels that need to be sent to a different address by all means necessary. And they call this justice?”

Serco runs Derwentside, the UK’s main detention centre for women, notorious for distressing conditions and featured in a June 2023 investigation which highlighted "horrific levels of violence and racism" among Mitie and Serco staff. Serco also runs Yarl’s Wood Detention Centre where a Serco employee made allegations of sexual and physical abuse by staff, and which has been described as a form of "kidnapping" and "modern slavery" by an asylum seeker held there. 

Serco, you cannot say you support diversity, equity and inclusion when you are profiting from racialised surveillance.  

Micheal (pseudonym) is a client of Bail for Immigration Detainees who, despite arriving to the UK as a baby, is facing deportation and is being tracked by the Home Office 24/7. He is forced to wear an ankle tag supplied by Serco about which he said: “I suffer from more scrutiny in public, the police stop me, people stare, they think I must have committed a grievous crime for me to put on GPS tag. Obviously, I’m a Black male with a monitor on my ankle, the stereotype is just flashing before everyone’s eyes.”

Serco is currently profiting from the 24/7 location monitoring of asylum seekers, migrants and people facing deportation who are British in all but paperwork. This has been widely condemned by national and international public bodies including the United Nations Human Rights Committee, the Information Commissioner's Office and the Independent Chief Inspector of Immigration & Borders. And, courts have recently found some individuals had been unlawfully tagged.

These are just a few voices from the many affected by your harmful business operations. Your continued involvement in racialised violence and discrimination undermines your values of Trust, Care, Innovation and Pride. 

We strongly encourage you to take immediate action and end all contracts for the implementation of hostile environment policies. 

Signed By:

The Association of Visitors to Immigration Detainees (AVID)
Abolish Reporting Campaign
Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID)
Black Lives Matter UK
Books Against Borders 
CARAS
Climate Cymru
Climate Reframe 
Connected Routes CIC
Conversation Over Borders
Culture Unstained
Divest Borders (People & Planet)
Greenpeace UK
Global Justice Now
Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit
Greater Manchester Migrant Destitution Fund
Haringey Welcome
Iris Andrews, New Constellations
Kalayaan
Latin American Women’s Rights Service (LAWRS)
Leah Borromeo - journalist and filmmaker
Loraine Masiya Mponela -  poet
Medact
Merseyside Solidarity Knows No Borders
Migrants in Culture
Migrants’ Rights Network 
Migrants Organise 
Natasha Walter - writer
Paddy Loughman - strategist
Polish Migrants Organise for Change (POMOC)
Praxis
Privacy International
Reclaim the Sea
Refugee Action
Refugee and Migrant Forum of Essex and London (RAMFEL)
Right to Remain
Social Workers Without Borders
South Yorkshire Migration and Asylum Action Group (SYMAAG)
Statewatch
Student Action for Refugees (STAR)
The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants
Tipping Point UK
West London Welcome
William Gomes - Director, The William Gomes Podcast 
Women For Refugee Women 
UK Tar Sands Network 
War on Want

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