A huge 'Refugees Welcome' mat is placed at the Hastings Museum and Hastings Borough Council

The UK government’s latest immigration bill aims to shut down the UK’s asylum system and is damaging to refugee rights globally.

Local Amnesty International UK and Hastings Community of Sanctuary supporters make their mark in solidarity with refugees and migrants by placing a large 5ft by 3ft ‘Refugees Welcome’ mat at the Hastings Museum and Gallery and the Hastings Borough Council Offices today. Several councillors including the leader and the deputy leader of the Hastings Council took part.

Following the UK Court of Appeal’s recent vital ruling that the Government’s plan to send people seeking asylum on a one-way trip to Rwanda is unlawful, Amnesty is calling for the Government to scrap the current immigration bill speeding through Parliament.

Amnesty International Hastings & Rye together with Hastings Community of Sanctuary activists are highlighting the numerous unjust issues in the asylum system that need to be abandoned - from the draconian immigration bill to the chronic backlog of cases that need to be processed, and the use of former military barracks and de-commissioned cruise ships that the Government plans to use for people fleeing violence and persecution.

Despite the government's divisive policies and rhetoric, local Amnesty members and Hastings Community of Sanctuary made clear that Hastings welcomes people fleeing conflict and persecution.

The negative rhetoric and headlines from ministers are being used to distract from the urgent need to decide people’s asylum claims fairly and efficiently which the UK government is still failing to do.

Amnesty International Hastings & Rye and Hastings Community of Sanctuary warn that the impact and harms of the latest immigration bill will fundamentally undermine the UK’s asylum system, damage refugee rights globally and is a blatant breach of the 1951 UN Refugee Convention which the UK played an important part in creating.

Amnesty International Hastings & Rye joins Hastings Community of Sanctuary in calling “for a just and fair asylum system based on human rights and the UK’s international obligations and treating asylum-seekers as human beings, respecting their humanity and dignity. We believe that detention camps are not the answer. We believe in Communities, Not Camps.”