The UK’s routine use of immigration detention harms people’s wellbeing, separates families, and wastes public money, all without improving compliance or delivering fairer outcomes. We campaign for community‑based alternatives that provide stability, legal support, and dignity while people resolve their immigration cases. These models are more humane, more effective, and far less costly than detention, and they align deeply with Jewish principles of protecting the vulnerable and avoiding punitive harm. 

Too many people seeking protection are forced into dangerous journeys because safe routes are limited, restrictive, or unavailable to most nationalities. We advocate for a standardised approach to setting up safe refugee routes in response to international atrocities and community sponsorship pathways that enable local communities – including Jewish communities – to welcome people directly. Safe routes save lives. They also reflect a Jewish ethical imperative: when someone’s life is at risk, we create pathways to safety, not barriers to survival. 

The UK has long recognised that offering protection to people fleeing danger is not merely an act of charity, but a legal and moral obligation. At the heart of these responsibilities sits the 1951 Refugee Convention, to which the UK was one of the first signatories. Under this Convention, the UK must allow people to apply for asylum and must not return them to places where their lives or freedom would be at risk. This principle – non‑refoulement – is the cornerstone of all modern refugee protection. 

These duties are reinforced by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which affirms that every person has the right to seek asylum from persecution, and by a range of other international treaties that protect liberty, dignity, family life, and freedom from inhumane treatment. Together, these frameworks require the UK to run an asylum system that is accessible, fair, and humane: one where people are not punished for the ways they arrive, where they are treated with dignity while their cases are considered, and where their rights – including safety and family unity – are respected throughout. 

Jewish bloc at Manston protest, 2022

Refugee support is an essential Jewish value embedded throughout Jewish texts, and keenly felt throughout Jewish history. Jewish tradition commands us to care for the stranger because we ourselves were and are strangers. Refugee protection is not an abstract value – it is a core component of Jewish memory. From biblical injunctions to help the displaced, to Rabbinic teachings emphasising the dignity of those in danger, to our collective experience fleeing pogroms, persecution, and the Holocaust, Jewish history teaches us that safe refuge can mean the difference between life and death. A compassionate asylum system is not only a legal duty – it is a moral one.