Tales from the Hostile Environment

“The way they look at you as like second class citizens. The way you’re seen as someone who just wants to come and destroy the country”

A general election looms, which inevitably means a renewed demonisation of immigrants living here.

When ice&fire was founded in 2003, the rhetoric was similar and the environment for many immigrants was hostile in practice if not in name. Since then, policies and laws affecting immigrants and those who love them, work with them, and rely upon them have become increasingly punitive.

Many immigrants living here do not have the right to vote in this election. With this new script, a curated collection of first-hand testimonies we have collected over 20 years from people impacted by these policies and laws, we invite you to listen and consider these voices during this election cycle and beyond.

Over 50 members of our Actors for Human Rights network mobilised across England and presented staged readings of this script in several locations during the week before election day.  

“They are squeezing every single penny out of you and then looking you in the eye and saying ‘can you still survive this? Do you still want to stay?’ They make you feel like you will never fit in.”

Whatever government is in power after July 4, the struggle to dismantle the Hostile Environment so immigrants can live without fear of discrimination or criminalisation must continue.