PROTESTERS rallied outside a Home Office refugee reporting centre in Manchester today demanding the release of asylum-seekers held by the government.

Campaign groups said that despite the government putting its failed Rwanda scheme on hold, and a Labour commitment to dump the plan, men and women earmarked for deportation are still in custody.

Campaign groups have joined forces in north-west England to fight for the release of detainees and the scrapping of the Rwanda laws.

They include Stand Up to Racism, Women Asylum-Seekers Together (WAST), These Walls Must Fall, Refugee and Asylum-Seeker Voice, Refugee and Asylum Participatory Action Research (Rapar) and other refugee and anti-racist organisations and individuals.

The groups mounted a protest in Manchester’s Piccadilly Gardens before protesting at the Home Office’s Dallas Court Reporting Centre in Salford, where they handed in a petition.

In the first week of May this year, the Home Office launched a series of dawn raids in a much-trumpeted “round-up” of refugees chosen for deportation to Rwanda, even filming arrested refugees being led away in handcuffs.

Protester Nahella Ashraf told the Morning Star: “The Home Office even bought new vans to go to reporting centres to pick people up.

“We know there were thousands of people at risk. People were picked up at reporting centres.

“Even if they did not meet the criteria for the Rwanda project, they were still scared. People were going through real trauma.”

The deportations are on hold pending the outcome of the general election on July 4.

Ms Ashraf said: “Now that the flights are not going, why are they still holding people? It’s a disgrace that, when there are so many issues the government should be dealing with, they are putting so much into targeting refugees.

“They think it is a vote-winner, but it is not.

“More importantly, we do not want Labour coming in saying they are going to be tough on refugees.

“Rather than putting resources into detaining them, they should be processing them and creating safe routes. We know they can do it because they have done it for Ukrainian refugees.”