As shareholders gather today for Serco’s Annual General Meeting, I sit here, with an immigration tag around my ankle, calling on this private firm to stop profiting from unjust and inhumane immigration policy.

Since 2021, Britain’s Home Office and its contractors have been expanding the so-called “hostile environment” for migrants through invasive surveillance technology.

Now Serco — a company responsible for more than a decade of abuse and financial scandals, including defrauding the government — is to profit from a £200 million contract to provide the technology used to surveil people without British citizenship.

I came to the United Kingdom as a baby, after my family fled a civil war. I went to primary school, secondary school, and college here. My child and my whole family are here. I don’t know anything about the country I was born in. I don’t even speak the language — England is the only home I know.

Unfortunately, I fell into a lifestyle I shouldn’t have and, as a consequence, I had to serve a criminal sentence. The law states that if you don’t have British citizenship and you commit a crime you are to be deported — even if, like me, you grew up and have a child here.

I am being punished over and over again. First with a prison sentence, then with being locked up in prison for immigration purposes, and now with an ankle tag. All of that while facing deportation from my home and family.

When I was finally released from immigration detention, they said I had no family ties in the UK and had to be tagged. I explained that I wanted to stay with my child, so I wouldn’t ever abscond, but they tagged me anyway. Data shows less than 3 percent of people abscond. But the Home Office often uses this supposed risk as an excuse to detain and track people.

It’s hard to explain the experience of being tracked to people in my life. When you are released, at first it feels amazing, but then it starts to feel like quicksand. The effects of the tag settle in, and you realize that even though you’re out of detention, you’re not free. This experience has had such a huge mental and emotional impact on me. Because of it, I have been sitting down with a psychiatrist to try and handle the effects.

We have all done something we are not proud of, but the tag is constantly reminding you, pushing it in your face. I can’t focus on my future. I’m still on the day I was arrested. I want to do something positive and be a role model for my child, so he doesn’t go down the same path as me. But the message from the Home Office is clear: there is no rehabilitation for me.

The other day, I met someone who was also tagged and lost his job as a result. Why can’t the Home Office allow us to turn our lives around? We have done our time, but because we don’t have British citizenship, they are keeping us in a pit.

When I was in prison, there was a whole landing of people struggling in their attempts to detox from drugs. It hit me that so many people sell drugs without seeing the effects and outcomes of their actions.

There is a parallel there with shareholders, who profit from contracts that destroy lives without seeing how it impacts people. There is an intimate connection between policy and business. When the Home Office announces racialized policies that oppress minorities, it is businesses like Serco that benefit.

It may be legal but it’s ruining people’s lives. What’s the difference? Harm is harm. Yet, unlike the majority of people in prison, shareholders are in a privileged position. They have a choice to invest in something positive.

The government tries to blame people from migrant backgrounds for their failings to create a society where we feel safe. But if they want to tackle crime, it would mean investing in society, in housing, education, health care, youth clubs, and access to justice. It would be a great start if the government invested £200 million in these things rather than giving it to Serco.

Even the United Nations has said the government shouldn’t be tagging people for immigration reasons and the Information Commissioners’ Office has found parts of the scheme unlawful. You’d have thought their shareholders might object to that, at least.

The Home Office want us to feel powerless, but the power is with the people. It is time for Serco’s shareholders to speak up and for us, the public. They have to question the government and cannot continue to blindly take on immoral contracts. We have to stand up for what is right and voice our opinion. Otherwise, they are free to do what they want.