Dear friends,

My name is Sr Maria and I’ve been volunteering with JRS UK for over 8 years, accompanying people in immigration detention centres or supporting them over the phone.

I work mostly with Vietnamese people who have been detained after being trafficked – translating documents, helping with referrals, or providing emotional support.

Thanh, one of the many young men I’ve worked with, told me about gangsters who threatened his family because they could not pay their debts. He risked his life to go abroad, following false promises from traffickers of a better life, where he could earn money to help his family. In the UK, his passport was taken, and he was left homeless and empty-handed. Enslaved, trapped, exploited.

Thanh was eventually arrested, put in prison and ultimately found himself in immigration detention. He, and so many people like him, are treated as perpetrators, not victims, of crime.

With limited, or often no English, those I’ve accompanied feel confused and isolated in detention. If they are unable to access an interpreter, it can become impossible to navigate the system and to access justice. People live in a legal limbo waiting to be released.

When I think about my time accompanying Thanh and other people in detention, I remember the words from the Gospel, Jesus saying that he comes to “proclaim liberty to captives… to set at liberty to those who are oppressed”.

In volunteering with JRS UK, my mission is to help these young men have a voice and find hope. I strive to accompany them so that they know they have someone who will walk with them, without fear of judgement or condemnation.

This Jubilee Year, we are called to be pilgrims of hope and stand in solidarity with people who are poor and oppressed. Will you join me in sending hope to people in detention by supporting JRS UK’s Lent Appeal?