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Welcome to News from the Margins

a substack about indefinite immigration detention and the underbelly of immigration policy

Lucy Williams

09 Dec 2025 — 1 min read

This Substack aims to think about what indefinite detention is and explore its limits. I will go beyond a discussion of what happens in immigration removal centres, important though that is, and will write about immigration policy and the history of indefinite detention. These posts will challenge the normalisation of the indefinite detention of migrants. I’ll put present practice of immigration control into historical context and do my best to humanise the many victims of contemporary immigration systems including indefinite detention without trial.

I’m a writer and researcher, activist and academic, who enjoys being outdoors, walking, cycling, swimming. These are ordinary pleasures denied to many living within the UK immigration systems. 22,661 people entered immigration detention in the year ending September 2025 and many others are caught in the path of the slow-motion, administrative juggernaut that is the Home Office.

What will you get if you subscribe?

Monthly posts on different elements of indefinite detention - what’s in the news, what I’m reading, what’s bothering me.
Longer pieces of journalism and academic writing. These will include updated key data and links to other writing and expert analysis.
A space for discussion and to access articles and reports. I need your input to help me understand why we have done what we have done, why we continue to do it and how we can stop.

Goodbye Substack*

*I posted this on Substack but forgot to post it here on Ghost.... Dear readers (you precious few!) I’m leaving Substack … In January, one of the substacks I follow, ‘The Border Chronicle’ which posts about US border issues, announced they were leaving Substack because of the platform’s choice

A Return - to a place I used to call home.

(In which: I return to Thailand, reconnect with family and consider the plight of border communities caught up in the political psychodrama of old enemies.) I used to live in Thailand and there was a time when I assumed I’d have a close connection to Thailand throughout my life.

Gotcha! Data, Information and Channel crossing.

This short commentary considers the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act (BSAIA 2025) and the new criminal offences that came into force this week. The BSAIA and the prosecution of these new offences rely heavily on the use of remote intelligence. We are in an age dominated by the wizardry

Indefinite Immigration Detention in the UK

The UK, like many other countries, has a long history of casting social outcasts, foreigners and misfits as threats to society. These groups, incarcerated and indefinitely detained, have included the mentally ill, ‘enemy aliens’, prisoners of war and suspected members of prescribed terror groups. At the moment, today, we are

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Goodbye Substack*

A Return - to a place I used to call home.

Gotcha! Data, Information and Channel crossing.

Indefinite Immigration Detention in the UK