The report on the 2014 Scanlon Foundation Mapping Social Cohesion surveys, released on Wednesday, finds both continuity and change. On attitudes to asylum seekers, for example, there is a large measure…
Once upon a time, you could tell an election was just around the corner when politicians of all kinds started talking relentlessly about crime. “Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” was Tony Blair’s…
The UK has taken a bad turn in its attitude towards foreigners. I am a Portuguese national doing biomedical research for the NHS and King’s College London in collaboration with very talented staff from…
This fall, French street artist JR and American cinematographer Bradford Young each installed a series of portraits in crumbling New York buildings. The two projects were not coordinated, but together…
Ask anyone on the street or in the pub about immigration and they’ll invariably say it’s all about boats, 457s and more boats. But immigration policy is obviously about more than just that, and in parallel…
How do Australian institutions and political leaders draw on history to tell us who we are? How do they make sense of Australia’s past as a country of immigration and a nation that has accommodated hundreds…
David Cameron made a play for Eurosceptic hearts during his speech to the Conservative Party conference by promising to put the free movement of EU citizens at the heart of his renegotiation strategy in…
This afternoon, the Australian Senate will be asked to vote on a Greens disallowance motion, which seeks to stop the Abbott government repealing several types of family visas. These include: the Parent…
Calais might be in France, but it is the front line of Britain’s battle to control immigration. Yet the governments of both countries continue to pass the buck between each other and very little progress…
A recent joint report by British Future and Universities UK has criticised the Coalition for imposing unnecessary limits on the numbers of foreign students allowed into the country. Its authors say government…
David Cameron has pledged to put families at the heart of his government with a focus on policies that help those most in need. But his rhetoric is rank hypocrisy. While the prime minister claims to put…
The recent discovery of 35 men, women and children in a shipping container at Tilbury docks in Essex is shocking for many reasons. Few had known that people were being brought into the UK in shipping containers…
Two studies about the impact of migration on the UK economy have been published which – if media reports are to believed – appear to contradict one another. A closer reading of these reports, however…
If a visit to Christmas Island sounds like fun, think again. A remote tropical island in the Indian Ocean – billed as a birdwatcher’s paradise and a haven for snorkelling – has a dark side. It is “home…
Recent reports have indicated that the Home Office has enjoyed access to the NHS records of more than 6,900 people since 2010, and used information from them for ramped-up efforts to track down illegal…
One question that keeps raising its head in the Scottish independence debate is about border controls and what would happen between Scotland and the rest of the UK at border towns like Gretna Green – a…
There are now more than 1.1 million children in our schools whose first language “is known or believed to be other than English” according to the latest government figures. This confirms a continuous upwards…
Like football, globalisation creates winners and losers. For now, the England football team is one of the back markers. By globalisation we mean free movement: it is the increase in mobility across national…
Mediterranean societies have been described as communities of honour and shame. The fundamental currency of their social order is respect. When the Lebanese civil war drove thousands of its citizens to…
Professor of International Migration and Forced Displacement and Director of the Institute for Research into International Migration and Superdiversity, University of Birmingham