tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/british-immigration-policy-31464/articles
British immigration policy – The Conversation
2023-06-02T15:53:42Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/204840
2023-06-02T15:53:42Z
2023-06-02T15:53:42Z
Windrush compensation scheme: how the UK government is failing its citizens with this ‘belittling and horrible’ process
<p>The <a href="https://www.gov.uk/windrush-prove-your-right-to-be-in-the-uk">Windrush scheme</a> was set up in 2018 to provide documentary confirmation of British citizenship and residency rights for the Windrush generation and other commonwealth citizens, and their children. This came in the wake of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/16/windrush-u-turn-welcome-but-theresa-may-policy-cruel">growing scandal</a> that had seen the Home Office, as a result of Theresa May’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/hostile-environment-the-uk-governments-draconian-immigration-policy-explained-95460">hostile environment policy</a>, repeatedly refuse existing residency rights to many people whose home had been the UK for decades. </p>
<p>In announcing the scheme, then home secretary Amber Rudd apologised for her government’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/16/theresa-may-caribbean-representatives-windrush-immigration">appalling treatment</a> of the Windrush generation. People had suffered devastating harm. They had lost jobs and homes, and been deprived of healthcare. Many had been threatened with deportation. Some were <a href="https://theconversation.com/men-deported-to-jamaica-are-being-set-up-for-failure-151261">deported</a> to countries they had not visited since early childhood. </p>
<p>In the five years since, however, this scandal has only deepened. </p>
<p>The UK government set up the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/apply-windrush-compensation-scheme">Windrush compensation scheme</a> in 2019, to allow victims of the Windrush scandal to claim compensation for any losses suffered as a result of being denied the right to live in the UK. But even as the wider process has revealed the true impact of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/may/29/windrush-scandal-caused-by-30-years-of-racist-immigration-laws-report">historical racist immigration laws</a>, the compensation scheme has been marred by <a href="https://www.civilsociety.co.uk/news/home-office-criticised-after-windrush-grants-scrapped-for-2022-23.html">delays</a> and controversies. Crucially, it has largely lost the trust of the people it was set up to serve. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528239/original/file-20230525-19-6vicuz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528239/original/file-20230525-19-6vicuz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528239/original/file-20230525-19-6vicuz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528239/original/file-20230525-19-6vicuz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528239/original/file-20230525-19-6vicuz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528239/original/file-20230525-19-6vicuz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528239/original/file-20230525-19-6vicuz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>This article is part of our <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/windrush-75-139220?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=Windrush75&utm_content=InArticleTop">Windrush 75 series</a>, which marks the 75th anniversary of the HMT Empire Windrush arriving in Britain. The stories in this series explore the history and impact of the hundreds of passengers who disembarked to help rebuild after the second world war.</em></p>
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<p>Despite extensive scrutiny and repeated calls for reform – from the all-party law reform and human rights organisation <a href="https://files.justice.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/12142211/JUSTICE-Report-Reforming-the-Windrush-Compensation-Scheme-Press-Copy.pdf">Justice</a>, a <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmhaff/204/report.html">home affairs select committee</a>, the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-person-report-on-the-windrush-compensation-scheme/independent-person-report-on-the-windrush-compensation-scheme-oversight-and-performance">independent person</a> appointed in 2021 by the government to assess the Windrush compensation scheme, and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60943533">campaigners</a> – very little change has occurred. In April 2023, the NGO Human Rights Watch <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/04/17/uk-hostile-compensation-scheme-fails-windrush-victims">said</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>[The scheme] is failing and violating the rights of many to an effective remedy of human rights abuses suffered.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I work in the <a href="https://windrushjc.org/about-us/">Windrush Justice Clinic</a> alongside community groups, law centres including <a href="https://www.southwarklawcentre.org.uk/windrush/">Southwark Law Centre</a>, and several universities. We help victims receive the compensation they deserve through legal casework, outreach and policy reform. </p>
<p>My research compares the Windrush compensation scheme with other such schemes in a bid to gauge its effectiveness. The fact that the perpetrator of the harm caused – the Home Office – has primary responsibility for decisions and the rules of this scheme is a fundamental design flaw.</p>
<h2>A humiliating process</h2>
<p>In January 2022, Vincent McBean – an ex-serviceman who arrived in the UK from Jamaica with his brother Edwin when he was eight – sought help from the Windrush Justice Clinic. McBean’s children were born in the UK and lived here for a number of years, before he sent them to Ghana for their early schooling. Since 2010, he has been trying, unsuccessfully to bring them back. </p>
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<img alt="Two men sit at a table." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529434/original/file-20230531-17-8xwyfj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529434/original/file-20230531-17-8xwyfj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529434/original/file-20230531-17-8xwyfj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529434/original/file-20230531-17-8xwyfj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529434/original/file-20230531-17-8xwyfj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529434/original/file-20230531-17-8xwyfj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529434/original/file-20230531-17-8xwyfj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Vincent and Edwin McBean in the 2000s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Vincent McBean</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
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<p>Vincent McBean’s British citizenship was only recognised through the Windrush scheme in 2019, and his brother’s was not recognised until July 2022. This long delay saw Edwin denied the care and supported accommodation he has needed subsequent to a lengthy hospital stay after contracting COVID. </p>
<p>The impact on the family has been devastating, and both brothers are seeking compensation. As Vincent puts it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I have been forcibly separated from my children for many years and watched my brother suffer. Edwin lived in a cramped room completely unsuited to his health needs. There were points he had no carers, so I had to do everything for him, which also impacted my health. When I tried to resolve the situation, I found the system belittling and horrible. If you can imagine, I fought for England – [yet] I was treated like a second-class citizen. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>A flawed system</h2>
<p>The failure of the Windrush compensation scheme to deliver justice is down both to how it was designed and how it is being delivered. To Vincent’s mind, it is too complicated and bureaucratic, designed to stop people claiming compensation. </p>
<p>The application form is 44 pages long. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/home-office-routinely-disbelieves-people-even-those-claiming-asylum-from-persecution-94664">exacting standard of proof</a> for claims has been somewhat revised, but applicants are still expected to provide extensive evidence to demonstrate the loss they have suffered – a standard that legal experts have likened to the criminal standard of proof. In April 2023, for example, Human Rights Watch <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/04/17/uk-hostile-compensation-scheme-fails-windrush-victims">reported</a> that victims were being told letters from local councils demonstrating periods of homelessness were not deemed sufficient. </p>
<p>This is despite the architect of the scheme, Martin Forde, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/windrush-scandal-compensation-home-office-b2278088.html">testifying in court</a> that it was only ever meant to be “light touch on requirements for documentation”. Forde said he had expected Home Office staff to trust people:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I did not expect them to ask people in their seventies to do the legwork, and to provide documentation that they would obviously not have.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>At the same time, the application form does not adequately cover all the suffering that people have experienced. They cannot claim for loss of pensions, savings and property, among other things.</p>
<p>The fraught nature of this initial application process is only compounded by the ineffectiveness and lack of independence of the appeals system. There is no right of appeal to an independent tribunal. Instead, applicants may challenge the amount of compensation awarded or a decision that they are ineligible by seeking a review. This “tier-1” review is undertaken by the Home Office. </p>
<p>If applicants are unhappy with this decision, they can seek a tier-2 review, which the government describes as being carried out by an “independent person”. In reality, it is carried out by HMRC – the UK’s tax authority, another government department. And it can only make recommendations. </p>
<p>In May 2021, the <a href="https://www.nao.org.uk/press-releases/investigation-into-the-windrush-compensation-scheme/">National Audit Office</a> found that more than half of all Windrush compensation cases had been inadequately processed. It highlighted mistakes and inconsistencies in how caseworkers had calculated compensation, stating: “The department’s quality-assurance processes are not identifying all errors.”</p>
<p>As of March 2023, approximately 42% of the more than 2,000 applicants whose Windrush compensation scheme claims had been refused were seeking a review. And despite continuing concerns about the <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/04/17/uk-hostile-compensation-scheme-fails-windrush-victims">arbitrary nature</a> of the decisions, only 7% of those applying for a final review of their claim <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/04/17/uk-hostile-compensation-scheme-fails-windrush-victims">had received</a> an increase in compensation. </p>
<h2>Insufficient support</h2>
<p>The UK government has not made legal aid available for compensation claims, because its <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_Aid_Agency">Legal Aid Agency</a> believes the legal issues involved in these claims do not relate to relevant human rights. The Southwark Law Centre is currently challenging this position in court.</p>
<p>Instead of providing legal support to victims, the government funds a third-party training provider, <a href="https://www.we-are-digital.co.uk/windrush-compensation-scheme">We Are Digital</a>. This provider cannot provide legal advice on the substance of the compensation application. However, it nonetheless purports to assist claimants in completing the application form with a maximum of three hours support – assistance that a report by Justice characterised as “of limited value”.</p>
<p>Experienced lawyers, in their evidence to the Home Affairs Committee, have reported spending an average of 45 hours on Windrush compensation claims. Comparable compensation schemes, including those where the application process is significantly less complex, have a system in place for victims to recover their legal costs – but nothing exists for Windrush claimants. </p>
<p>The compensation scheme thus perpetuates the heavy evidential burden and culture of disbelief that has been emblematic of the hostile environment policy. The re-victimisation is profound. In <a href="https://westminsterresearch.westminster.ac.uk/download/1d27f37a1717f92cc0a2f15215d2a978068f562fdefd5a657465cf0a418e77a7/707735/The%20Windrush%20Compensation%20Scheme%20-%20Unmet%20Need%20for%20Legal%20Advice.pdf">research</a> carried out in 2022, a Windrush victim said of his dealings with the Home Office in relation to the scheme: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is almost like they are telling me: ‘We are really, really sorry for punching you in the face – however, we are sure you’ve recovered now, it wasn’t that bad of a punch, so here is another punch in the face but don’t worry about that one, because you’ve already recovered. Please accept some tape and cotton wool to make a plaster out of.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Vincent McBean, who is president of the <a href="https://waspuk.co.uk/">West Indian Association of Service Personnel</a>, says many veterans have come to see him about their situations. He encourages them to make claims but says many won’t have anything to do with it, suggesting:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The government cannot be trusted. They have no integrity and they are making it very hard for people.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Home Office has <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/7936/documents/82209/default/">acknowledged</a> that distrust in the government is one reason for the low uptake in the scheme. <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/7936/documents/82209/default/">Estimates</a> put the number of people eligible for compensation at between 11,500-15,000. And yet, as of <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/windrush-compensation-scheme-data-february-2023">February 2023</a>, only 5,647 applications have been made, of which 2,012 (36%) have been refused and 1,520 (27%) received a payment. </p>
<p>In other words, four years after the compensation scheme was set up, only one in ten of the eligible cohort have received a compensation payment. </p>
<p>“By the time I get anything, I will be dead,” Edwin McBean recently told me. At least <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmhaff/204/report.html#heading-2">23 people</a> have so far died while waiting for a decision. </p>
<p>The system in place to deliver the Windrush compensation scheme is too slow, lacks independence, and is wholly unsuited to an ageing cohort. One senior civil servant working on the compensation scheme put it plainly in evidence provided to the <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/23067/pdf/">home affairs select committee in 2021</a>. This scheme, she said, is “systematically racist and unfit for purpose”. </p>
<p>The Home Office has been approached for comment. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533175/original/file-20230621-18-hw1fuf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533175/original/file-20230621-18-hw1fuf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=144&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533175/original/file-20230621-18-hw1fuf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=144&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533175/original/file-20230621-18-hw1fuf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=144&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533175/original/file-20230621-18-hw1fuf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=181&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533175/original/file-20230621-18-hw1fuf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=181&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533175/original/file-20230621-18-hw1fuf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=181&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>You can <em><a href="https://bit.ly/3DdOERY">download the e-book here</a></em>. Thank you for your interest.</p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204840/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shaila Pal does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In the five years since the Windrush scheme was set up, the scandal of how British people have been treated by their own government has only worsened.
Shaila Pal, Director of Clinical Legal Education & Senior Lecturer, King's College London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/142860
2020-07-17T13:06:19Z
2020-07-17T13:06:19Z
Shamima Begum: what the legal ruling about her return to the UK actually means
<p>Shamima Begum, who left the UK as a 15-year-old schoolgirl for Syria in 2015, should be allowed back so that she can effectively challenge the removal of her British citizenship, the <a href="https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/WP-Begum-Judgment-NCN.pdf">Court of Appeal ruled</a> on July 16.</p>
<p>The decision – which the Home Office <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jul/16/shamima-begum-wins-right-to-return-to-uk">announced it would appeal</a> – has been portrayed as a victory for Begum and a <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/71460/judgement-in-the-begum-case-a-good-day-for-the-protection-of-human-rights/">win for human rights</a>. Opponents, such as the former home security Sajid Javid, <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/sajid-javid-deeply-concerned-shamima-begum-ruling-a4500471.html">criticised it</a> as a “lightning rod for both Islamist and far-right extremists”. </p>
<p>But neither portrayal of the case is wholly accurate. There is very little that Begum has actually gained from this decision – although it does have the potential to change the way in which counter-terrorism cases are reviewed by British immigration courts.</p>
<p>Despite the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-47286935">tens of thousands</a> of European and British nationals who travelled to Syria, Begum has been the prominent face of the British policy of removing British citizenship from those it suspects of joining Islamic State.</p>
<p>In February 2019 it emerged Begum was in a camp in Syria, soon after which the Home Secretary <a href="https://www.itv.com/news/2019-02-19/shamima-begum-has-uk-citizenship-revoked-by-british-government-itv-news-learns/">removed her citizenship</a>, arguing that she has eligibility for Bangladeshi citizenship and would not be left stateless. Her newly born child <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47500387">died soon after</a>. According to the new ruling, no substantial evidence has so far been presented to the courts of her engagement in terrorist activities while in Syria.</p>
<p>This case is actually an appeal about an appeal. Begum, who is still living in a camp in Syria, was appealing against a decision in June 2019 that refused her entry to the UK to make a separate appeal at the UK’s Special Immigration Appeals Commission.</p>
<p>Any gains she makes in the case will not automatically help her to restore her British citizenship – rather they will allow her to participate in an effective and fair manner in the immigration appeal.</p>
<p>In reality, the decision to give, and implement, a “leave to enter” order – which means somebody can enter the country – rests with the Home Office immigration officials <a href="https://www.lexisnexis.com/uk/lexispsl/immigration/document/393826/55KG-8PB1-F18H-62S5-00000-00/Leave_to_enter_and_remain_overview">who can refuse entry</a> even when somebody arrives at a British airport. So despite the new ruling, Begum has no guaranteed right of entry. Should she be refused entry or deported on arrival, the only recourse would be to bring yet another judicial review against the decision.</p>
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<img alt="Letter with Home Office logo" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348123/original/file-20200717-29-1ctr1c4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348123/original/file-20200717-29-1ctr1c4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348123/original/file-20200717-29-1ctr1c4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348123/original/file-20200717-29-1ctr1c4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348123/original/file-20200717-29-1ctr1c4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348123/original/file-20200717-29-1ctr1c4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/348123/original/file-20200717-29-1ctr1c4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Home Office is trying to block Shamima Begum’s return to the UK.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ascannio/Shutterstock</span></span>
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<h2>Immigration court responsibility</h2>
<p>In their decision, the judges reinvigorated the role of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Siac) in national security matters. The Court of Appeal reminded Siac that it is an appeals court which should conduct a full review by assessing all the facts in a case itself, rather than relying on the decisions of other courts or bodies. </p>
<p>In the past, Siac has rarely engaged with full factual analysis, at least in rulings which it makes public. My own research has shown how several human rights issues, such as the right to life, right to be free from torture and right to family life <a href="https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/102519926/rtfDefinitelyFinaldeprivationmay26submission.pdf">have not been fully evaluated</a> on their merits by Siac. Perhaps this new ruling could change this in future. </p>
<p>The new ruling points out that Begum should be allowed to enter the UK – and she could be arrested and tried should this be considered necessary for national security. She could also be placed under any necessary national security monitoring measures. However, if she is not allowed entry, her lawyers argued she remains unable to even communicate with her counsel from the camp where she’s living. The judges clearly found this convincing evidence that Begum would not be able to obtain a fair appeal in such circumstances.</p>
<h2>Not the end of the story</h2>
<p>But there is little else for human rights advocates to celebrate. The decision accepts the legal route taken by the government to cancel a person’s British citizenship for national security reasons. Human rights challenges to such laws are unlikely to be straightforward in this context. The judges were also clear that just because there may be lack of fairness if she is not present in the UK, Begum cannot win her Siac appeal solely on that basis.</p>
<p>There were, however, some guarded but sympathetic observations from the judges about how a teenager, who is likely herself a victim, had her citizenship removed. The Court of Appeal found that Siac is the best place to fully assess that, and also fully assess the risks that Begum faces after being deprived of her citizenship, such as to her life and liberty.</p>
<p>Begum’s immigration appeal is far from over – the proceedings are complicated and not easily resolved. But the ruling indicates that simply cancelling someone’s British citizenship will no longer be the end of the story for the Home Office. The government may have to answer additional legal questions about how the person is affected by such removal of citizenship.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142860/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Devyani Prabhat received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council UK 2014-2017 for a project on British citizenship. </span></em></p>
A legal expert analyses the significance of a Court Appeal ruling allowing Shamima Begum to return to the UK from Syria to fight an appeal against the removal of her British citizenship.
Devyani Prabhat, Reader in Law, University of Bristol
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/117475
2019-05-30T10:26:26Z
2019-05-30T10:26:26Z
What the UK population will look like by 2061 under hard, soft or no Brexit scenarios
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276987/original/file-20190529-192428-1ada3cb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/255549613?src=fPCylNwuDEs9-lbkSvtaYQ-1-16&size=medium_jpg">DeymosHR/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With the British parliament still deadlocked, the UK’s future Brexit strategy is not yet set in stone. Whatever path the UK chooses from here will have an impact on the future of British immigration policy – and therefore on the size of the population.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369183X.2019.1577726">new study</a>, we produced a range of population projections for the UK to the year 2061, based on assumptions about what would happen to international migration under three Brexit scenarios: no Brexit, a soft Brexit and a hard Brexit. </p>
<p>We found that under all of the scenarios, the UK population is projected to become more ethnically diverse and older – and that it will continue to grow, albeit at different rates. </p>
<p>Population growth is a key driver of demand for housing, infrastructure, school places, health care and consumption, and so population projections are essential for the effective planning of these services. Of the components which make up these projections, international migration is the least predictable, yet has a large impact on the size and composition of the population. Our scenarios therefore used different assumptions about future immigration policy. </p>
<p>For the no Brexit scenario we extrapolated trends seen in UK total immigration and emigration flows between 1991 and 2014. According to our model, this scenario would see population growth for the next few decades, with a population in 2061 of 86.9m.</p>
<p>For soft Brexit, we took the long-term assumption for net international migration in the <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationprojections/bulletins/nationalpopulationprojections/2015-10-29">national population projections</a> of the Office for National Statistics, based on the population at the end of June 2014. Our model assumed that the free movement of EU citizens would continue, but that a combination of factors would make the UK less attractive to migrants. Under this scenario, the UK population would continue to grow, but at a slower rate than the no Brexit scenario, and by 2061 the total population is projected to be 82.9m. </p>
<p>Under the hard Brexit scenario, we translated the 2010 <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/reducing-net-migration-tens-of-thousands-per-year-remains-government-target-a7145411.html">Conservative Party pledge</a> to reduce net international migration to “fewer than tens of thousands” into assumptions about immigration and emigration flows. Under this scenario, population growth would be slower, reaching 78.1m in 2061. </p>
<p>Taken together, this means that the UK population would be 8.8m people smaller by 2061 under a hard Brexit, compared to if the UK did not leave the EU. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277010/original/file-20190529-192350-4o04id.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277010/original/file-20190529-192350-4o04id.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277010/original/file-20190529-192350-4o04id.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277010/original/file-20190529-192350-4o04id.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277010/original/file-20190529-192350-4o04id.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277010/original/file-20190529-192350-4o04id.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277010/original/file-20190529-192350-4o04id.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277010/original/file-20190529-192350-4o04id.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369183X.2019.1577726">Lomax et al.</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<h2>Population ageing under all scenarios</h2>
<p>The different scenarios also have an impact on how old the population is. One way of assessing this change is to look at the number of people of working age for every one person who is retired. This measure is called the “potential support ratio” and reveals the challenge for pension, healthcare and social care systems from population ageing. It is a relatively crude measure, but does serve to highlight how the age composition of populations changes over time. </p>
<p>In our analysis, we took people over the age of 70 as a proxy for retirement – taking into account planned and potential changes to the state retirement age – and all people aged between 19 to 69 for the working population, to take into account potential educational commitments of younger people. </p>
<p>The 2016 figure was around 5.5 working age people for every one person over retirement age. Under the no Brexit scenario, this would drop to 2.8 in 2061. It would drop to 2.7 under a soft Brexit scenario while a hard Brexit would result in 2.5 people of working age per retired person. Under all scenarios, there are fewer working age people to support those in retirement. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277173/original/file-20190530-69091-1ku72l6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277173/original/file-20190530-69091-1ku72l6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277173/original/file-20190530-69091-1ku72l6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=189&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277173/original/file-20190530-69091-1ku72l6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=189&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277173/original/file-20190530-69091-1ku72l6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=189&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277173/original/file-20190530-69091-1ku72l6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=238&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277173/original/file-20190530-69091-1ku72l6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=238&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277173/original/file-20190530-69091-1ku72l6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=238&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369183X.2019.1577726">Lomax et al.</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<h2>More ethnically diverse</h2>
<p>Our results also showed that the different scenarios would have an impact on the ethnic composition of the population. Understanding the ethnic composition of the population is important for ensuring equality of opportunity and in reducing discrimination. The breakdown is also required for effective planning, because different ethnic groups have varying needs for <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/documents/post/postpn276.pdf">health care</a> and social care, particularly through the <a href="http://europepmc.org/abstract/med/19781840">provision of informal care</a> and education <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/S003803850000002X">through language provision</a>. These differences in need for different services were highlighted by a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/race-disparity-audit">2017 comprehensive audit</a> of all UK government data, which revealed that disparities aren’t uniform across all domains for all ethnicities. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-race-disparity-audit-means-little-unless-we-consider-where-people-live-85408">New 'race disparity audit' means little unless we consider where people live</a>
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<p>As a crude measure, we were able to assess the proportion of the population who aren’t white British or Irish. Under all three of our scenarios, this proportion rises. The 2016 figure was around 17.5%. Under a no Brexit scenario, this rises to 41.9% in 2061. A soft Brexit would see the figure rise to 40.4%, and a hard Brexit to 35.6%. Part of the reason for this rise, no matter what assumptions are made about international migration, is due to demographic momentum, as ethnic minority populations who are relatively young continue to grow as they form families and have children.</p>
<p>We’ve also projected an increase in ethnic diversity across a large number of local authority districts. This can be assessed by what’s called an “index of diversity”, under which a score of zero represents no diversity – all people belong to a single ethnic group – while a score of one represents complete diversity, where all groups are equally represented. </p>
<p>The maps below show that in 2016, urban areas had the highest ethnic diversity scores (shown in red), while the lowest diversity scores (shown in blue) were in rural and coastal local authorities. Under the Brexit scenario – the map shows the soft Brexit scenario but the results for hard Brexit are very similar – diversity in 2061 would be higher across the UK, with particularly high increases for those local authorities bordering the larger cities. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276801/original/file-20190528-42593-1c7thid.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276801/original/file-20190528-42593-1c7thid.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276801/original/file-20190528-42593-1c7thid.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276801/original/file-20190528-42593-1c7thid.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276801/original/file-20190528-42593-1c7thid.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276801/original/file-20190528-42593-1c7thid.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276801/original/file-20190528-42593-1c7thid.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276801/original/file-20190528-42593-1c7thid.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">These are cartograms using hexagons representing a uniform population in 2016, which are built up into local authority district sets so the area on the map is proportional to the population of the local authority district.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The hexagon map was designed by Bethan Thomas and Danny Dorling and implemented for the ETHPOP project by Pia Wohland.</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Our research shows that under all three different potential Brexit scenarios where international migration assumptions were tested, the UK population is projected to increase in size, become more ethnically diverse and the population structure shifts to one which is older.</p>
<p>These headline changes are seen across the UK, where the majority of local authority districts become more diverse in 2061 than they are now. There are major uncertainties associated with these UK projections, but the scenarios we’ve set out provide a plausible range of outcomes. Those planning future immigration policy would be wise to consider what this means for public services and for society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117475/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nik Lomax has received funding from the Economic & Social Research Council to support the research reported.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Norman has received funding from the Economic & Social Research Council to support the research reported. He is a member of the Labour Party. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip Rees has received funding from the Economic & Social Research Council to support the research reported. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pia Wohland has received funding from the Economic & Social Research Council to support the research reported.</span></em></p>
Whatever happens with Brexit, the UK population is projected to increase in size, become more ethnically diverse and shift to a structure which is older.
Nik Lomax, Associate professor in Data Analytics for Population Research, University of Leeds
Paul Norman, Lecturer in Human Geography, University of Leeds
Philip Rees, Emeritus Professor, University of Leeds
Pia Wohland, Research Academic, Queensland Centre for Population Research, The University of Queensland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/115680
2019-04-25T07:57:35Z
2019-04-25T07:57:35Z
Post-Brexit immigration policy that shuts out low-skilled migrants won’t suit anyone
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270698/original/file-20190424-19283-1lda20g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Much of the debate around low-skilled migration is built around misunderstandings. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/1245249163?src=Lv3evC5_dSaYJ798fEE2wQ-1-47&size=medium_jpg">Amani A/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With the spotlight on the date and terms on which the UK leaves the EU, the issue of immigration has paled into relative insignificance. The prime minister, Theresa May, has repeatedly stated <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pms-words-on-brexit-negotiations-6-april-2019">her intention</a> to end the free movement of people within the UK. Yet levels of public concern about <a href="https://ukandeu.ac.uk/how-have-attitudes-to-immigration-changed-since-brexit/">immigration are falling</a> and the public seem less worried about free movement than they were at the time of the 2016 referendum. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, new post-Brexit immigration policies are waiting in the wings in the form of proposals put forward in a government <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/766465/The-UKs-future-skills-based-immigration-system-print-ready.pdf">white paper</a> published in December 2018. Now, a new <a href="https://www.niesr.ac.uk/publications">collection of research papers</a> by prominent immigration researchers published by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) has taken an in-depth look at some of the proposed measures and at their underlying rationale.</p>
<p>The papers bring into stark relief a fundamental weakness at the heart of the immigration debate: the failure to recognise the more nuanced perspectives of employers, the public and migrants themselves. </p>
<p>The public debate on immigration <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/17/exploitation-migrants-way-of-life-immigration-business-model">typically depicts</a> employers as favouring migrants for reasons of cost and superior “work ethic”. The public is <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2018/04/27/where-public-stands-immigration">usually seen as opposed</a> to all but highly skilled migration, while migrants themselves <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/11/freedom-of-movement-is-a-noble-aspiration-but-we-can-no-longer-d/">are viewed as having little aspiration</a> beyond low-skilled work.</p>
<p>These three misunderstandings have led to the policy proposals in the recent white paper, which place tight limits on low-skilled migration which <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/immigration-white-paper-brexit-sajid-javid-guest-workers-integration-a8692231.html">could considerably reduce</a> EU migration. The policies will prove particularly problematic for employers in lower-skilled sectors – but evidence also suggests that they aren’t what the public want either.</p>
<h2>Employers’ motivations</h2>
<p>Research consistently finds that migrants meet skill and labour shortages in key economic sectors. It’s often assumed that some employers prefer to recruit EU migrants and that they do so to undercut the pay of locals and as an alternative to training. But research by labour market expert Anne Green <a href="https://www.niesr.ac.uk/publications/low-skilled-employment-new-immigration-regime-challenges-and-opportunities-business">finds employers tend not to</a> target migrants explicitly, but do so from necessity. Jobs in sectors such as social care, hospitality, food processing, warehousing and construction simply do not attract sufficient applications from British workers. </p>
<p>To attract more interest from British applicants requires more than improving pay, but also a fundamental change in business models which currently place a premium on flexibility and keeping costs down. In sectors such as social care it requires long-term planning and financial support so that employers can pay sustainable wages.</p>
<h2>Public attitudes</h2>
<p>The white paper also makes few provisions for low-skilled migration. Those it does propose appear to specifically aim at addressing what are seen as public concerns about immigration. Here’s where misunderstanding public attitudes comes in. As <a href="https://www.niesr.ac.uk/sites/default/files/publications/FINAL%20Leverhulme%20report%20FINAL.pdf">research</a> my colleagues and I have done finds, the public wants migrants who make a contribution, loosely defined in both economic and social terms. Our surveys and focus groups of 105 Leave and Remain voters in Sittingbourne in Kent in the South of England found that they are less concerned about skills and more interested in the contribution a migrant makes, which can include working as a fruit picker or waiter. </p>
<p>For the public, “contribution” and “control” are key concepts, with the public favouring control to restrict the number of migrants who do not “contribute”. These are often characterised as those attracted to the UK to claim benefits or to commit crime, rather than to make any economic contribution. The public is much more relaxed about low skilled migration than is often assumed.</p>
<h2>Motivations of migrant workers</h2>
<p>If implemented, the proposals are likely to lead to lower levels of net migration. This is where the perspective of migrants comes in – and it’s the one the least is known about. Evidence shows that EU migrants from Central and Eastern Europe <a href="https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/migrants-in-the-uk-labour-market-an-overview/">are concentrated in lower-skilled jobs</a> but it’s not really known why. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.niesr.ac.uk/publications/%E2%80%98high-skilled-good-low-skilled-bad%E2%80%99-british-polish-and-romanian-attitudes-towards-low">New work</a> by UCL migration researcher Alexandra Bulat finds that EU migrants often see low-skilled work as temporary, an opportunity to gain experience in the UK labour market and to improve language skills. Migrants are likely to have aspirations both to use their existing skills and to progress within the UK labour market, rather than being attracted to the UK by the prospect of low-skilled work at higher pay than in their home countries. </p>
<p>To the UK’s loss, <a href="https://www.niesr.ac.uk/blog/real-policy-challenge-under-utilisation-migrants-skills">the under-utilisation of migrants’ skills</a> has received no attention from those who make immigration policy. Instead, low-skilled migrants are seen as economically dispensable because <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/741926/Final_EEA_report.PDF">they make a smaller fiscal contribution</a> than higher-skilled migrants.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270696/original/file-20190424-19297-x9krjq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270696/original/file-20190424-19297-x9krjq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/270696/original/file-20190424-19297-x9krjq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270696/original/file-20190424-19297-x9krjq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270696/original/file-20190424-19297-x9krjq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270696/original/file-20190424-19297-x9krjq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270696/original/file-20190424-19297-x9krjq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/270696/original/file-20190424-19297-x9krjq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">UK net migration by citizenship.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/migrationstatisticsquarterlyreport/february2019">Office for National Statistics - Long-Term International Migration</a></span>
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<p>The perspective of migrants is especially important when it comes to understanding the likely impact of the end of free movement. Since the 2016 EU referendum, <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/migrationstatisticsquarterlyreport/february2019">net migration has fallen</a> to levels last seen in 2009, yet the UK hasn’t even left the EU yet. The detail of immigration policy is less important than the central message that free movement is ending – at an as-yet unspecified date. Current trends and the complexity of new proposed visa arrangements make it almost inevitable that the UK will become a less popular destination for EU citizens.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-what-a-delay-means-for-eu-citizens-and-the-settled-status-scheme-114222">Brexit: what a delay means for EU citizens and the settled status scheme</a>
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<h2>A constructive dialogue</h2>
<p>A consultation process on the white paper’s proposals will run until November 2019 to gather the views of employers, the public and others. At the same time, the UK needs an informed and constructive debate on immigration, which it’s been suggested might be achieved through citizens’ assemblies. Such a debate could certainly be improved by <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2016/02/small-dose-facts-could-transform-britains-immigration-debate">consideration of the evidence</a>, assisted by experts. </p>
<p>But what is really needed is a dialogue between employers, UK citizens and migrants to bring about mutual understanding and find shared interests. This could then be used to build future immigration policy which addresses public concerns without damaging the economy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115680/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heather Rolfe receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust and the Economic and Social Research Council. </span></em></p>
Much immigration policy is based around three misunderstandings – on what employers, the public and migrants themselves want.
Heather Rolfe, Associate Research Director, National Institute of Economic and Social Research
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/110482
2019-03-07T13:07:20Z
2019-03-07T13:07:20Z
Migrants granted bail left trapped in British immigration detention because of nowhere to go
<p>Britain’s already Kafkaesque immigration detention system has reached new heights as it’s become clear that migrants who’ve successfully challenged their immigration detention are remaining incarcerated, simply for want of somewhere else to stay. </p>
<p>In 2018, a series of ostensibly obscure tweaks were made to the mechanisms for accessing public accommodation. Before the changes, people held in immigration detention centres who applied for bail but had no friends or family to live with on release, could apply for publicly-funded accommodation. </p>
<p>But under provisions introduced in 2018, the scope for obtaining accommodation shrank dramatically, in a climate of public housing austerity and hostile immigration policy. This has created an appalling situation where people remain trapped in detention despite being given bail. </p>
<p>In a ruling in early February 2019, a high court judge acknowledged that the bail accommodation system had been <a href="https://www.freemovement.org.uk/high-court-bail-accommodation-system-not-working/">shown “not to work”</a>. </p>
<p>Administrative incarceration is supposed to be only used for people whose removal is imminent and where there are strong legal grounds for depriving them of their liberty – not for accommodating people. The consequences of this erosion of the right to liberty are a real cause for concern for anyone who cares about human rights and social exclusion in contemporary Britain.</p>
<h2>Nowhere to go</h2>
<p>Examples of people who have fallen victim to the changes are abundant. One NGO worker detailed the case of Yusuf*, a failed asylum seeker from central Asia with acute mental health issues. After being detained for three months, Yusuf was granted bail by a judge but had no address that he could be released to. When he phoned to apply for Home Office accommodation he was told that, since he was in detention, he didn’t qualify, as he was not currently destitute. </p>
<p>With the NGO worker’s help, Yusuf filled in a long form for asylum support. In this case, the Home Office did officially grant him accommodation, indicating that he was considered a priority because he was recognised as a vulnerable person. But no actual physical address was found for him to be released to until the Home Office was ordered to find one following a successful judicial review – almost three months after he was granted bail. </p>
<p>Although the Home Office is only supposed to detain somebody in immigration detention when it can remove them within a “reasonable period”, it’s unclear what reasonable actually means. There is currently no time limit on immigration detention in the UK, despite <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/dec/05/immigration-minister-caroline-nokes-listens-to-calls-to-end-indefinite-detention">ongoing campaigning</a> to introduce one. Many people <a href="https://barcouncil.org.uk/media/623583/171130_injustice_in_immigration_detention_dr_anna_lindley.pdf">cannot be removed</a> promptly due to legal or logistical barriers – for example if they have an outstanding legal claim to remain in the UK on asylum or other human rights grounds, or if they don’t have the necessary travel documents. </p>
<p>Since 2015, annual government data consistently shows that <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-statistics-year-ending-september-2018/how-many-people-are-detained-or-returned">more than half</a> of those held in immigration detention were eventually released from detention, rather than removed from the UK. Detainees can be released on <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/application-for-secretary-of-state-immigration-bail">immigration bail</a> by the secretary of state or by a judge of what’s called the first tier tribunal. Tribunal bail, despite <a href="https://bailobs.org/resources/">various deficiencies</a>, remains a key route to release. </p>
<p>Tribunal judges <a href="https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/bail-guidance-2018-final.pdf">expect</a> people to have a “stable address” if released on bail, though the person is no longer automatically required to live at the address, as long as they can be reliably contacted there. </p>
<p>A problem arises when bail applicants don’t have friends or family able to host them. Since January 2018, the new bail regime now makes it much harder for people to secure public accommodation from inside detention. Asylum seekers and refused asylum seekers can still apply, using a cumbersome <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/application-for-asylum-support-form-asf1">35-page application form.</a> Currently, such applications are often being refused, with the <a href="http://www.biduk.org/resources/76-bid-briefing-on-post-detention-accommodation">government arguing</a> that people in detention fail the “destitution test”, which requires them to demonstrate that they are destitute or likely to become destitute within 14 days. </p>
<p>In June 2018, the charity Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID) <a href="https://www.biduk.org/resources/76-bid-briefing-on-post-detention-accommodation">reported about</a> the case of an asylum seeker detained for ten months, who had obtained conditional bail with a residence condition. On applying for accommodation, the person was told that in the detention centre: “Your essential living needs, including accommodation, are being met in full.” The person was later told that administrative detention is: “Not dissimilar to emergency accommodation with lack of liberty being the main difference.” </p>
<p>The situation is even worse for those who have not made an asylum application, but may have other family-related human rights claims to remain in the UK. Officially the Home Office has the power to provide accommodation in such cases in <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/733313/immigration-bail-v3.pdf">“exceptional circumstances”</a>, but there is no official application form people can use, and requests are regularly refused. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262231/original/file-20190305-48435-46bawt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262231/original/file-20190305-48435-46bawt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262231/original/file-20190305-48435-46bawt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262231/original/file-20190305-48435-46bawt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262231/original/file-20190305-48435-46bawt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262231/original/file-20190305-48435-46bawt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262231/original/file-20190305-48435-46bawt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Home Office: keeping people detained when they could be released.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lesteph/4955426964/in/photolist-8xTRMW-pNVNS5-8xQQ3x-8v5DYp-qtnrmA-3K5WFe-7qJAdU-2dgN1MG-ei8daE-eidYrC-nUGrS-2ZWdga-atv8v3-bA5HcJ-9DnrDU-VZbCUF-5QSEgq-fxUT-apLuC9-fDR3YV-d4AkW3-5EqiGc-gjTaiq-oZQgdZ-2SSo3m-75dSQv-67sXxZ-d4Akww-2BK8QB-7xLSfH-d4Ak7d-82TVrz-co2KEj-3sSNA5-fDR13e-JebAB-25J9X-jYDAMM-73RPzG-dc1y4Y-cTMHCj-W2yMe8-7KqvKa-7b1tJL-4zcSBW-Je5v9-k3VawD-5JwiXv-5GAc38-fLY5Uf">Steph Gray/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reluctant judges</h2>
<p>Lack of accommodation is turning into a major blockage at bail hearings, as judges are reluctant to release detainees to the streets. A key part of judges’ considerations in bail hearings is to assess whether someone will be able to comply with reporting requirements and work restrictions if they are going to be destitute when released. People who find themselves homeless on release can be <a href="https://www.amnesty.org.uk/node/53550">re-detained</a> for breaking these kinds of bail conditions. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/work-ban-forces-asylum-seekers-into-destitution-but-we-now-have-a-chance-to-change-this-policy-112254">Work ban forces asylum seekers into destitution – but we now have a chance to change this policy</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>At present, many people are granted bail by judges, subject to the Home Office providing accommodation – <a href="https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/bail-guidance-2018-final.pdf">often within 14 days</a>. Yet, the Home Office is <a href="http://www.biduk.org/resources/76-bid-briefing-on-post-detention-accommodation">ignoring these requests</a> from the tribunal, meaning that often the initial grant of bail lapses and the person remains in detention. NGO workers are reporting that this situation even puts some people off applying for release. Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.biduk.org/resources/76-bid-briefing-on-post-detention-accommodation">BID reported</a> cases where the Home Office itself released people onto the streets – sometimes the same people for whom it has opposed bail only days before.</p>
<h2>Long-term damage</h2>
<p>It is hard to get a grasp of the scale of the problem from government statistics. However, the largest detention legal aid solicitors firm, Duncan Lewis, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/asylum-seekers-held-removal-centres-home-office-emergency-housing-a8354731.html">reported</a> clients confronting refusals of accommodation, or delays of months, on a daily basis.</p>
<p>The depth of the harm caused is considerable. These accommodation blockages result in continued incarceration of people who should not be detained, against well-established evidence regarding the devastating, often lifelong <a href="https://www.bma.org.uk/collective-voice/policy-and-research/ethics/health-and-human-rights-in-immigration-detention">damage</a> that indefinite detention can cause to people’s mental and physical health. Many people enter detention sound of mind and leave with mental health issues. </p>
<p>If detention is being prolonged because of lack of accommodation, even for a matter of days, the Home Office may be breaking the law. If detention is not for the purposes of preventing unauthorised entry or effecting removal, it’s incompatible with <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/470593/2015-10-23_Ch55_v19.pdf">Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights</a>. It’s unacceptable that a person is deprived of their right to liberty because of a lack of resources or cumbersome practices on the part of the Home Office or its agencies. For example, in a recent case, the Home Office refused to house a former detainee in the north east for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/27/uk-asylum-seekers-refused-housing-over-social-cohesion-issues.">social cohesion reasons.</a></p>
<p>This nexus between detention and destitution arose from a series of ostensibly obscure tweaks to the immigration bail regime, dismantling earlier provisions which sensibly facilitated successful tribunal bail applicants’ transition from detention into public accommodation. The new provisions attack the human rights of people already made vulnerable by the immigration system, either prolonging detention or forcing them into destitution.</p>
<p><em>*Names have been changed to protect anonymity.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110482/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna Lindley has in the past received funding from the Bar Council of England and Wales and a British Academy/Leverhulme small grant to carry out research on detention-related issues.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clara Della Croce is affiliated with the Bail Observation Project (BOP) as a volunteer.</span></em></p>
Changes to immigration rules have left migrants without family and friends in the UK trapped in immigration detention – despite being granted bail.
Anna Lindley, Senior Lecturer in Migration, Mobility and Development, SOAS, University of London
Clara Della Croce, Senior Teaching Fellow, SOAS, University of London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/106127
2018-11-12T11:51:09Z
2018-11-12T11:51:09Z
‘Hostile environment’ in Britain hasn’t put off irregular immigrants – but it’s increased their suffering
<p>The British government’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/hostile-environment-the-uk-governments-draconian-immigration-policy-explained-95460">“hostile environment” policy</a>, which aimed at making life so difficult for irregular immigrants in the UK that they would leave, has been widely criticised in recent months, particularly after members of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/windrush-generation-latest-to-be-stripped-of-their-rights-in-the-name-of-migration-control-95158">Windrush generation</a> were caught up in it. But our new research <a href="https://www.compas.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/DIEM-Irregular-Immigrants-and-Control-Policies-in-the-UK.pdf">has found little evidence</a> that internal immigration controls in the UK have brought down irregular migration. Instead, they have increased the suffering of migrants living on British soil. </p>
<p>Over the course of four years, we interviewed 175 irregular immigrants from Australia, Brazil, Pakistan, Turkey and Ukraine. By irregular immigrants we mean people who have no right, or who have revoked their right, to be in the UK and would be issued with a removal order if apprehended by the authorities. We also interviewed 29 immigration officers, staff from public services and voluntary sector organisations, as well as 18 employers.</p>
<p>Overall we found a mixed picture. About half of the irregular immigrants we interviewed didn’t worry about immigration controls or only worried at the beginning of their stay in the UK. One interviewee, a young woman from Ukraine, pointedly argued: “It is still better to be illegal in the UK than legal in my own country.” Several others made similar remarks. </p>
<p>But the other half of our respondents was rather anxious, and some had even developed psychosomatic stress symptoms such as sleeplessness. As a man from Ukraine told us: “Fear … you catch it from others like a virus.”</p>
<p>The much-criticised hostile environment policy, introduced by Theresa May in 2012 when she was home secretary, <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-politics-javid-windrush/new-home-secretary-javid-opposes-hostile-environment-approach-to-immigration-idUKKBN1I10VI">was rebranded</a> as the “compliant environment” in spring 2018 in the wake of the Windrush scandal. But many of the checks it requires – be that by landlords or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jul/12/ucl-row-email-immigration-check-fine-draconian-discriminatory">universities</a> – <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/aug/01/hostile-environment-immigrants-crept-into-schools-hospitals-homes-border-guards">remain in place</a>. </p>
<p>It’s notoriously <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43837834">difficult to collect data</a> on the number of irregular immigrants in any country. But they don’t seem to be leaving the UK in any significant numbers. Home Office figures indicate that arrests of irregular immigrants <a href="https://www.freemovement.org.uk/home-office-enforcement/">declined by 50%</a> between the first three months of 2014 and the second three months of 2018, even as budgets for enforcement were cut. Meanwhile, estimates suggest that the number of irregular immigrants has actually been slightly increasing, <a href="https://gmdac.iom.int/sites/default/files/presentations/irregular%20migration/Georges%20Lemaitre.pdf">at least until 2011</a>, after which estimates aren’t available. Another study even found that strict government controls on immigration and visas <a href="http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0818/070818-visa-restrictions">actually drive up irregular migration</a> as people turn to unauthorised channels to come to the UK. </p>
<h2>Evasion strategies</h2>
<p>Irregular immigrants develop various strategies to cope with the looming threat of detection. Some avoid certain industries and types of employers, such as kebab shops, because they felt these were specifically prone to raids. Others avoid locations and even whole cities such as London, or addresses where they had lived before which had been raided. </p>
<p>Instead, irregular immigrants are being pushed into other parts of the country, such as smaller towns. They are also finding work in private households, hidden from sight, such as renovation jobs, caring or cleaning and private tuition.</p>
<p>If they do have jobs in larger companies, they avoid morning shifts as they know that immigration raids are normally conducted around dawn. And they generally avoid any kind of crowd events. Some communities arrange WhatsApp groups and in some towns and neighbourhoods minicab drivers alert certain communities if immigration enforcement officers are in town.</p>
<p>Some of those we spoke to were less than impressed by immigration enforcement. As one Brazilian man put it: “The worst that can happen if they catch me is that they will send me back home, isn’t it?”</p>
<p>Of our 175 interviewees, only 29 encountered immigration enforcement during their stay in the UK. Of these 11 were detained, but only one was deported, and that person was back in the UK within a month and a half. And only one person we spoke to decided to leave the UK and go back to Pakistan because of unviable living conditions. </p>
<p>An ethnic pattern emerged from our interviews, with Pakistanis and Turks most likely to experience enforcement actions. It was also these communities who had higher levels of fear about encountering immigration officers. As one Australian woman put it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I am pretty white. I get the impression that somebody that might be from the Middle East or sort of, that side of Asia, probably they get stopped more often. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Side effects</h2>
<p>Our findings suggest immigration enforcement has a limited affect on bringing down the number of irregular immigrants currently living in the UK. But the hostile environment also has a range of unintended side effects.</p>
<p>A new market has grown up for the documentation that can be used to circumvent immigration controls. About a quarter of our interviewees said they had used false documents. This in turn has created networks which did not exist in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when one of us conducted a <a href="https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/irregular-migration">similar study</a>.</p>
<p>All this means that the hostile environment is actually counterproductive: it has provided new opportunities for criminals, probably mostly people who are in the UK legally, to falsify documents.</p>
<p>Exploitation and suffering were also widespread among those we interviewed, though this was more prevalent in some communities such as Pakistani and Turkish communities, than in others. One Turkish woman told us that she slept in a small storage area for six months at her employers’ premises, adding: “It was horrible.” </p>
<p>Immigration enforcement within Britain is having an effect – but mostly not the ones officials intended. It doesn’t seem to reduce the number of irregular immigrants living in the UK but instead increases human suffering and crime. This raises some fundamental doubts about whether such policies are an appropriate measure for the UK to be using.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106127/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Franck Düvell receives funding from Economic and Social Research Council, grant no. ES/K005359/1</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Iryna Lapshyna received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council.
</span></em></p>
Britain’s system of internal immigration enforcement is not working.
Franck Düvell, Research Affiliate at COMPAS, University of Oxford and Head of the Migration Department, German Centre for Integration and Migration Research
Iryna Lapshyna, Lecturer at Ukrainian Catholic University and Research Associate at South East European Studies, University of Oxford
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/97112
2018-06-07T08:27:36Z
2018-06-07T08:27:36Z
Britain’s hostility to those seeking refuge didn’t start with Theresa May – it dates back a century
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221980/original/file-20180606-137322-1vxf7mv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A satire on the 1905 Aliens Act. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Jewish Museum</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The British government’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/01/economists-david-cameron-open-letter-refugee-crisis-response-morally-unacceptable">lukewarm response</a> to the recent migration crisis illuminates its cruel stance towards the persecuted in search of sanctuary – those seeking asylum in Britain are frequently treated in a dehumanising way, according to a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/17/home-office-dehumanises-asylum-seekers-says-report">recent report</a> by the charity Refugee Action. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/30/windrush-scandal-institutional-racism-amber-rudd-discrimination-black-britons">Windrush scandal</a> demonstrated the senseless brutality and racism in Britain’s policies towards immigrants from the Commonwealth. It also shone a light on Theresa May’s overt attempts to create a <a href="https://theconversation.com/hostile-environment-the-uk-governments-draconian-immigration-policy-explained-95460">“hostile” policy environment</a> towards immigrants since 2012, when she was home secretary. </p>
<p>Such events seem at odds with public portrayals of Britain’s <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=157KBwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=shaw+britannia%27s+embrace&ots=QmaN372b0u&sig=SahdTIAArd9xz2T2nGSXCsgXJ2c#v=onepage&q=shaw%20britannia's%20embrace&f=false">distinctive “humanitarian tradition” of refuge</a>. And they mark an incremental retreat from the ideals of sanctuary. This is clearly discernible in <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/polp.12254">our recent research</a>, which mapped a century of British legislation on asylum and immigration. </p>
<p>The project revealed a shift from hospitality to hostility towards refugees, and a steady erosion of the “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/02/david-miliband-refugees-uk-humanitarian-traditions">proud” British tradition</a> of refuge. Left behind is a hollowed out ideal, more myth than reality. </p>
<p>The principle of sanctuary was deeply rooted in the <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ijrl/article-abstract/6/3/402/1568168">ancient practices of the classical world</a>. For a millennium after the Holy Roman Empire codified Christian practices in civil and religious law, the papacy gradually built sanctuary into one of the most powerful forms of protection in medieval Europe. Secularisation and the rise of the modern state in medieval Europe marked a shift in who granted sanctuary, from church to state and by extension, from religious canon to political ideas. </p>
<p>The shifts coincided with three centuries of religious conflict, revolution and nationalism in Europe. States responded by reinstating border controls to keep the unwanted out and extraditing those deemed to be a threat, many to face torture and death. </p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=157KBwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=shaw+britannia%27s+embrace&ots=QmaN372hVs&sig=0omL4-7QsDY1z3KWBxfXR_1LNwE#v=onepage&q=shaw%20britannia's%20embrace&f=false">Britain was the exception</a>. It was seen in 19th-century Europe as epitomising the ancient ideal of sanctuary. Ministers openly refused requests from their European counterparts to extradite unwanted exiles for fear of alienating the public. The presence of French Huguenots, Russian anarchists and Hungarian nationalists <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=157KBwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=shaw+britannia%27s+embrace&ots=QmaN372hVs&sig=0omL4-7QsDY1z3KWBxfXR_1LNwE#v=onepage&q=shaw%20britannia's%20embrace&f=false">captivated the romantic imagination</a> of novelists, the media and the public. </p>
<p>The reality was harsher. Refugees were free to stay, but they were also free to starve. At times, the government also secretly paid to send the “unwanted” <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=FKKl9pGtWbAC&oi=fnd&pg=PA7&dq=rabben+sanctuary&ots=3178io1fW0&sig=IEyWkYkka9RiMG3Nt9AWZVkyIV4#v=onepage&q=rabben%20sanctuary&f=false">out to the colonies</a>. </p>
<h2>Asylum restrictions begin</h2>
<p>Yet, Britain offered refuge to those fleeing persecution from the 17th to the early 20th centuries where others did not – and this formed the initial basis of the British tradition of refuge. In reality, the tradition was not robust enough to survive mass forced migration of Russian Ashkenazi Jews from the 1880s and then the subsequent loss of the empire in the 20th century.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221824/original/file-20180605-119860-161ic7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221824/original/file-20180605-119860-161ic7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221824/original/file-20180605-119860-161ic7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221824/original/file-20180605-119860-161ic7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221824/original/file-20180605-119860-161ic7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221824/original/file-20180605-119860-161ic7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221824/original/file-20180605-119860-161ic7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221824/original/file-20180605-119860-161ic7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A poster for a demonstration against Jewish immigration to Britain in 1902.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/BritishBrothersLeaguePoster%281902%29.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The 1905 Aliens Act, which reinstated borders and legally defined asylum for the first time, was to <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/33608791/Bashford_Law_and_History_Review.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1527548559&Signature=WVqR384BGzl%2B5dJO75rtiZvNF6w%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DThe_Right_to_Asylum_Britains_1905_Aliens.pdf">set the tone</a> for the next 100 years of increasingly repressive legislation, while still holding to the myth of asylum.</p>
<p>Successive governments since 1905 used a variety of techniques to negotiate the contradiction between the cultural myth and proposed legislation. As we tracked in our research, narratives of deviance recast the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/polp.12254">refugee as a suspect figure</a>, a racialised parasite and a threat to security. By publicly stigmatising those seeking refuge in Britain, politicians have delegitimised the claims of many who have genuinely fled for their lives. </p>
<p>The 1905 act did so by distinguishing the desirable refugee from the undesirable. Subsequent governments followed suit through labels such as “illegal migrant” and by pitting the “bogus” asylum seeker against <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jrs/article-abstract/13/1/29/1673390">the genuine one</a>. </p>
<h2>Sanctuary is now overtly racial</h2>
<p>British lawyers helped draft the original international treaties of refugee protection in the immediate aftermath of World War II and to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/02/david-miliband-refugees-uk-humanitarian-traditions">frame the ideals they encapsulated</a>. However, the original treaties were highly racialised. The definition of a refugee was <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/humanrights/2016/02/08/international-refugee-law-definitions-and-limitations-of-the-1951-refugee-convention/">limited to those displaced by war in Europe</a>, effectively excluding those fleeing conflict in Africa or bloody <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-partition-of-india-happened-and-why-its-effects-are-still-felt-today-81766">partition</a> on the Indian sub-continent. This created a racial demarcation. </p>
<p>In the 1960s, British negotiators, <a href="http://doi.wiley.com/10.1111/johs.12053">fearful of an influx</a> of refugees from newly liberated colonies, resisted moves for an expanded definition of the word “refugee” that would include anyone anywhere fleeing for their lives. Having lost the international argument, when the international definition was expanded in 1967, Britain turned to domestic legislation to restrict the number of refugees seeking entry. </p>
<p>This was most notable in successive legislation in the 1960s and 1970s. New laws denied Commonwealth citizens the right to live in the UK unless they had a parent or grandparent born British. While Commonwealth citizens could still apply for asylum, they could no longer assume they would be granted it. </p>
<p>Overnight in 1968, 200,000 Asians fleeing repression in Kenya were stripped of <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/3020922?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">the right to protection in Britain</a> and denied entry, rendering them stateless. Four years later, the UK accepted 27,000 Ugandan Asians expelled by the country’s dictator Idi Amin suggesting a capricious arbitrariness to making immigration policy.</p>
<h2>Humanitarianism, but not at home</h2>
<p>Britain holds onto its humanitarian and philanthropic image by <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-commons-statement-on-the-european-council-24-oct-2016">pouring billions of pounds into UN refugee camps</a> near conflict zones, most recently in Jordan and Lebanon, while adopting harsh and conflicting policies to dispel those who make it to the shores of Europe. Aid has enabled the British government to outsource humanitarian refuge to others while assembling one of the <a href="http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/immigration-detention-in-the-uk/">largest systems of immigration detention</a> in Europe. </p>
<p>The romanticised ideal of a British tradition of humanitarian refuge has been a moral veneer to enact ever more brutal and violent policies towards the figure of the refugee. All this hammers home the sad truth that May’s “climate of hostility” towards immigrants and refugees is not new. Rather hostility has emerged and solidified through harsh, brutal and xenophobic policies enacted by different governments over the last century.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97112/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A steady retreat from a distinctive British tradition of refuge has stained policy around immigration.
Anita Howarth, Senior Lecturer in Journalism, Brunel University London
Yasmin Ibrahim, Reader in International Business and Communications, Queen Mary University of London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/95813
2018-05-26T06:38:15Z
2018-05-26T06:38:15Z
New poll shows British people have become more positive about immigration
<p>Michael Gove, the British environment secretary, sparked a heated debate when <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43821484">he said recently</a>: “Britain has the most liberal attitude towards migration of any European country. And that followed the Brexit vote.”</p>
<p>His implication that the Brexit vote was a force for a more positive view of immigration in Britain has been <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/michael-gove-brexit-uk-immigration-union-customs-union-eu-a8361731.html">vigorously challenged</a> by some.</p>
<p>And you can see why it might grate: analysis by King’s College London shows that media coverage of immigration tripled in the campaign, and was “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/10/brexit-eu-referendum-campaign-media-coverage-immigration">overwhelmingly negative”</a>.</p>
<p>But Gove is right to say that people in Britain are now more positive about immigration, as shown by new <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/attitudes-towards-immigration-after-windrush">polling released</a> by Ipsos MORI, tracking attitudes towards immigration after the recent <a href="https://theconversation.com/windrush-generation-latest-to-be-stripped-of-their-rights-in-the-name-of-migration-control-95158">Windrush scandal</a>. </p>
<p>Gove cited an <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/en/global-views-immigration-and-refugee-crisis">Ipsos survey</a> from the end of 2017, which does indeed show that from the ten European countries included, Britain is most likely to think immigration has had a positive effect on the country.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220522/original/file-20180526-90281-d74jpw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220522/original/file-20180526-90281-d74jpw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220522/original/file-20180526-90281-d74jpw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220522/original/file-20180526-90281-d74jpw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220522/original/file-20180526-90281-d74jpw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220522/original/file-20180526-90281-d74jpw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220522/original/file-20180526-90281-d74jpw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220522/original/file-20180526-90281-d74jpw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What people across Europe think about immigration.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ipsos MORI</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A more recent European Commission <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/survey/getsurveydetail/instruments/special/surveyky/2169">survey</a> across all 28 EU countries shows that, while the UK is not quite top, it is the third most likely to say that immigration is an opportunity rather than a problem, behind only Sweden and Ireland.</p>
<p>And this is a shift that can’t be explained purely by the weight of negative media coverage of immigration dying down after the referendum. I’ve been reviewing immigration attitudes for nearly 20 years, and I’m really not used to seeing Britain at the top of any league table of immigration positivity: this is something new. </p>
<p>As the chart below shows, positive attitudes have doubled in Britain since 2011, while they’ve flatlined at a low level in most other countries, or fallen in the case of Sweden.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220491/original/file-20180525-51127-cjdbp0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220491/original/file-20180525-51127-cjdbp0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220491/original/file-20180525-51127-cjdbp0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220491/original/file-20180525-51127-cjdbp0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220491/original/file-20180525-51127-cjdbp0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220491/original/file-20180525-51127-cjdbp0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220491/original/file-20180525-51127-cjdbp0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220491/original/file-20180525-51127-cjdbp0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An upward trend for Great Britain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ipsos MORI</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And as our <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/attitudes-towards-immigration-after-windrush">new survey</a> published by Ipsos MORI shows, this trend remains stable. The switch from a negative balance of opinion to a positive one started before the 2016 referendum on EU membership, in the middle of 2015 – but it did gain pace after. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220752/original/file-20180529-80640-13h4iho.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220752/original/file-20180529-80640-13h4iho.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220752/original/file-20180529-80640-13h4iho.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220752/original/file-20180529-80640-13h4iho.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220752/original/file-20180529-80640-13h4iho.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220752/original/file-20180529-80640-13h4iho.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220752/original/file-20180529-80640-13h4iho.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220752/original/file-20180529-80640-13h4iho.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Brexit vote has changed little.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ipsos MORI</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reassurance and regret</h2>
<p>There are two broad explanations for why this is happening – that the change is being driven by “reassurance”, or “regret”. </p>
<p>The first is the idea that people feel they can now say that immigration has positive aspects, because numbers are coming down, or they believe numbers will be lower in the future, as a result of Brexit. </p>
<p>Regret, on the other hand, could be driven by a realisation of what we’re losing from lower immigration: as numbers fall and warnings of skills shortages and economic impacts increase, the extent to which the country benefits from immigration becomes more obvious. </p>
<p>Clearly these are simplifications – there are other explanations and these are not mutually exclusive views. But in our latest survey, we tried to assess the balance between these two explanations for the first time, by simply asking people why they are more positive. </p>
<p>And as the chart below shows, there is an almost perfect balance between the two explanations: around four in ten say they’re more aware of the contribution that immigrants make, and the same proportion say they’re reassured numbers are falling or will fall. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220493/original/file-20180525-51130-2pa0uq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220493/original/file-20180525-51130-2pa0uq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220493/original/file-20180525-51130-2pa0uq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220493/original/file-20180525-51130-2pa0uq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220493/original/file-20180525-51130-2pa0uq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220493/original/file-20180525-51130-2pa0uq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220493/original/file-20180525-51130-2pa0uq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220493/original/file-20180525-51130-2pa0uq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Why have British people become more positive about immigration?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ipsos MORI</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>An emotive debate</h2>
<p>As with so much about immigration attitudes, there is no one clear answer or view, and therefore no clear indication for future policy and political direction. The very real trends of increased positivity actually give the government little clue as to whether they should loosen their drive to control numbers, or stick to their guns on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/hostile-environment-the-uk-governments-draconian-immigration-policy-explained-95460">“hostile environment” immigration policy</a> that has come in for so much criticism in recent months.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hostile-environment-immigration-policy-has-made-britain-a-precarious-place-to-call-home-95546">'Hostile environment' immigration policy has made Britain a precarious place to call home</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Immigration is well recognised as a polarising issue, and one of <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/shifting-ground-attitudes-towards-immigration-and-brexit">the key topics</a> in a referendum vote that split the country down the middle.</p>
<p>But what’s more often missed is that our views are also full of nuance and contradiction. There are not just two immovable and monolithic pro- and anti-immigration blocs, as shown by our <a href="https://www.slideshare.net/IpsosMORI/shifting-ground-changing-attitudes-to-immigration">previous research</a>, and another of our <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/half-public-favour-relaxing-visa-cap-non-eu-skilled-workers">just released polls</a> for the Evening Standard. For example, the majority of the public would like to see the government’s cap on the number of doctors coming to the UK from outside the EU lifted entirely or increased – but the majority support the cap, or even greater restrictions, on computer scientists.</p>
<p>One thing seems clear – British people’s more positive outlook seems to be little to do with the Brexit debate leading people to be better informed on immigration facts, at least on key aspects like the scale of immigration. <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/attitudes-towards-immigration-after-windrush">When we asked</a> what percentage of the population immigrants make up, which we’ve done regularly over many years, the average guess was 28%, compared with a reality of around 13%: we are just as wrong as we’ve always been. </p>
<p>Of course, this is because our emotions colour our views of scale as much as the other way round. The immigration debate remains an emotive one, caught up in our identity, culture and values more than cold calculations.</p>
<p>But all these challenges don’t mean that attitudes to immigration should be ignored in setting immigration policy. There is a case that Brexit was partly a result of ignoring immigration concerns, rather than either acting to reassure people, or challenging their views.</p>
<p>With a white paper on the post-Brexit immigration system <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/theresa-may-immigration-brexit-sajid-javid-intervenes-to-speed-up-new-uk-immigration-plan/">now expected by July</a>, the risk for the government comes not from listening to apparently fickle and contradictory public opinion, it comes from mishearing or caricaturing it – again.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95813/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bobby Duffy is the Chairman of the Ipsos MORI Social Research Institute. He receives funding from Unbound Philanthropy. </span></em></p>
A new poll suggests there has been a shift in positive opinion towards immigration, which started in 2015.
Bobby Duffy, Visiting Senior Research Fellow, King's College London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/95546
2018-04-25T12:42:33Z
2018-04-25T12:42:33Z
‘Hostile environment’ immigration policy has made Britain a precarious place to call home
<p>In the wake of the scandal about the way members of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/windrush-52562">“Windrush generation”</a> have been treated by UK authorities, the government has been forced to acknowledge the consequences of its “hostile environment” immigration policy, <a href="https://theconversation.com/even-before-brexit-theresa-mays-laws-made-britain-a-hostile-place-for-migrants-62467">pioneered by Theresa May</a> during her time as home secretary.</p>
<p>A steady stream of reports in recent months has documented the experiences of long-term residents, many arriving in the 1950s and 60s from the Commonwealth, who have suddenly been told they no longer have permission to remain in the UK. Under the hostile environment they are prevented from accessing NHS care, employment, welfare benefits, rented accommodation, bank accounts and driving licences.</p>
<p>The government has <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-team-to-help-commonwealth-citizens-confirm-their-status-in-the-uk">now promised</a> a new team of caseworkers to help Commonwealth citizens address their status as a priority. In a statement in parliament, the home secretary, Amber Rudd, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/home-secretary-statement-on-the-windrush-generation">apologised</a> to those affected and promised them a free route to British citizenship and the possibility of compensation.</p>
<p>For a number of years, my colleagues and I at the Kent Law Clinic at the University of Kent have been dealing with cases of people caught up within the bureaucratic nightmare of trying to prove their existence as a lawful resident of the UK. It can be like a character in a Kafka novel who wakes up one morning to find themselves in a seemingly incomprehensible situation. Their initial response is often to imagine that this can be cleared up by a simple phonecall to the Home Office to explain that it is all a misunderstanding – and yet then months and sometimes years pass with no response.</p>
<p>One of our recent cases involved a US citizen, resident in the UK for over 50 years, since he was 18 months old, who suddenly found himself unable to work when the Home Office informed a prospective employer that it had no record of his lawful residence. This was despite an almost unbroken record of national insurance contributions since the age of 16. It took almost six months, and the intervention of a local MP, before it was resolved. Our client described how his life was destroyed, he was unable to work, became bankrupt and suffered depression and anxiety not knowing if he would face deportation. </p>
<h2>Removing the right to remain</h2>
<p>The recent cases of members of the Windrush generation threatened with deportation are only the most extreme end of a wider spectrum of long-term residents who are finding that even after many years of living in the UK they have no right to remain. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/windrush-scandal-a-historian-on-why-destroying-archives-is-never-a-good-idea-95481">Windrush scandal: a historian on why destroying archives is never a good idea</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>There are plenty of other cases which are more complicated and where a person’s immigration status may be uncertain or even unlawful and yet they have been resident for many years. This is particularly the case for those brought to the UK as children who never had their immigration status regularised. In such cases, they may only have discovered their lack of legal status as an adult <a href="https://miclu.org/assets/uploads/2017/04/Precarious-Citizenship-Report.pdf">when confronted</a> by an aspect of the hostile environment. While many of these people could probably make valid immigration applications, the <a href="http://www.biduk.org/posts/15-uk-cuts-legal-aid-to-immigrants-report-claims">lack of legal aid</a> and <a href="https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/kentlawclinic/2017/04/04/immigration-fees-set-to-rise-again/">high fees</a> make this a very difficult process.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216287/original/file-20180425-175069-147jhnj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216287/original/file-20180425-175069-147jhnj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216287/original/file-20180425-175069-147jhnj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216287/original/file-20180425-175069-147jhnj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216287/original/file-20180425-175069-147jhnj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216287/original/file-20180425-175069-147jhnj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216287/original/file-20180425-175069-147jhnj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A precarious process.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our clinic recently acted for a young man who had already been granted a period of 30 months leave to remain based on his residence and private life in the UK. Confronted by an application fee of £993, unable to access legal advice to understand the possibility of applying for a fee waiver, and simultaneously dealing with housing difficulties and potential homelessness, he managed to overstay his leave to remain. His case is still pending, and so he has returned to the hostile environment and will continue to face this until his status is eventually regularised once again. </p>
<p>Those of the Windrush generation who were citizens of the UK and its then colonies were able to immediately settle in the UK before 1973. Yet recent government policy has been to delay or restrict altogether the permanent settlement of non-EU nationals, even as the UK still relies significantly on temporary labour migration. There are therefore a growing number of resident non-nationals building lives in the UK and becoming integrated but with no guarantee that they will ultimately be permitted to settle.</p>
<p>As I argue in a <a href="https://www.bloomsburyprofessional.com/uk/law-and-the-precarious-home-9781509914609/">recent article</a>, the UK is becoming an increasingly precarious home for those without British citizenship. This has potentially damaging consequences for attempts to create integrated communities.</p>
<p>One example is a family of four, who the Kent Law Clinic represented, who after 12 years residence have been unable to afford the £9,556 necessary to obtain indefinite leave to remain and are therefore faced with needing to make repeated further immigration applications every 30 months. Such people live with a continuing sense of uncertainty – not knowing if the law will change in the future or whether a small error in a future application will lead to a refusal, which would mean they are suddenly locked out of meaningful participation in a community to which they have belonged for years.</p>
<p>As the UK prepares to confer on resident EU citizens a <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-eu-citizens-at-risk-of-failing-to-secure-settled-status-after-brexit-94947">new “settled status”</a> in UK law to replace their current free movement rights protected by EU law, the current scandal should act as a warning to the EU to ensure that adequate safeguards are made a part of the withdrawal agreement. Given the light that has been shone on the plight of the Windrush generation, perhaps it is also now time to question the wider approach to future generations of long-term resident non-nationals.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>A version of this article was also published on the <a href="https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/countercurrents/">Countercurrents Kent Law School Blog</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95546/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Warren works for the Kent Law Clinic. He is in receipt of the Larry Grant Scholarship.</span></em></p>
An immigration law expert on what it’s like to navigate the UK’s hostile environment.
Richard Warren, PhD candidate, Kent Law School, University of Kent
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/85472
2017-12-01T14:21:38Z
2017-12-01T14:21:38Z
How New Labour made Britain into a migration state
<p>Net migration in the UK <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/migrationstatisticsquarterlyreport/november2017">fell the most</a> in the year to June 2017 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/nov/30/net-migration-to-uk-shows-largest-annual-fall-since-records-began">since records began</a>, according to new data released by the Office for National Statistics. </p>
<p>Perhaps Britain is starting to feel the pinch of “<a href="https://inews.co.uk/essentials/news/politics/first-evidence-brexodus-net-migration-britain-falls-sharply/">Brexodus”</a>“. Or maybe it’s <a href="http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/press/great-slowdown-eu-migration/">too early to tell</a>. Having maintained and failed to meet the Conservative pledge to reduce net migration for the last seven years, Theresa May is likely to be relieved. But whether the opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn is pleased or troubled is unclear. </p>
<p>The Labour Party has been relatively silent on what <a href="https://migrantsrights.org.uk/blog/2017/10/02/labour-party-conference-wasnt-immigration/">post-Brexit immigration system</a> it wants – or thinks the UK needs. But because Britain’s vote to leave the EU was partly fuelled by <a href="https://www.um.edu.mt/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/303388/brexitvote.pdf">anti-immigrant sentiment</a>, and the Labour Party has done little but fight internally about immigration since the 2015 election if not earlier, this silence is not surprising. </p>
<p>The party’s reticence and the factionalism on the issue are of its own making. To understand both why immigration is dominating the debate and how Labour got into this policy dilemma, we have to look back to immigration policy under Tony Blair’s New Labour. </p>
<h2>Managed migration</h2>
<p>Under Blair’s Labour government, Britain’s economic immigration policy went from a highly restrictive approach to one of the most expansive in Europe, as I examined in <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/de/book/9783319646916">new research</a>. Work permit criteria were relaxed, the number of international students was doubled, the government expanded existing low and high-skilled migrant worker schemes and launched new ones and, from 2005, initiated a new points-based immigration system. Overshadowing these important reforms was the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-huge-political-cost-of-blairs-decision-to-allow-eastern-european-migrants-unfettered-access-to-britain-66077">2004 decision</a> to allow citizens of eight countries that were about to join the EU the immediate right to work in Britain. This decision alone resulted in one of the largest migration flows in Britain’s peacetime history. </p>
<p>Put into historical context, Labour’s reforms were an unprecedented policy reversal. With <a href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160109021456/http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171776_290335.pdf">2.5m foreign-born workers</a> added to the population since 1997 and net migration averaging 200,000 per year between 1997 and 2010 – five times higher than under the previous administration government of 1990-1996 – immigration under Labour quite <a href="https://www.ippr.org/files/images/media/files/publication/2011/05/Immigration%20under%20Labour%20Nov2010_1812.pdf">literally changed the face </a> of Britain.</p>
<p><iframe id="Lhq6Z" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Lhq6Z/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Labour’s managed migration programme was certainly not a vote winner. Public concern about large-scale immigration contributed to Labour’s <a href="https://academic.oup.com/pa/article/63/4/849/1585309">electoral defeat</a> in 2010 and 2015. Such policies <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-923X.12091/full">dogged Labour’s subsequent terms in opposition </a>. In no Western country can a party appear to gain votes by favouring new immigration.</p>
<p>It’s worth emphasising that there was no plan or strategy within the Labour government to expand immigration policy when the party entered office in 1997. The final product of managed migration was a consequence of a number of policies from different departments. The Treasury and the Department for Trade and Industry pushed for high-skilled migration. The Department for Education and Employment bolstered the case for expanding international students. And the Foreign and Commonwealth Office shaped the infamous decision on the new eight EU members in 2004. </p>
<p>Combined, these policy schemes produced a liberalising effect on immigration policy. The government then pulled these schemes together to form a cohesive narrative of <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/272243/6741.pdf">managed migration</a>. But these reforms were nonetheless underpinned by an ideology – and this is the key to why policy evolved as it did, why the party is split on the issue now – and how Britain got on the road to Brexit. </p>
<h2>New Labour, new times</h2>
<p>At the heart of Labour’s infamous re-branding as New Labour in 1997 was the adoption of ”<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/feb/10/labour.uk1">third-way politics</a>“. This ideological reorientation is critical to understanding why economic immigration policy changed, because of three contingent elements of Labour’s new-found philosophy. First, the party’s neoliberal economic programme, hinging on measures to counter inflation and promote flexibility in the labour market. Second, Labour’s culturally cosmopolitan notion of citizenship and integration. Third – and fundamentally underpinning Labour’s economic programme and the inception of "new” Labour altogether – was an uncompromising belief in the inevitability of globalisation.</p>
<p>Economic globalisation was presented as an irreversible fact of life, and a natural development of capitalism that could not be controlled. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2006/sep/12/tradeunions.speeches">According to Blair</a>, the only “rational response” to globalisation was “to manage it, prepare for it, and roll with it”. Blair’s 2005 speech to the Labour Party conference perfectly encapsulated this pitting of the <a href="http://www.langtoninfo.co.uk/web_content/9780521719902_frontmatter.pdf">losers versus winners of globalisation</a>. He <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4287370.stm">said</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I hear people say we have to stop and debate globalisation. You might as well debate whether autumn should follow summer.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Labour claimed <a href="http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tpp/pap/2003/00000031/00000003/art00001">there was simply no alternative</a> to globalisation. This logic trickled down to shape the objectives of many public policies. With immigration being “<a href="https://www.oecd.org/insights/internationalmigrationthehumanfaceofglobalisation.htm">the human element of globalisation</a>”, it was assumed to be both inevitable and intrinsically positive by the leading faction of the party. </p>
<h2>Beyond New Labour</h2>
<p>New Labour’s reforms brought immigration to the forefront of British politics – and debates on immigration will now remain a key fixture of the political landscape. To have any <a href="https://www.fabians.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Stuck-Fabian-Society-analysis-paper.pdf">chance of winning office</a>, Labour needs to win back its lost traditional working-class voters while retaining its liberal metropolitan so-called “Blairite base”. This is the <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-923X.12324/pdf">progressive dilemma</a> of Labour – one brought to the fore by New Labour’s immigration regime. </p>
<p>Blair’s narrative that people must adapt and move with the times or risk decline was clearly a winning electoral rhetoric in the 2000s. But this polarisation seemed to ignore the public’s desire for control, security and social order. When the financial crisis hit in 2008 – propelled by the globally interdependent financial systems New Labour helped to create – it is little wonder why much of the British public felt let down. They were alienated and angry at this global, open system for which many were certainly not seeing the benefits, only the costs. Immigration is one of the most concrete representations of globalisation – and therefore the easiest target for public antagonism in contrast to the faceless and abstract forces of neoliberalism, globalisation and austerity.</p>
<p>New Labour’s managed migration policy brought hundreds of thousands of immigrants to the UK, which has <a href="https://theconversation.com/revealed-immigrants-put-34-more-into-public-finances-than-they-take-out-19845">economically benefited</a> the country and will culturally enrich society for generations. But the regime plays a part in the story of the politicisation of immigration and the road to Brexit. </p>
<p>In May 2017, Corbyn said that <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-free-movement-people-brexit-general-election-itv-a7735471.html">free movement will end</a> after Brexit – but whether he wants this to happen is hard to determine. If Corbyn is to maintain that free movement will end, while retaining Labour’s ideological offer as the party of social justice, he needs a realistic policy on how to protect migrant workers’ rights in the face of likely <a href="http://ukandeu.ac.uk/would-leaving-the-eu-reduce-immigration-to-the-uk/">surges in irregular immigration</a>. </p>
<p>But more importantly, Corbyn should heed his predecessors’ lessons – giving economic solutions to what is, for many, an issue of identity is not a <a href="https://labourlist.org/2016/05/labour-was-out-of-touch-on-key-issues-in-2015-says-cruddas-final-election-report/">winning strategy</a>. Corbyn’s Labour needs to craft a progressive narrative on immigration, one which makes sense with their ideology of tolerance, acknowledges the role of immigration in culture, identity, and nation-building, and makes sense in post-Brexit Britain.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85472/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erica Consterdine received Economic and Social Research Council funding (grant number MP/21013669)</span></em></p>
Jeremy Corbyn should heed lessons from his Labour predecessors on immigration policy.
Erica Consterdine, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Immigration Politics & Policy, University of Sussex
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/85615
2017-10-17T10:40:25Z
2017-10-17T10:40:25Z
Fact Check: are there over a million foreigners living illegally in Britain?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190376/original/file-20171016-30954-16749k0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Britain's immigration system is under close scrutiny. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">via shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>There are probably over a million foreigners here illegally at the moment. There’s a large number, so no one could ever remove those really.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>David Wood, former director general of immigration enforcement, Home Office, <a href="http://home.bt.com/news/uk-news/million-plus-illegal-immigrants-unlikely-to-ever-be-removed-mps-told-11364219578181">speaking</a> to MPs on the Home Affairs Select Committee on October 10.</strong> </p>
<p>Details on the numbers of unauthorised people living in the UK are thin on the ground. Over ten years ago, a <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/illegalimmigrantsintheuk/migrantpop_in_uk.pdf">Home Office report</a> estimated the population present in the UK without authorisation as between 310,000 and 570,000 – with a “central” estimate of 430,000. </p>
<p>A later estimate by researchers from the <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/illegalimmigrantsintheuk/irregularmigrantsfullreport.pdf">London School of Economics</a> in 2009, published by the Greater London Authority, had a higher range with a potential top estimate of 719,000 and a lower one of 373,000. Its central estimate was 533,000. </p>
<p>On the – rather dubious – basis of drawing a rough line between these numbers over time, and projecting it onwards and upwards, you could guess that we are now nearer a range with a high estimate of around a million. But these are the maximum figures, and the lower end of the range is equally possible. </p>
<p>These estimates have been <a href="http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/irregular-migration-in-the-uk-definitions-pathways-and-scale/">criticised by experts</a> and comparisons are difficult because they use different statistical techniques and varying definitions for which population they are measuring. As the Office for National Statistics <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/illegalimmigrantsintheuk">conceded</a> in a Freedom of Information response in 2015: “The methodology behind this work requires huge assumptions thus making the estimates largely uncertain.” </p>
<p>Statements such as Wood’s are inflammatory because of the perception that the people he is referring to are a dangerous, criminal element within society. There have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/06/illegal-immigrant-label-offensive-wrong-activists-say">long been calls</a> to stop using the term “illegal immigrant” because of the way it dehumanises and conflates the breaking of immigration rules with criminality.</p>
<h2>Who is ‘illegal’?</h2>
<p>The complexity and increasing restrictions on entry and residence in the UK mean that people can become “illegal” rather easily, and in <a href="https://www.migrantsrights.org.uk/downloads/policy_reports/irregularmigrants_fullbooklet.pdf">myriad different ways</a>. This can even be unintentional, in the case of those people born to foreign nationals with irregular status. A 2012 <a href="https://www.compas.ox.ac.uk/project/undocumented-migrant-children-in-the-uk/">report</a> by the University of Oxford’s Centre on Migration, Policy and Society estimated that 120,000 irregular migrant children live in the UK. </p>
<p>It is misleading to conflate these kinds of situations with those in which foreign nationals have committed serious crimes and thereby become eligible to be removed from the country. A recent <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b094mhsn">BBC Panorama expose</a> on immigration detention showed how terrible the situation can get when we treat all those that fall foul of the immigration and asylum system like criminals.</p>
<p>Information about those deported from the UK is a bit more readily available, but not entirely straightforward. The Migration Observatory, which recently provided a <a href="http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/deportations-removals-and-voluntary-departures-from-the-uk/">useful summary</a> of the latest data, claims that administrative removals, forced deportations, and voluntary return of immigrants have hovered around the 40,000 a year mark since 2010. </p>
<p>Within this figure, total forced deportations are falling while voluntary return is increasing, perhaps reflecting success for the <a href="https://theconversation.com/even-before-brexit-theresa-mays-laws-made-britain-a-hostile-place-for-migrants-62467">“hostile environment” strategy</a> begun by Theresa May when she was home secretary. Yet the strategy of making the country an unpleasant and difficult place to live for those deemed unwanted by the state arguably has negative impacts that outweigh the benefits. For example, <a href="https://www.jcwi.org.uk/sites/jcwi/files/2017-02/2017_02_13_JCWI%20Report_Passport%20Please.pdf">research</a> into the impacts of landlord checks – designed to target irregular migration – found it leads to increases in discrimination against all other foreign nationals and those from British black and minority ethnic groups by landlords.</p>
<h2>Verdict</h2>
<p>Ultimately there is very little solid evidence on irregular immigration into the UK and so it would be impossible to verify Wood’s claim. The most authoritative research on different migrant populations is usually derived from ten-yearly census data. This can throw up surprising things, such as in 2001 when the census revealed there were a million fewer people living in the country than <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/oct/01/britishidentity.johncarvel">previously thought</a>. </p>
<h2>Review</h2>
<p><strong>Nando Sigona, senior lecturer and deputy director of the Institute for Research into Superdiversity, University of Birmingham</strong></p>
<p>It’s hard to see a solid base for David Wood’s claim. The author of this fact check is correct in pointing out the several ifs and buts that inform such estimates. Caution is particularly important in this area due to the highly politically charged climate that surrounds the debate on undocumented migration in the UK. Wood’s claim is particularly questionable for two substantial reasons. First, it was recently revealed that the UK had <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/cd0da692-8820-11e7-bf50-e1c239b45787">vastly overestimated</a> the number of students overstaying visas – a group assumed to make up an important segment of the undocumented population in the UK. </p>
<p>Second, UK borders proved to be effective in limiting unauthorised entry at the peak of the refugee and migration crisis. The number of asylum applications increased <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/2995521/7203832/3-04032016-AP-EN.pdf/">only marginally</a> in the UK while it was booming in many EU member states, so it is fair to assume that unauthorised entrants make up only a marginal segment of the UK’s undocumented population.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>The Conversation is checking claims made by public figures and prominent commentators in public debates. Statements are checked by an academic with expertise in the area. A second academic expert then reviews an anonymous copy of the article. Please get in touch if you spot a claim you would like us to check by emailing us at uk-factcheck@theconversation.com. Please include the statement you would like us to check, the date it was made, and a link if possible.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85615/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alex Balch is co-director of the Centre for the Study of International Slavery (CSIS), a collaboration between the University of Liverpool and the International Slavery Museum.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nando Sigona receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). </span></em></p>
We asked two academics to check the claim, made by a former top official at the Home Office.
Alex Balch, Senior Lecturer, Department of Politics, University of Liverpool
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/84451
2017-09-22T08:03:56Z
2017-09-22T08:03:56Z
Why a ‘guest worker’ visa system is not the answer for Britain after Brexit
<p>At the 2017 general election, the UK’s two largest political parties both agreed that the current system of free movement would end when the country leaves the European Union. The Labour Party has <a href="https://theconversation.com/labour-plants-a-firmer-foothold-in-the-shifting-sands-of-brexit-britain-83192">since shifted</a> to a position which supports remaining within the customs union and single market for the duration of a transitional period after Brexit in March 2019. But it has also <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global/2017/aug/26/labour-calls-for-lengthy-transitional-period-post-brexit">made clear</a> that it would only make this relationship permanent if it were able to renegotiate EU free movement rules. For the Conservative Party, its <a href="https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/manifesto2017/Manifesto2017.pdf">manifesto</a> aim of bringing net migration down to the tens of thousands would necessitate the end of free movement. </p>
<p>This naturally poses a question about what system might replace the current rules. In a new <a href="http://www.anothereurope.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/aeip-free-movement-final-web.pdf">report</a> that I co-authored with Zoe Gardner for the campaign group Another Europe Is Possible, we looked at several case studies of immigration systems where workers had less secure rights to remain. These were the now defunct “guest worker” system in West Germany, the <a href="http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/publications/employers/temp-foreign-worker-program.asp">Temporary Foreign Workers Program</a> in Canada, the labour force hired to help build stadiums for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, and the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/eu-eea">UK visa</a> system for domestic workers from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) in private households.</p>
<p>All these programmes use a system of work permits which mean migrant workers do not have a right to remain beyond their visa’s allocated time in the country and also require the sponsorship of an employer. This goes against article 23 of the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/">Universal Declaration of Human Rights</a> which upholds the principle of a “free choice of employment”. </p>
<p>In the Canadian system, workers are only allowed to move employer with the explicit approval of the immigration office. The UK visa for non-EEA migrants undertaking domestic work in a private household has been <a href="https://ukconstitutionallaw.org/2016/02/16/virginia-mantouvalou-modern-slavery-the-uk-visa-system-and-the-exploitation-of-migrant-domestic-workers/">sharply attacked</a> for tying workers to the sponsoring family. While the government did <a href="http://www.kalayaan.org.uk/news/overseas-domestic-workers-left-in-the-dark-by-the-immigration-act-2016-2/">review</a> these prescriptions in 2016, it <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/mar/07/government-rejects-call-scrap-uk-tied-visas-domestic-workers">rejected</a> demands to substantially change the system. The very tight six-month time limit on the visa still effectively stops a migrant worker finding new employment without imperilling their right to remain. </p>
<p>Amnesty International has highlighted the <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde22/3548/2016/en/">exploitation of migrants</a> working in Qatar to build football stadiums, which bear similarities to the old West German guest worker programme. Both systems saw migrant workers housed in army-style barracks, inevitably damaging social cohesion by restricting their ability to connect and intermingle with local residents. Political rights, such as freedom of assembly and association, a free choice of employment, the right to move within the host country, or a pathway to citizenship, have been denied to migrant workers in Qatar just as they were for those in post-war West Germany.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187020/original/file-20170921-8194-173stns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187020/original/file-20170921-8194-173stns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187020/original/file-20170921-8194-173stns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187020/original/file-20170921-8194-173stns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187020/original/file-20170921-8194-173stns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187020/original/file-20170921-8194-173stns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187020/original/file-20170921-8194-173stns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Qatar has faced criticism of the conditions of labourers building stadiums for the 2022 football world cup.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">via shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Visas for low-skilled workers</h2>
<p>These types of temporary work visa are now being mooted in the UK as alternatives to EU free movement. While the UK already has a visa category which closely resembles these models for non-EEA migrants doing unskilled or low-skilled work, called <a href="http://www.visabureau.com/uk/tier-3-work-permit.aspx">Tier 3</a>, this visa has never been used. </p>
<p>As part of the debate over post-Brexit immigration policy, some within the Labour Party have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/may/31/labour-policy-paper-leak-jeremy-corbyn-uncontrolled-migration-theresa-may-daily-mail">suggested</a> opening the category. Despite the leaking of an 82-page <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/sep/05/the-draft-home-office-post-brexit-immigration-policy-document-in-full">Home Office draft document</a> on immigration, Conservative government policy within this area remains vague. However, the leak did discuss the potential use of work permits with a maximum duration of two years for low and unskilled workers. </p>
<p>If the Tier 3 visa route was opened, workers coming into the country would require the sponsorship of an employer, or agent acting on their behalf. They would have no right to change jobs for the duration of their stay in the country, and would be housed in accommodation provided by their employer. They would have no right to bring family members with them for the duration of the stay – which would be in violation of the <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/SP/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=20885&LangID=E">right to family reunion</a> recognised in international law. It was envisaged that this visa system would only be used with migrants from countries that had formal “return arrangements” where the UK could deport people. This underlines the insecure and temporary nature of their legal status.</p>
<p>There are at least two likely consequences of introducing this kind of system in post-Brexit Britain. First, it would sharply reduce the bargaining power of migrant workers over their pay and conditions, making them vulnerable to exploitation by unscrupulous employers. In the UK context, these dangers would be amplified by the use of zero-hour contracts, the outsourcing of operations to reduce labour costs and recent <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/trade-union-act-becomes-law">anti-union laws</a>. The end result could be a race to the bottom in pay and conditions. </p>
<p>Second, if a bureaucratic system of permits is established for EU migrants seeking work while tourists from the EU are allowed to travel visa-free, this could unintentionally create a labour market for undocumented migrants.</p>
<h2>A focus on rights changes minds</h2>
<p>Ultimately, free movement is a system based on rights. EU citizens living in the UK (and UK citizens in the EU) currently have a conditional right to work and study elsewhere in the EU based on the core principle that they cannot be discriminated against on the grounds of nationality. </p>
<p>There is some evidence that emphasising this rights-based aspect of EU/EEA free movement rules can shift opinions in the UK debate. One <a href="https://blog.bestforbritain.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Best-for-Britain-Survey-Results_170627_Immigration.pdf">opinion poll</a> from July 2017 found that a majority of Leave voters support maintaining free movement after Brexit if it is explained as a set of rights giving UK citizens the chance to live in other EU states. This suggests politicians who have the confidence to combine supporting EU free movement with a new agenda for social rights in the UK labour market may not suffer at the polls. </p>
<p>Alternative systems of time-limited and employee-sponsored visas risk further eroding the bargaining power of migrant workers. And this could have negative knock-on effects for all workers in the UK.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84451/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Luke Cooper is the convenor of the Another Europe Is Possible campaign and a member of the Labour Party.</span></em></p>
Comparisons with other immigration systems that deny rights to temporary workers raise questions over Britain’s post-Brexit future.
Luke Cooper, Senior Lecturer in Politics, Anglia Ruskin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/83679
2017-09-15T11:07:49Z
2017-09-15T11:07:49Z
What’s the best way to integrate immigrants? Reward effort and don’t make their lives difficult
<p>After thousands of EU citizens <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/sep/13/brexit-european-migrant-foreign-country-the3million-parliament-citizens-rights">gathered</a> in Westminster on September 13 to lobby for their rights after Brexit, the Home Office <a href="https://twitter.com/SaskiaHeijltjes/status/908001621111705601">sent an email</a> to everyone who had registered for progress updates from the government. It was entitled “EU citizens living here are vital”. </p>
<p>While the government is trying to reassure EU citizens it “is committed to reaching agreement on citizens’ rights as soon as possible”, the recent leak of a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/sep/05/leaked-document-reveals-uk-brexit-plan-to-deter-eu-immigrants">draft immigration policy document</a> implies that after Brexit, they will be living under an <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-new-barriers-can-eu-citizens-expect-in-their-daily-lives-after-brexit-83586">increasingly hostile environment</a>. Showing documentation will become a norm. </p>
<p>My own <a href="http://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/fb35b9_336b525112a542e5943a9fff1f9093bc.pdf">ongoing research</a> with <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/carlaxenagalindo/">Carla Xena</a> suggests that the policies that work best at integrating migrants are actually those which offer incentives and rewards for long-term settlement and commitment to a host country. But the way to do this will not please those who believe in curtailing rights and making it impossible for migrants to settle. Nor will it please those who favour full freedom of movement after Brexit.</p>
<h2>A coconut policy</h2>
<p>There is increasing evidence from <a href="https://www.conted.ox.ac.uk/profiles/martin-ruhs">economics</a> and political science on what the best kind of integration policy should look like. The answer: some restrictions and selection at the border – usually in terms of a migrant being required to have a job prior to arrival – with very inclusive rights and security of status once the migrant has crossed the border. This “coconut” type of policy, combining a harder surface with a softer inside, has proved to increase the economic and political integration of migrants.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186035/original/file-20170914-8980-26y9dq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186035/original/file-20170914-8980-26y9dq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186035/original/file-20170914-8980-26y9dq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186035/original/file-20170914-8980-26y9dq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186035/original/file-20170914-8980-26y9dq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186035/original/file-20170914-8980-26y9dq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186035/original/file-20170914-8980-26y9dq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Coconut immigration policy: hard on the outside, soft on the inside.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">via shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Raising the bar of border control can appease the anxieties of significant portions of native populations <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/new-global-study-reveals-unease-about-immigration-around-world">who feel threatened</a> by immigration. Public concerns about immigration are reshaping party systems across the Western world, so it is not realistic to ignore demand for immigration control. Some form of Brexit will have to happen, largely because of this. </p>
<p>If a country requires migrants to have a job offer prior to arrival, it can better synchronise migrants’ abilities with the needs of the host labour market. It can also keep an eye on numbers. Higher bars at the border may also attract the most motivated migrants and incentivise long-term planning on the immigrant side, given the higher effort involved in the act of migrating.</p>
<p>We are currently researching the impact of border control on migrants’ attitudes towards the political system in their host country. We’ve found that there is only a noticeable positive effect when harder border control is combined with clearly liberal and inclusive integration regimes. This means high levels of security status, equality of rights, possibilities of long-term residence, and family reunification. </p>
<p>This means policies which aim to reduce immigrant numbers, connecting them with labour market needs, but rewarding effort and giving people an incentive towards long-term settlement. The latter is consistent with recent research in <a href="https://www1.essex.ac.uk/sociology/staff/profile.aspx?ID=3406">sociology</a> and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/catalyst-or-crown-does-naturalization-promote-the-longterm-social-integration-of-immigrants/F46D864B22AD8C71D5ED1B0DE2FFB4CA">politics</a> showing that naturalisation has a strong impact on migrant integration. </p>
<h2>Soft landings help integration</h2>
<p>What our research is beginning to show is that policies combining harder entries with softer landings increase levels of democratic satisfaction and political trust by immigrants in the host country, which are good deterrents of future radicalisation and migrant social unrest. This type of policy can also have positive effects among non-naturalised migrants, who are, after all, the biggest immigrant group.</p>
<p>Our analyses focus on two strategies and use data from the <a href="https://www.marc-helbling.ch/?page_id=6">Immigration Policies in Comparison</a> project, which measures immigration policies in all OECD countries, and the <a href="http://www.europeansocialsurvey.org">European Social Survey</a>.</p>
<p>The relationship holds across 25 countries for over a decade between 2002 and 2013 – the year our data stop. The 2005 German Immigration Act is a good example of a “coconut” type of policy for some non-EU nationals. Without softening entry requirements, this policy replaced a five-year residence limit with permanent residency, and simplified bureaucratic procedures to obtain permits. We’ve found that the relationship between political trust and immigration policies only decreases again when the border is made too hard to pass, as in some Eastern European countries such as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/02/poles-dont-want-immigrants-they-dont-understand-them-dont-like-them">Poland</a>.</p>
<h2>Commonwealth citizens</h2>
<p>Using data from the 2010 <a href="https://www.sociology.ox.ac.uk/research/embes-the-ethnic-minority-british-election-study.html">Ethnic Minority British Election Study</a>, we also narrowed in on the UK to analyse the political attitudes of different cohorts of Commonwealth migrants who arrived in the UK under different immigration policy regimes.</p>
<p>Prior to 1962, citizens from the Commonwealth benefited from free movement and de facto equal citizenship status. After increasing social unrest and concerns about immigration, the 1962 Commonwealth Act <a href="https://theconversation.com/history-offers-britain-an-important-lesson-on-shutting-down-immigration-65840">certified</a> the beginning of the end of post-colonial Britain. The act established border controls for the first time, and entry was subject to proof of work contract at any level of skill. Once past the border, Commonwealth migrants were subject to similar rights to those that they enjoyed before the policy change, including full right to family reunification. A more restrictive immigration bill was introduced in 1971, making this nine-year period a good example of a “coconut” policy in action. </p>
<p>Our initial statistical analyses show that, four decades later, Commonwealth migrants who arrived in the country between 1962 and 1971 still show higher levels of political integration than those who enjoyed the benefits of unrestricted movement before 1962, even when we controlled for length of stay, citizenship status, and other factors. The same is not true, however, for subsequent cohorts of migrants who saw their security of status and access to citizenship increasingly diminished. </p>
<p>If the purpose of immigration policy is to minimise social cohesion problems, the path is not to bother migrants all along the migration process. The government’s will to control immigration numbers is perfectly compatible with offering incentives for long-term settlement. In fact, rewarding effort seems to be associated with the best outcomes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83679/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sergi Pardos-Prado receives funding from the Swiss Network of International Studies. </span></em></p>
Policies that are hard at the border but soft on the inside help migrants to integrate in a new country.
Sergi Pardos-Prado, Associate Professor and Fellow in Politics, University of Oxford
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/83586
2017-09-12T12:04:19Z
2017-09-12T12:04:19Z
What new barriers can EU citizens expect in their daily lives after Brexit?
<p>As the Brexit negotiations unravel, it is clear that the EU and the UK are <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/joint_table_citizens_rights_-_third_round.pdf">set on very different paths</a> in relation to the rights of both their citizens. </p>
<p>The EU <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/essential-principles-citizens-rights_en_3.pdf">wants</a> full protection for its citizens who are resident in the UK at the time of Brexit, and it wants this protection to continue for the lifetime of these citizens. The UK, on the other hand, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/621848/60093_Cm9464_NSS_SDR_Web.pdf">wants</a> to regain control over immigration as quickly as possible, bringing it under the purview of domestic courts rather than the Court of Justice of the European Union. This uncertainty might already be having an effect, with discrimination against EU nationals <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/sep/12/uk-to-offer-eu-deals-on-foreign-policy-and-joint-military-operations">allegedly on the rise</a> over issues including renting properties and applying for jobs.</p>
<p>The UK government’s thinking has become clearer following the unauthorised publication of an internal draft document on <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/358064862/THE-BORDER-IMMIGRATION-AND-CITIZENSHIP-SYSTEM-AFTER-THE-UK-LEAVES-THE-EUROPEAN-UNION">immigration after Brexit</a>. In particular, the document – which is not official government policy – clarifies that immigration from the EU after Brexit will, by and large, be subject to normal immigration rules. But what does this mean in practice? </p>
<h2>It matters when you arrived</h2>
<p>EU citizens who arrived in the UK before the as yet undefined cut-off date <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/621848/60093_Cm9464_NSS_SDR_Web.pdf">will have</a> a path to get indefinite leave to remain; such a status is acquired after five years of lawful residence and pre-Brexit residence will be counted towards the five years. The leaked document suggests that these people with “pre-Brexit” status <a href="https://theconversation.com/home-office-leak-an-expert-reviews-the-proposed-brexit-immigration-system-83584">will continue</a> to be able to work and live in the UK in pretty much the same way as before. The main change would be in relation to the right to be joined by non–UK family after Brexit, as this will be made conditional upon earning a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/uk-family-visa/proof-income">minimum income and an English language test</a>. There are also likely to be increased bureaucratic ordeals to prove entitlement to pre-Brexit status. </p>
<p>The situation is going to be dramatically different for post-Brexit EU citizens. Here, the leaked document suggests a transition period of two years after Brexit in which EU citizens will be able to come and study, work or be in the UK unhindered for a temporary period of three to six months. After that they will have to register proving employment or evidence of a given minimum income. It is not clear whether those citizens will be eligible for welfare benefits and NHS provision.</p>
<p>After the transitional period, EU citizens who come to the UK are likely to be treated in roughly the same way as non-EU immigrants – not very well. They will need permission to work and reside (tourists will probably be exempt), and might have to pay <a href="https://www.gov.uk/uk-family-visa/proof-income">hefty immigration fees</a>. Permission to work is likely to be conditional upon the needs of the British economy: at present, non-skilled and low-income non-EU immigrants can only come and work in the UK based on a sector-by-sector approach. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185277/original/file-20170908-32276-ytd60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185277/original/file-20170908-32276-ytd60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185277/original/file-20170908-32276-ytd60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185277/original/file-20170908-32276-ytd60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185277/original/file-20170908-32276-ytd60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185277/original/file-20170908-32276-ytd60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185277/original/file-20170908-32276-ytd60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Landlords: tasked with checking the right of tenants to be in the UK.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/joybot/6026505896/sizes/l">Joybot/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is also a non-concealed effort to avoid immigrants from settling – the most blatant element of which is the impossibility for immigrants earning less than a minimum of <a href="https://theconversation.com/broken-families-what-happens-to-couples-torn-apart-by-immigration-rules-73546">£18,600 to be joined</a> by family members. Studying in the UK could also become less attractive: higher university fees for foreign students, as well as language tests and immigration clearance will make other EU countries, such as Ireland and the Netherlands, much more attractive. </p>
<p>Working visas, minimum investment or capital requirements for self-employed people will <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/culture-media-and-sport-committee/inquiries/parliament-2015/impact-of-brexit-16-17/">inevitably affect</a> the <a href="https://ab-uk.com/curiosity/blogs/uk-creative-agency-move-hq-to-berlin-post-brexit/">pull factor</a> of London as a creative hub. Qualifications obtained in the EU might or might not be recognised, depending on future agreements. </p>
<h2>Hostile environment</h2>
<p>EU immigrants are likely to be subjected to the same immigration checks as non-EU immigrants, not only at the border but also <a href="https://theconversation.com/welcome-to-britain-in-2017-where-everybody-is-expected-to-be-a-border-guard-75148">within civil society</a> – from employers, universities, landlords and the NHS. But worst of all, the leaked document makes one thing clear: the government is <a href="http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2017/09/07/hostile-environment-2-0-post-brexit-migration-plans-are-all">considering</a> pursuing its <a href="https://www.freemovement.org.uk/hostile-environment-affect/">hostile environment policy</a> in relation <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-latest-eu-citizens-deportations-rise-uk-home-office-referendum-a7935266.html">to EU citizens</a>. </p>
<p>This policy was devised during <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/9291483/Theresa-May-interview-Were-going-to-give-illegal-migrants-a-really-hostile-reception.html">Theresa May’s</a> time at the Home Office and aims to do exactly what it says: create a hostile environment which deters immigrants <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/may/13/royal-college-nursing-nhs-recruitment-crisis">from coming to the UK</a>, and passively encourages them <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/a37c2aee-565f-11e7-80b6-9bfa4c1f83d2">to leave</a>. Given the contribution of EU citizens to all sectors of the British economy, creating such a hostile environment might be tantamount to cutting one’s nose off to spite one’s face.</p>
<p>Although the final details are not yet clear, all this means that EU citizens should prepare to be asked for documentation when they interact with the state to prove their eligibility to live, work and access public services. This is most likely to be their passport as national ID will no longer be accepted as proof of identity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83586/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eleanor Spaventa has received funding from the European Commission and the European Parliament for independent academic research projects.</span></em></p>
Britain is likely to become an increasingly hostile environment for European newcomers.
Eleanor Spaventa, Professor of European Union Law, Durham University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/83584
2017-09-06T16:56:57Z
2017-09-06T16:56:57Z
Home Office leak: an expert reviews the proposed Brexit immigration system
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184912/original/file-20170906-9820-12fyf7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Vote Leave campaign promised Brexit would allow Britain to 'take back control' of immigration. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">via shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The UK government has an in-tray piled high with tricky policy issues related to Brexit. Among the trickiest is how Britain’s rickety and <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201617/ldselect/ldeucom/82/82.pdf">complicated immigration system</a> will manage the wholesale transformation of immigration status for millions of current and future residents. The leak of a Home Office draft <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/sep/05/the-draft-home-office-post-brexit-immigration-policy-document-in-full">policy document</a> reveals that the government is buying time to help it manage three competing political demands. </p>
<p>First, it needs to show that it will control immigration to meet domestic Conservative party political demands. Second, it needs to establish principles and policies for entry selection and residence that suit powerful economic sectors that want continued easy access to European workers. And third, it needs a detailed negotiation offer for the EU. In addition to these political demands, it also needs an immigration system that is workable and practical.</p>
<p>The document is not yet approved government policy but it is telling nonetheless. The challenges are managed by a classic policymaking sleight-of-hand: buying time. It needs the time to improve the political consensus – and to set up the brand new digital immigration database on which the whole system will depend. The really difficult decisions are pushed to a later date, at least 18 months from now.</p>
<p>As with the government’s <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/safeguarding-the-position-of-eu-citizens-in-the-uk-and-uk-nationals-in-the-eu">proposal</a> on the rights of EU nationals published on June 26, this leaked draft proposes a “temporary implementation period” that will start on a “specified date”. In fact, this is as yet an unspecified date, but will probably be the day of the UK’s exit from the EU. The period will end when the UK has a new set of immigration rules up and running: again, no date is specified, except that it is expected to be at least two years after the first (un)specified date.</p>
<p>During this indeterminate time, two things will happen. EU nationals already resident can apply for settled status or indefinite leave to remain (explained in <a href="https://theconversation.com/eu-citizens-proposal-a-lawyer-examines-the-detail-80111">more detail</a> in the June paper). And new arrivals from the EU will become subject to new rules of entry and residence. </p>
<h2>What’s new</h2>
<p>During the implementation period, EU nationals will have the right to enter and stay in the UK for three to six months. There is no commitment to an exact amount of time, but the analogy in the document is with non-EU nationals who can currently stay for <a href="https://www.gov.uk/standard-visitor-visa">six months</a> on a “standard visit” (whether a visa is needed depends on their country of origin). </p>
<p>During this time, all EU nationals will be considered to have a new status, called “deemed leave to remain”. During this period, EU nationals will be able to work, study, or live (if self-sufficient) in the UK – and will have more “rights” than current non-EU nationals. They may have to apply online for travel authorisation. </p>
<p>If EU nationals want to stay for longer, they will have to apply for a right to reside. They will be able to do so either as a worker, self-employed person, student or self-sufficient person. The definitions of these statuses, and the kinds of documents and information required will be key to determining how open the immigration rules will be in practice. </p>
<p>The leaked draft implies that these definitions will be clear and universally applied – a definite improvement on the current situation. They will also be strict and designed to prevent people from undertaking low-paid and precarious work. For employed and self-employed workers, a regular income of £157 per week will be required, along with evidence of employment or contracts for work. </p>
<p>It will not be possible to reside in the UK while seeking work, unless you can show you have “sufficient funds”. The paper says that self-sufficiency will be defined in line with current definitions for EU free movers, which already match those for non-EU nationals. The likely result is that during this “implementation period”, low-paid and precarious workers will become more mobile, moving more often to avoid having to apply for a worker resident permit, which they might not otherwise qualify for. This will make such workers’ lives more difficult, but it is not certain that it will reduce real migration levels.</p>
<p>To stay beyond the “deemed leave”, EU nationals will also have to register and provide biometric information that will be held on an ambitious new digital database, to be developed between now and the end of the implementation period. This is something that many other member states do, for EU and non-EU nationals – as the paper is keen to point out in a nod to its negotiating position with the EU. Once this residence permit has been granted, EU nationals will have rights to employment and residence for the time period allowed that are similar to, although not the same as, those they have now.</p>
<h2>Family and ‘high-skilled’ workers</h2>
<p>EU nationals currently <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-eus-rules-on-free-movement-allow-all-its-citizens-to-do-62186">have relatively extensive rights</a> when it comes to bringing their families with them to the UK. These rights (sometimes called Surinder Singh rights, <a href="https://theconversation.com/broken-families-what-happens-to-couples-torn-apart-by-immigration-rules-73546">after a particularly important legal case</a>) have been controversial in a number of EU member states, and they will be the first to be withdrawn by the UK in this implementation period.</p>
<p>Again testing the political waters, the paper suggests adopting a specific privileged status for “high-skilled” EU nationals. While EU nationals will be able to live and work in the UK, provided they fall into one of the four categories (worker, self-employed, student, self-sufficient), a residence permit would generally be for two years. For high-skilled workers, the paper suggests a residence permit for somewhere between three and five years. This would give such workers potential access to “settled status” under current UK law if they stayed for longer than five years. With this would come significantly better rights for residence, family unification, employment and social security. </p>
<p>And all this is just for the interim. Neither we – nor apparently the government – have any idea about what would happen after the Brexit transition period. Nonetheless, for the first time, the paper acknowledges the powerful interests from different regions and sectors that are pushing for as few restrictions as possible. </p>
<p>The paper provides only a few clues as to the changes being considered – and is quite explicit that circumstances may change significantly during the remaining Brexit negotiations and the elusively defined “implementation period”. Yet more uncertainty is on the cards for EU nationals considering their future in the UK while the government buys time to develop a workable immigration system.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83584/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Carmel receives funding for a project called TRANSWEL. The funding is from NORFACE, a consortium comprising national social science research councils and the European Union. Her part of the project is paid for by the UK's Economic and Social Research Council.</span></em></p>
Inside the latest information on how the government plans to deal with EU nationals working in the UK.
Emma Carmel, Senior Lecturer, University of Bath
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/83396
2017-09-05T12:30:12Z
2017-09-05T12:30:12Z
Brutality of British immigration detention system laid bare
<p>An <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b094mhsn">exposé</a> of an immigration removal centre has uncovered shocking levels of violence and abuse directed at detainees awaiting potential deportation from the UK. While some staff at the Brook House centre for men near Gatwick Airport, run by the company G4S, tried to control the “chaos”, others were clearly seen mocking and assaulting detainees. </p>
<p>In one incident caught on undercover camera as part of the BBC Panorama documentary, an ill and vulnerable man was screamed at, called a “fucking piece of shit” and choked by the detention custody officer. Racist language and mocking of detainees by staff seemed casual and routine, and violent behaviour appeared acceptable to staff and some managers. “We don’t cringe at breaking bones … If I killed a man, I wouldn’t be bothered. I’d carry on,” one officer <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/g4s_brook_house_immigration_removal_centre_undercover">said</a>. </p>
<p>There are a range of people of different nationalities and citizenship statuses held by the Home Office at Brook House. This includes people refused asylum, foreign nationals who have served criminal sentences and some people overstaying visas. All were shown to be equally vulnerable to abuse from staff.</p>
<p>Nine officers <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/sep/01/g4s-staff-suspended-brook-house-immigration-centre-claims-abuse">were suspended</a> by G4S following the initial reports on September 1 and the company has launched an investigation into the allegations. The Home Office has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/sep/02/home-office-employee-suspended-at-g4s-run-immigration-centre">also suspended</a> one member of staff relating to allegations over his former employment for G4S. When Brook House was inspected in 2016 by HM Inspectorate of Prisons, the <a href="https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprisons/media/press-releases/2017/03/brook-house-immigration-removal-centre-clear-improvements/">report</a> stated that it “had made clear improvements, and staff are to be congratulated”.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"904791918034477056"}"></div></p>
<p>The programme also highlighted how readily available the cannabis substitute known as “spice” is in the detention centre. Spice has a <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-spice-and-why-is-the-drug-so-dangerous-60600">host of negative side effects</a>, both physical and mental, and it can induce paranoia, hallucinations, and cardiovascular issues. </p>
<p>However, the consumption of this drug within detention needs to be put in context. Detention is an unhealthy environment, where individuals are kept in limbo for an indefinite period. Taking drugs then becomes a way to ease emotional and physical pain. It can act as a <a href="https://figshare.com/articles/Controversial_Issues_in_Prisons/1367530">“chemical comfort”</a>, a form of self-medication, to deal with loneliness, trauma, alienation, lack of meaningful activities, the stress or anxieties of prospective deportation, and loss of identity and belonging. </p>
<h2>History repeating</h2>
<p>This is the second undercover investigation at one of the UK’s 11 immigration removal centres (IRCs) in two years. In 2015, Channel 4 News <a href="https://www.channel4.com/news/yarls-wood-immigration-removal-detention-centre-investigation">uncovered</a> the chilling scale of violence against women of colour at Yarl’s Wood IRC which is operated by the company Serco. Staff openly expressed racist and misogynistic views. </p>
<p>In our own research with people seeking asylum in Scotland, England, Denmark and Sweden, we regularly hear of the impacts of detention and the broader harms of the process of seeking asylum. “When I remember about detention, I just want to forget,” one former detainee told us, while another said: “The thought of going back into detention gives me a panic attack, I cannot breathe.” Alongside the humiliation of arrest and the denial of liberty, <a href="https://www.academia.edu/9284564/Creating_and_Managing_Mad_Bad_and_Dangerous_The_Role_of_the_Immigration_System">violence has been endemic</a> in immigration detention centres. </p>
<p>Besides the physical violence and suffering exposed in both the Channel 4 and BBC investigations, research has repeatedly shown the <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Papers.cfm?abstract_id=2732892">adverse impact</a> of detention on mental health, which deteriorates further with the time spent in confinement. Despite this, the UK continues to systematically detain people without time limit. <a href="http://www.no-deportations.org.uk/Media-2014/Self-Harm2015.html">Suicide attempts and self-harm in IRCs</a> are at an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/04/suicide-attempts-uk-immigration-removal-centres-all-time-high-home-office-figures?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard">all-time high</a>. </p>
<p>Locking up migrants in inherently chaotic spaces, where they face uncertainty, anxiety and suffer poor mental health, is in itself a form of violence and abuse – one that is sanctioned by the state through <a href="http://www.open.edu/openlearn/people-politics-law/politics-policy-people/timeline-the-criminalisation-asylum#1">policy and legislation</a>. </p>
<h2>Caught on camera</h2>
<p>Not long after Channel 4’s footage at Yarl’s Wood was released, Nick Hardwick, the chief inspector of prisons, called the centre a place of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33871283">national concern</a>. Following a string of <a href="https://theconversation.com/violence-in-britain-behind-the-wire-at-immigration-removal-centres-25519">reports</a> on abuse, sexual assaults and racism at the centre, Serco commissioned its own review of the centre which was <a href="http://www.verita.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Independent-investigation-into-concerns-about-Yarls-Wood-immigration-removal-centre-Serco-plc-Kate-Lampard-Ed-Marsden-January-2016-1.pdf">published</a> in January 2016. Serco <a href="https://www.serco.com/news/media-releases/2016/serco-welcomes-findings-of-independent-investigation-into-yarls-wood">said</a> it committed to “respond to all of these recommendations”.</p>
<p>The same month, a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/490782/52532_Shaw_Review_Accessible.pdf">review</a> commissioned by the Home Office of the detention of vulnerable people was published. Although the review’s remit did not cover the overall detention regime, it advocated banning the detention of pregnant women and suggested there should be a “presumption against detention” for victims of sexual violence, female genital mutilation, people with learning difficulties, those with post traumatic stress disorder and transgender people. Minimal reforms were introduced, some rather <a href="http://unlocked.org.uk/blog/marking-the-home-offices-homework-on-immigration-detention-urgent-improvement-needed/">flawed</a> and others yet to be <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/home-office-refuses-to-reveal-if-women-in-yarls-wood-immigration/">enacted</a>.</p>
<p>In a <a href="http://www.irr.org.uk/about/people/monish-bhatia-and-victoria-canning/">critique</a> of these reviews, we argued that the crux of the issue is the overall injustice of immigration detention: it is unhealthy to arbitrarily remove people’s liberty. Even outside the centres, detention is a hanging spectre for those awaiting the outcome of an asylum application. </p>
<h2>When only seeing is believing</h2>
<p>The BBC Panorama investigation into Brook House may well lead to another official review tasked with answering a familiar question: how can detention be sustained while ensuring that those confined are suitably protected? But we are sceptical of the purpose of these rather expensive and time-consuming reviews. The problem lies with the way the system is managed – in which <a href="http://www.open.edu/openlearn/people-politics-law/immigration-detention-whats-the-problem-privatisation">the private companies</a> outsourced by the Home Office profit by expanding their capacity to detain people. </p>
<p>By keeping a narrow focus on incidents at specific centres, we are collectively sweeping the everyday serious harms of immigration detention under the carpet. Time and time again when such undercover investigations have exposed grave issues of racism and violence the problem is neatly packaged and cleverly blamed on a few bad apples. The harms inherent to confinement are ignored, and minimal structural change happens as a result. Instead of reducing or abolishing the system of immigration detention, IRCs continue to operate.</p>
<p>The only real difference between the actions caught on camera by the BBC Panorama team and the endemic brutality of life in detention centres is that this time, these actions have been witnessed by the wider public.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83396/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Victoria Canning receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council Future Research Leaders grant. She is part of Migrant Artists Mutual Aid, a not for profit group based in Merseyside. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Monish Bhatia does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.
</span></em></p>
BBC Panorama has exposed violence and abuse of detainees at Brook House immigration removal centre.
Victoria Canning, Lecturer in Criminology and Social Policy, The Open University
Monish Bhatia, Lecturer in Criminology, Birkbeck, University of London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/78835
2017-06-06T11:38:35Z
2017-06-06T11:38:35Z
Starkly different views on welcoming refugees divide Britain’s main parties
<p>A key principle of <a href="http://www.who.int/hac/about/reliefweb-aug2008.pdf">humanitarianism</a> is that “human suffering must be addressed wherever it is found” and particular attention paid to the most vulnerable. The principle that the “dignity and rights of all victims must be respected and protected” is reflected in the <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/uk/1951-refugee-convention.html">1951 Refugee Convention</a> and in the <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/asylum/refugee-status_en">European Qualification Directive</a> – both of which the UK has signed. </p>
<p>There is a clear responsibility on all countries towards those affected and displaced by conflict, war and terror. So what do Britain’s main political parties say about how they will meet the UK’s moral and international legal obligations to refugees? </p>
<p>The principal message of the <a href="https://www.conservatives.com/manifesto">Conservative party manifesto</a> is clear: we don’t want refugees or asylum seekers. The Conservatives want “to change the definition of refugees” because the existing system is geared towards the young and the better off who make it to the UK. The Conservatives intend to “reduce asylum claims in the UK” while accepting some refugees from conflict areas, as occurs with the <a href="http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN06805">Syrian Vulnerable Person Resettlement Programme</a>. Three years after this Syrian programme began, the party is finally promising to make sure councils, faith groups and businesses get the help they need to deal with refugees arriving on this scheme.</p>
<p>Yet the Conservatives’ record on asylum speaks for itself. In government, the party has sought to prevent asylum seekers from entering the UK, including children due to be brought into the UK under <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38918317">the Dubs Amendment</a> and <a href="https://cityofsanctuary.org/2017/04/24/new-report-from-calais-by-the-refugee-rights-data-project/">other children with a rightful claim to enter the UK</a> who have been dispersed across France. It has also <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/10/britain-refusing-asylum-eritreans-discredited-report">blocked some asylum claims</a> of those who have made it to the UK and generally sought to create a <a href="https://theconversation.com/even-before-brexit-theresa-mays-laws-made-britain-a-hostile-place-for-migrants-62467">“hostile environment”</a> for migrants in a country where everybody is <a href="https://theconversation.com/welcome-to-britain-in-2017-where-everybody-is-expected-to-be-a-border-guard-75148">expected</a> to be a border guard. </p>
<h2>A different approach</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://www.labour.org.uk/index.php/manifesto2017">Labour party’s manifesto</a> argues that the rising number of refugees and displaced people “is a failure of diplomacy, conflict resolution and of human rights, which is why they will be at the heart of Labour’s foreign policy.” The party would produce a “cross-departmental strategy” within its first 100 days of government to meet international obligations on the refugee crisis, but there are few detailed commitments. The manifesto does, however, state that the current arrangements for housing and dispersing refugees are unfair and “not fit for purpose” and pledges to review the arrangements should it win office. </p>
<p>The Liberal Democrat’s <a href="http://www.libdems.org.uk/manifesto">manifesto</a> sets out a number of important commitments. To apply the asylum system fairly, efficiently and humanely. To offer safe and legal routes to the UK for refugees to prevent them from making dangerous journeys. To expand the Syrian Vulnerable Person Resettlement Scheme and re-open the Dubs unaccompanied child refugee scheme. To end indefinite immigration detention and expect working-age asylum seekers who have waited more than six months for their claim to be processed, to work. </p>
<p>While the Scottish National Party’s <a href="https://www.snp.org/manifesto">manifesto</a> picks up many of the issues raised by the Liberal Democrats, it would adopt the recommendations of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees and create a <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/assets/0004/0316/APPG_on_Refugees_-_Refugees_Welcome_report.pdf">National Refugee Integration Strategy</a> to ensure that all government agencies coordinate support for and assist refugees. The SNP would oppose continued cuts to support that make asylum seekers destitute and they would “fundamentally change <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jan/31/uk-asylum-seekers-housing-branded-disgraceful-by-mps-yvette-cooper">the UK government’s system for housing asylum seekers</a>”. </p>
<p>The UK Independence Party manifesto <a href="https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/ukipdev/pages/3944/attachments/original/1495695469/UKIP_Manifesto_June2017opt.pdf?1495695469">states</a> only that “UKIP will comply fully with the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, and honour our obligations to bona fide asylum seekers.” While the Green Party <a href="https://www.greenparty.org.uk/green-guarantee/a-safer-world.html">manifesto</a> states that it would enact “a humane immigration and asylum system that recognises and takes responsibility for Britain’s ongoing role in causing the flow of migrants worldwide.” </p>
<h2>Hard realities</h2>
<p>Overall, what is absent from all the party manifestos and from public debate is a failure to discuss how the UK asylum system works and to understand the reality of life in the UK as a refugee or immigrant. My <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Bureaucracy_Law_and_Dystopia_in_the_Unit.html?id=w4-sDQAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">research</a> on the UK’s asylum system shows how Home Office policies and practices (which I argue are arbitrary, unlawful and a wasteful use of resources) contribute to wrongfully refusing asylum claims. Cuts to legal aid and the effect of a constant restructuring of the asylum and immigration tribunal also play their part. </p>
<p>Curiously, in view of Britain’s imminent exit from the European Union, not one party addresses the rising cost of border enforcement that is likely to occur after Brexit.</p>
<p>The proposals on offer from the main parties differ radically regarding our obligations as citizens and the responsibility of the government for refugees and vulnerable people. Their views range from indifference, to vacuous statements, to an acceptance of humanitarian principles. On June 8 voters are being asked to choose between starkly different visions of the future of Britain which have very different implications for refugees who seek to enter the country.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78835/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John R Campbell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
What the political party manifestos say about refugees and asylum seekers.
John R Campbell, Reader in the Anthropology of Africa and Law, SOAS, University of London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/76067
2017-04-19T08:30:05Z
2017-04-19T08:30:05Z
How immigration detention compares around the world
<p>Since the 1980s, all major Western states practice what they call civil or administrative confinement of undocumented immigrants and non-citizens. But this practice of putting undocumented immigrants – as well as asylum seekers – in detention centres does not deter people from seeking sanctuary in the West. Instead, it feeds a growing private prison industry and can portray genuine asylum seekers, who are often deeply scarred by trauma, as criminals who pose a security threat.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://immigrationforum.org/blog/themathofimmigrationdetention/">US</a> has the highest number of incarcerated non-citizens in the world: a population which grew from around 240,000 in 2005 to 400,000 in 2010. Since 2009, there has been a <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-09-24/congress-fuels-private-jails-detaining-34-000-immigrants">congressional mandate</a> to fill 34,000 immigration detention beds each night. <a href="https://www.detentionwatchnetwork.org/issues/detention-101">More than half</a> of these beds are placed in privately run detention facilities, run by companies such as CoreCivic (formerly the Corrections Corporation of America), who <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-09-24/congress-fuels-private-jails-detaining-34-000-immigrants">lobbied</a> for the passing of this mandate. </p>
<p>In the US, immigration detention centres were the fastest <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/10/the-private-prison-industry-was-crashing-until-donald-trumps-victory/?utm_term=.246a33fd171a">growing market</a> for private prison companies, even before the election of Donald Trump – who <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/donald-trump-latest-policies-immigration-review-deportations-campaign-illegal-immigrants-a7204331.html">campaigned on a pledge</a> to start deportations of some of the estimated 11m undocumented migrants in the country. Among the few companies that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/10/the-private-prison-industry-was-crashing-until-donald-trumps-victory/?utm_term=.246a33fd171a">saw a rise</a> in value on the stock market immediately after Trump’s victory were CoreCivic and the Geo Group, another of the world’s largest private prison companies. </p>
<p>The number of detainees, according to the latest numbers, has also been <a href="http://odysseus-network.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/FINAL-REPORT-Alternatives-to-detention-in-the-EU.pdf">growing</a> in many EU countries since the 1990s. The UK had <a href="https://www.globaldetentionproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/UK-Immigration-Detention-Report.pdf">capacity</a> to detain 250 people in 1993. It held <a href="https://www.globaldetentionproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/UK-Immigration-Detention-Report.pdf">27,594 people</a> in detention in March 2012 and <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-statistics-january-to-march-2016/detention">32,163</a> in March 2016. <a href="https://www.globaldetentionproject.org/countries/europe/france">France</a> detained 28,220 in 2003 and 47,565 in 2015. <a href="http://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/stor-okning-av-forvarsvistelser">Sweden</a> placed 1,167 immigrants in detention in 2006 and 3,959 in 2015. In the past ten years or so <a href="http://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/getfacts/statistics/aust/asylum-stats/detention-australia-statistics/">Australia’s</a> detainee population has fluctuated. In 2009, there were 375 detainees, a number that sharply rose to 5,697 in 2013, and then dropped to 1,807 in January 2016. </p>
<p>Statistics for Greece and Italy, the two main first countries of entry for asylum seekers to the EU, are not readily available. In 2015 <a href="https://www.globaldetentionproject.org/countries/europe/italy">Italy</a> detained 5,242 people, while <a href="https://www.globaldetentionproject.org/countries/europe/greece#gdp-detention-facts-figures">Greece</a> had a detention capacity of 6,290 in 2013.</p>
<h2>Conditions vary</h2>
<p>There is significant variation in living conditions and rights of detainees held in different countries. The US and Italy have for-profit, privately run detention centres. In Sweden and the Netherlands, detention centres are fully operated by central government agencies. In Germany, they are managed by regional governments, which then contract out security and care services to private companies. In the UK and Australia, detention centres are also <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/97e025d6-3128-11e5-91ac-a5e17d9b4cff">outsourced</a> to private companies, while in France, the regional and local authorities operate detention centres but contract NGOs to provide certain services. Since 2014, Greece has been attempting to <a href="https://www.globaldetentionproject.org/countries/europe/greece#gdp-detention-facts-figures">privatise</a> parts of its immigration detention machinery, but with no apparent success.</p>
<p>Sweden <a href="https://www.jo.se/Global/NPM-protokoll%202188-2014.pdf">stands out</a> with its relatively comprehensive provision of services. Immigrant detainees in Sweden wear their own clothes and rooms are shared between two persons, with 20 detainees sharing a common space designated as an immigration reception centre. The common space is equipped with couches, a television, pool table and dining furniture. Detainees also have 24/7 accesses to computers with internet, telephones and visitation rooms.</p>
<p>This practice stands in stark contrast <a href="http://www.usccb.org/about/migration-and-refugee-services/upload/unlocking-human-dignity.pdf">to the US</a>, where detainees wear colour-coded prison-style uniforms and are monitored by <a href="http://docshare.tips/swr-cca-whitepaper_5859e8c4b6d87f8d1c8b6697.html">CCTV</a>. Access to outdoor activities is limited to a few hours a day and common spaces have prison-style stainless steel furniture bolted to a concrete floor. There is no easy access to a telephone, let alone a computer with internet access.</p>
<p>In the US, some detainees have been <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/03/05/thousands-of-ice-detainees-claim-they-were-forced-into-labor-a-violation-of-anti-slavery-laws/?utm_term=.c674a759c579">forced to work</a> for US$1-3 a day, while in Britain, detainees are <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-27332370">given the option</a> to work for around £1/hour, cleaning or serving food. In Sweden, by contrast, detainees are given a <a href="https://www.migrationsverket.se/Om-Migrationsverket/Pressrum/Fokusomraden/Forvar.html">daily allowance</a> to spend as they like.</p>
<p>In Sweden and France detainees also have the right to free legal aid. In the US detainees are in most cases not even informed of their basic rights. There was <a href="https://www.law.upenn.edu/journals/conlaw/articles/volume14/issue2/Eisner14U.Pa.J.Const.L.511(2011).pdf">no attorney to represent 84%</a> of those in removal proceedings in 2013. That is significant, since a Human Rights First <a href="http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/310">study showed</a> that asylum seekers in detention that had legal representation were three times more successful with their asylum applications than those without.</p>
<h2>Human suffering, everywhere</h2>
<p>Whatever the conditions, the human suffering in immigration detention centres is undeniable. In 2015, an Australian Human Rights Commission <a href="https://theconversation.com/detained-children-risk-life-long-physical-and-mental-harm-37510">report</a> found a third of children in immigration detention centres had a mental health disorder that required psychiatric support.</p>
<p>In the US, mothers <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/magazine/the-shame-of-americas-family-detention-camps.html">traumatised</a> by gang and sexual violence have been <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/07/why-are-immigration-ice-detention-facilities-so-cold">found living in freezing</a> detention facilities with their children. US customs and border patrol officials unofficially <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/07/why-are-immigration-ice-detention-facilities-so-cold">explained</a> to a reporter for Mother Jones that detention “facilities were never designed to house migrants for more than a half day or so”. Detainees voiced their theory: “The cold is part punishment, part deterrent.”</p>
<p>One rejected Afghan asylum seeker in Sweden who had been detained in the late 2000s told me it felt like being in prison. He was subsequently released and granted asylum because conditions in Afghanistan had worsened since his initial application.</p>
<h2>Criminalising immigrants</h2>
<p>Western countries invoke a variety of reasons for detaining non-citizens. These include ensuring the deportation of rejected asylum seekers, detaining non-citizens who pose a “risk to the public” and detaining asylum applicants who pose a risk of absconding following a rejected application. </p>
<p>Amid this hardship, a 2015 Odysseus Network <a href="http://odysseus-network.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/FINAL-REPORT-Alternatives-to-detention-in-the-EU.pdf">report</a> on immigration detention in the EU found that “increasing use of detention worldwide has not reduced irregular migration flows”.</p>
<p>Evidence <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/un-slams-australias-regional-processing-centres-in-nauru-20161007-grxj17.html">provided by the UN</a> in the case of Australia shows that detention centres criminalise and grossly mistreat a lot of people who have a legal right to move freely. The UN has also <a href="http://www.farr.se/sv/aktuellt-a-press/nyheter/18-nyheter/972-granskning-av-forvar-och-deportationer">accused Sweden</a> of using immigration detention of rejected asylum seekers too often.</p>
<p>In March 2017, the <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/exclusive-trump-admin-plans-expanded-immigrant-detention">Trump administration</a> announced plans to create 20,000 new beds to indefinitely detain asylum seekers. Targeting mainly women and children from Central America, the policy would force mothers to choose between returning to their home countries with their children or pursuing their asylum applications separated from them in detention.</p>
<p>The logic of this criminalising and dehumanising plan follows well-established trends. Although US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has long <a href="https://www.ice.gov/detention-reform#tab1">claimed</a> to prioritise detaining and deporting “aliens” who have committed criminal offences, the statistics betray the <a href="https://www.prisonpolicy.org/research/immigration_detainees/">opposite reality</a>. A <a href="http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/310/">report</a> by Syracuse University found that between 2008 and 2012, 77.4% of those detained by ICE had no criminal record. Undocumented foreign nationals in 2012 were <a href="http://www.cjcj.org/uploads/cjcj/documents/are_immigration_detainer_practices_rational_final.pdf">more likely to be detained</a> if they committed a traffic offence than if they committed homicide, rape, robbery or aggravated assault. </p>
<p>Under the illusion of national security, more people who are seeking sanctuary or economic opportunity in the West are being marginalised and dehumanised even further. </p>
<p><em>Correction: This article was amended on April 22 to show that in 1993, the UK government had the capacity to detain 250 people, rather than detaining that many.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76067/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Admir Skodo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Rights and living conditions vary depending where immigrants are detained.
Admir Skodo, Researcher in History, Lund University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/74488
2017-03-30T11:04:25Z
2017-03-30T11:04:25Z
What Britain’s post-Brexit immigration policy could look like
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162656/original/image-20170327-3308-1epj3d5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Coming and going. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/@annadziubinska">Anna Dziubinska via unsplash.com</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Huge questions hang over what Britain’s exit from the European Union will mean for the country’s immigration policy. Free movement of citizens between the UK and EU countries is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/video/2017/feb/26/amber-rudd-brexit-will-end-freedom-of-movement-as-we-know-it-video">coming to an end</a> but there is still little detail about what planned immigration controls will entail. The future immigration system – which the UK government has said will be finalised in a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/02/brexit-white-paper-spells-out-need-for-new-immigration-laws">bill</a> before parliament – will depend on the types of trade deals Britain negotiates with the EU, and the rest of the world. </p>
<p>Even before negotiations begin, the government faces a number of imperatives and some conflicting objectives on EU immigration. </p>
<p>Any reforms will need to be practically enforceable. This raises questions as to whether the Home Office has the resources, systems and manpower to implement proposals – despite a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jan/23/inspector-uk-border-agency-backlog">history of mismanagement</a> and the complexity of regulating migration. Reforms will also need to meet labour market demands in low and mid-skilled sectors that have long relied on EU labour. These include <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/mar/11/eu-hospitality-workers-brexit-pret-a-manger-hotels-restaurants">retail and hospitality</a>, the <a href="https://fullfact.org/immigration/immigration-and-nhs-staff/">NHS</a> and <a href="http://www.nhsemployers.org/%7E/media/Employers/Documents/Cavendish%20Coalition%20%20HSC%20inquiry%20FINAL.pdf">social care</a>, <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-economics-rics-idUKKBN16M003">construction</a>, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/7ceb876c-b58d-11e6-961e-a1acd97f622d">agriculture</a> and horticulture, among others. Unless there is an <a href="https://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201617/ldselect/ldeucom/121/12107.htm">improvement in pay and work conditions</a> it is hard to see how or why British workers will fill these shortages. </p>
<p>Likewise, if it is to continue with its rhetoric of wanting to “attract the brightest and best” to the UK, the government needs to continue to pull in highly skilled EU migrants – and make sure those already in the country stay. With the current political climate and uncertainty already <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2017/01/09/universities-may-face-brain-drain-brexit-new-survey-reveals/">driving some EU nationals to leave</a>, the government will have to work hard to continue to make the UK an attractive destination. </p>
<h2>The net migration conundrum</h2>
<p>At the same time, the government is <a href="https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/10/full-text-amber-rudds-conference-speech/">determined to reduce net migration</a> to the tens of thousands. Yet any trade deal with a country outside the EU, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-latest-australia-india-tell-uk-relax-immigration-rules-free-trade-deal-eu-visa-restrictions-a7540036.html">such as Australia</a>, will come with demands to liberalise the visa regimes for citizens of that country – which could push up net migration. And given the complexities facing British citizens now living in the EU, some <a href="https://theconversation.com/british-pensioners-in-spain-worry-brexit-could-force-them-to-return-to-uk-74329">may return</a> to the UK after Brexit – also driving up net migration. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162713/original/image-20170327-3303-fgbnxg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162713/original/image-20170327-3303-fgbnxg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162713/original/image-20170327-3303-fgbnxg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162713/original/image-20170327-3303-fgbnxg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162713/original/image-20170327-3303-fgbnxg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162713/original/image-20170327-3303-fgbnxg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162713/original/image-20170327-3303-fgbnxg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Long-Term UK International Migration.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/migrationstatisticsquarterlyreport/feb2017">ONS</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s also likely that the end of free movement could see EU citizens in the UK <a href="http://www.migrationpolicy.org/news/when-dust-settles-migration-policy-after-brexit">shifting to other channels such as student or family</a> visas, and spark a surge in <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2016/07/11/five-problems-with-uk-immigration-control-post-brexit/">irregular migration</a>. All this is unlikely to help <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39178288">achieve any significant reduction</a> in net migration. </p>
<p>Speaking on the BBC’s Question Time in late March, the Brexit secretary David Davis <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39407039">confirmed</a> it was unlikely Britain would seek to cap the number of EU migrants coming to Britain after Brexit. </p>
<p>So how does the government plan to square these circles, and how desirable and achievable are they? There are four principle ways the government could go about it. </p>
<h2>EU preferential system</h2>
<p>The key question is whether the government will establish an entirely new system for EU nationals that gives them preferential access to the labour market, or whether they will simply be subject to the controls that all other non-EU citizens currently face. A preferential system would be a constructive offer to make to other EU countries as the government seeks to negotiate a <a href="http://europesworld.org/2017/03/13/what-are-britains-post-brexit-migration-options/#.WMrErBRallL">positive partnership</a> with the EU after Brexit. </p>
<p>But there is a <a href="http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/reports/labour-immigration-brexit-trade-offs-questions-policy-design/">trade off here</a> between a system tailored to meet labour force demands and a simpler model that applies uniform rules. A tailored approach would allow the government to identify jobs shortages and tie its immigration policy into wider policy objectives. But it would introduce extra complexity into the system, making it harder for employers and employees to navigate and for the government to manage. The current system was introduced under Labour in 2008 precisely to <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/272243/6741.pdf">simplify</a> a system that had 80-or-so different legal channels. </p>
<p>If the government doesn’t give preferential access to EU nationals, one possibility could be to finally allow low-skilled workers from around the world to apply for a visa to Britain. The government has never thought it necessary to open up what’s called the <a href="https://www.immigrationdirect.co.uk/uk-visas/uk-tier-visa.jsp#unskilled">Tier 3 visa</a> within Britain’s current point-based immigration system, because EU nationals would fill up these lower-skilled jobs. If the government decides to treat EU nationals the same as all other nationals, this policy could change. </p>
<h2>Five-year working visa</h2>
<p>One possibility touted in a <a href="https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/27/uk_post_brexit_immigration_system/">report</a> in The Sunday Times in late February is the introduction of five-year working visas for EU nationals that would remove their entitlement to benefits, such as child benefit. Under this system, applications for a five-year visa would be granted on condition of a job in a key occupations in key sector. Speculatively, it seems this would be on a quota basis, all of which would be recommended by the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/migration-advisory-committee">Migration Advisory Committee</a>.</p>
<p>This proposal is thin on detail. Job offers are rarely – if ever – given on a five-year basis, raising questions on how this kind of visa could work in practice or how the government can forecast shortages in five years’ time. It’s unclear whether there would be a requirement for salaries to be above or below a certain threshold – which could also complicate matters.</p>
<p>Benefits tourism is widely derided as being an overstated problem, with EU nationals <a href="http://ukandeu.ac.uk/fact-figures/how-many-eu-migrants-claim-benefits-in-the-uk/">making up only 2.2% of total claimants</a> in the UK in 2015. Stripping benefit entitlements is a familiar political sop, and the government knows it would do little to nothing to reduce net migration. </p>
<h2>Sector-specific schemes</h2>
<p>A further option circulating in policy circles is the possibility of introducing sector specific immigration schemes. The UK used to have schemes for different sectors, most notably the seasonal agricultural workers scheme (SAWS), which <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/seasonal-agricultural-workers-scheme-and-the-food-processing-sectors-based-scheme">terminated in December 2013</a>. Long before Brexit was on the cards, representatives from agriculture industries had reported labour shortages <a href="https://www.sussex.ac.uk/webteam/gateway/file.php?name=mwp83.pdf&site=252">because of its closure</a>. Brexit has made this a pressing concern.</p>
<p>On the whole, SAWS was on a well-managed scheme. Workers came for less than a year and so <a href="https://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201617/ldselect/ldeucom/121/121.pdf">did not technically count</a> in the net migration figures. So the government has little to lose by re-establishing a SAWS scheme, and the insinuation is that the <a href="http://www.nfuonline.com/news/latest-news/comment-immigration-minister-hints-at-post-brexit-saws/">government will do so</a>. But agriculture – a sector with a 50-year history of regulating foreign labour – may be the exception. Other sectors may struggle to manage such schemes. </p>
<h2>Regional migration policy</h2>
<p>Another suggestion – although it <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/14/minister-denies-chance-of-cliff-edge-shift-in-migration-policy-post-brexit">seems to have been rejected by the government</a> – would be for the UK to implement a <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/uk-economy-sleepwalking-into-a-disaster-unless-we-adopt-a-regional-immigration-policy-a7604631.html">regional immigration policy</a>. The advantage of this would be to recognise regional differences and possibly alleviate any disproportionate impacts of immigration on public services and housing in highly populated areas, in theory dampening public concerns over immigration. </p>
<p>While federal states such as <a href="http://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/giving-cities-and-regions-voice-immigration-policy-can-national-policies-meet-local-demand">Canada can effectively operate</a> a regional immigration policy, how this would work in the UK remains ambiguous. Migrant workers are often pulled to the UK by the dazzle of London and other metropolitan areas. It would be naïve to assume that migrant workers will be just as willing to take a job in less desirable areas. </p>
<p>Such a proposal would also mean the government will need to reliably measure shortages by region, set appropriate quotas and monitor when these quotas are met – all which will take a lot of resources in an <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-british-civil-service-faces-a-great-brexit-challenge-73005">already stretched civil service</a>. </p>
<p>This isn’t to say a regional policy is impossible. London and the devolved states in theory have the democratic structures in place to police it, and Scotland already has <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules/immigration-rules-appendix-k-shortage-occupation-list">a different</a> list of shortage occupations. But if such a dramatic overhaul were to be functional, it really requires a much <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2016/10/how-devolved-immigration-policy-could-work-brexit-britain">wider devolution of education and skills systems. </a></p>
<p>Ultimately, as with all Brexit policy matters, the outcome will depend on whether the government considers the economic damage of immigration reform as incidental to what <a href="https://twitter.com/ProfTimBale/status/829618783593521153">parliamentarians clearly assume is a democratic demand to bring immigration down</a>. If May’s current plans are anything to go by, it seems the economic implications will be secondary.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74488/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erica Consterdine does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The options on the table for the UK when it comes to that most contentious of issues.
Erica Consterdine, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Immigration Politics & Policy, University of Sussex
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/73872
2017-03-02T14:16:49Z
2017-03-02T14:16:49Z
Home Office rule change adds to febrile atmosphere for EU nationals in Britain
<p>The House of Lords may have backed an amendment to protect the rights of EU nationals after Brexit, but the level of fear among nationals of other EU countries about their future <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/brexit-latest-eu-national-right-to-live-uk-theresa-may-panic-a7602191.html">has hit new highs</a>. </p>
<p>On March 1, the Lords <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/01/lords-defeat-government-over-rights-of-eu-citizens-in-uk-brexit-bill">voted by 358 to 256</a> in favour of an amendment to the Brexit bill, although <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/01/brexit-lords-vote-debate-theresa-may-pmqs-live/">it’s likely</a> this will get overturned by MPs in the House of Commons. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, a briefing published by a well-known <a href="https://www.freemovement.org.uk/briefing-legal-status-eu-citizens-uk/">immigration law</a> blogger, arguing that the Home Office had extended its powers to remove citizens for the European Economic Area (EEA) who were unlawfully living in the country, has increased uncertainty. </p>
<p>The actual change in the law and guidance is minimal, and the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/brexit-latest-eu-national-right-to-live-uk-theresa-may-panic-a7602191.html">Home Office insisted</a> that it was wrong to imply it had new powers to deport people. But the impact of the guidance on some groups of non-UK EEA nationals is immense. </p>
<h2>Who needs health insurance?</h2>
<p>The key issue at stake is the requirement for <a href="http://europestreet.news/why-you-need-to-know-about-comprehensive-sickness-insurance/">comprehensive sickness insurance</a>. Any EEA national from outside the UK wanting to reside lawfully in the UK for more than three months but who is not working or self-employed, has to show that they have health insurance. This means students and EU citizens who are not working need to prove that they are not solely relying on the NHS for their medical cover. Even if they have never used the NHS – or used it without being asked to pay or prove they had insurance. </p>
<p>This relates to a 2004 <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2004:158:0077:0123:en:PDF">EU directive</a> which was intended to ensure that those member states with a high influx of EEA nationals do not have their welfare and health care systems overburdened. The UK’s implementation of this EU law is <a href="http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=WQ&reference=P-2017-000226&format=XML&language=EN">questionable</a> but has so far been <a href="http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2014/988.html">challenged</a> in the UK courts without success. Although other countries in the EU have similar rules, no other country has a health system comparable to the NHS in which the majority of the population do not have private health insurance. </p>
<p>The update on the rules and guidance seem to be aimed at allowing the Home Office to crack down on those EEA nationals living in the UK without any means to support themselves, such <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/migrant-refugees-homeless-deportation-home-office-eu-eea-rough-sleepers-a7600701.html">as rough sleepers</a>. This is not a new development and started long <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-citizens-detention-centres-immigration-detained-five-times-theresa-may-brexit-hostile-environment-a7534231.html">before</a> the referendum in June 2016.</p>
<p>The new guidance change, in effect from February 1, enables the Home Office to ask EEA nationals to <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/588682/Misuse-of-rights-and-verification-of-EEA-rightsv2_0EXT.pdf">verify</a> their right to reside by inviting them for an interview. If they fail this, an order of removal can be issued. Until now, the assumption has always been that all EEA nationals are residing in the UK lawfully, so the change could now see a rise in individuals being treated suspiciously. </p>
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<p>Those EEA nationals who have lived in the UK for more than five years and are <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-eu-nationals-in-britain-are-hurrying-to-get-one-piece-of-paper-64830">seeking to apply for permanent residency</a> via an <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/2119a554-fce6-11e6-96f8-3700c5664d30">85-page</a> form, have already had to grapple with the rules regarding health insurance.</p>
<h2>Students and spouses take note</h2>
<p>The updated Home Office <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/588551/Removals-and-revocations-of-EEA-nationalsv2_0EXT.pdf">guidance</a> shows complete ignorance of the various backgrounds and situations that EEA nationals living in the UK may have. It will have a particular impact on students and spouses of British citizens who are not in full-time employment. </p>
<p>A non-UK EEA national studying in the UK is required to hold comprehensive sickness insurance. Usually, through the <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=559">European Health Insurance agreement</a>, they would be able to rely on the health care insurer in their home country while they study in the UK, as long as it is clear that they have no intention to settle. However, each member state has a different insurance system and it is not always a simple process to be able to rely on the home insurance provider when accessing services in the UK. There are also usually no checks of the European Health Insurance Card when EU citizens access the NHS. The NHS operates a residency-based insurance system, so a UK address will suffice. </p>
<p>The situation for EU citizens who are married to British citizens is less easily fixed and some could technically face being removed if they do not meet the criteria set out in the new guidance.</p>
<p>Many EEA nationals come into the UK to be with their British spouses. A huge proportion of them are women, and become stay-at-home mums or part-time workers. But unlike immigrants to the UK from outside the EU, EEA nationals married to British citizens cannot claim any rights to reside because of their married status. For example, an American can be married to a British citizen and rely on that marriage when claiming a right to reside in the UK, but EEA nationals can’t. They will always be treated in their own right, which means that if they do not work and are not holding comprehensive sickness insurance they fall in the Home Office target group for removal.</p>
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<h2>No need to panic</h2>
<p>The briefing note that has caused the stir discusses two points that are worth making here. The first is that it is very unlikely that students and spouses will actually be targeted in practice. While this guidance suggests that the removal from the UK is possible, the target group is a different one – rough sleepers. And the government has made clear it doesn’t intend to remove people who don’t have comprehensive sickness insurance. But it’s clear that the UK government is confident its approach does not break the law, including the European Convention on Human Rights. </p>
<p>The second point is that the British government is of the view that those EEA nationals that are EU citizens do not have a right to reside in any member state because of that citizenship status – even though this is contrary to the wording of the <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=OJ:C:2008:115:TOC">EU treaty</a>. Article 21 of the treaty clearly states that every EU citizen is free to reside in any member state of the European Union. The government, however, only refers to the rights outlined by the <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2004:158:0077:0123:en:PDF">2004 EU directive</a>. This view is yet to be challenged in the courts, though it could well be in the future.</p>
<p>So while there is no need for EEA nationals to panic, all of this adds to uncertainty for those waiting to hear whether they will have the right to stay in Britain after Brexit.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73872/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anne Wesemann does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The Lords’ amendment to the Brexit bill doesn’t allay EU citizens’ fear for their future.
Anne Wesemann, Lecturer in Law, The Open University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/70949
2017-02-14T13:04:19Z
2017-02-14T13:04:19Z
Despite repeated failings, private firms continue to run asylum housing
<p>Just over a year after reports that some people seeking asylum were housed in <a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4669721.ece">accommodation with red doors</a>, apparently making it easier for them to be identified, MPs on the Home Affairs Select Committee published a critical <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmhaff/637/637.pdf">report</a> in late January into the state of asylum housing in the UK. </p>
<p>Details within the report provide a shameful account of failings by some of the private firms that run asylum housing. The chair of the committee, the Labour MP Yvette Cooper, <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/home-affairs-committee/news-parliament-2015/asylum-accommodation-report-published-16-17/">said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The state of accommodation for some asylum seekers and refugees in this country is a disgrace. And the current contract system just isn’t working. Major reforms are needed. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Back in January 2016, The Times called the red doors for asylum seekers “<a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4669721.ece">apartheid on the streets of Britain</a>”. The private security contractor involved, G4S, <a href="http://www.libdemvoice.org/lib-dem-suzanne-fletcher-on-today-programme-talking-about-her-fight-against-red-doors-policy-49064.html">had not addressed</a> concerns raised <a href="https://theconversation.com/degrading-living-conditions-for-asylum-seekers-are-fuelled-by-privatisation-53923">about the doors</a> with its subcontractor Jomast, potentially exposing people to the risk of hate crime. </p>
<p>G4S <a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4669721.ece">insisted</a> it had no policy of painting the doors of asylum housing red. In early May 2016, it <a href="http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/home-affairs-committee/the-work-of-the-immigration-directorates-q1-2016/written/34238.html">wrote</a> to the Home Affairs Select Committee, to say that “the majority of doors are no longer red” and that “any further repainting that might be necessary will be funded by G4S”.</p>
<p>Despite these concerns, in December 2016, the UK government decided to extend and expand the contract with G4S, as well as the contracts with the companies Serco and Clearsprings – neither of which was involved in the red doors incident. The extension was made by the immigration minister Robert Goodwill, who lodged a <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Lords/2016-12-08/HLWS333/">short written statement</a> in parliament announcing the government would take the option of extending the current Commercial and Operating Managers Procuring Asylum Support contracts for asylum support – known as COMPASS – until 2019. These primarily provide accommodation, transport and other related services for people seeking asylum. </p>
<p>The announcement got little coverage, but is a deeply concerning decision. </p>
<h2>A litany of complaints</h2>
<p>The background to COMPASS stems to 2012, when <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmhaff/145/14504.htm#note10">six contracts</a> were awarded to G4S, Serco and Clearsprings. COMPASS was worth more than £620m – the largest contract ever awarded by the Home Office. The decision to award welfare housing for people seeking asylum to private companies <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/public-accounts-committee/news/asylum-accommodation-substantive/">removed the expertise</a> of 13 specialist providers, mainly local authorities. </p>
<p>G4S is one the world’s largest security employers, but when it was given the contract, like Serco, it <a href="https://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmhaff/637/63703.htm#_idTextAnchor005">had no experience</a> of providing asylum housing. The company is the subject of a number of serious allegations regarding <a href="https://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/news/press-releases-and-statements/liberty-and-40-other-organisations-demand-inquiry-after-infamous">failure to protect</a> those in its care. </p>
<p>Serco has also received complaints. These include <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/14/female-detainees-yarls-wood-report-privacy-immigration-detention-centre-sexual-abuse">allegations of the mistreatment of women</a> in relation to its contract for the Yarl’s Wood immigration detention centre. An <a href="https://www.channel4.com/news/yarls-wood-immigration-removal-detention-centre-investigation">undercover Channel 4 News report</a> in 2015 showed Serco staff at the facility referring to detainees as “animals”, “beasties” and “bitches”. After carrying out an independent review into the allegations, in January 2016 <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/c5be2038-bac2-11e5-b151-8e15c9a029fb">Serco pledged</a> to improve conditions including hiring more staff and removing barbed wire. </p>
<p>The decision to extend the COMPASS contracts also flew in the face of three damning parliamentary inquiries – two <a href="https://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/sites/default/files/tcs/asylum_support_inquiry_report_final.pdf">in</a> <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmhaff/71/71.pdf">2013</a> and one in <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/public-accounts-committee/news/asylum-accommodation-substantive">2014</a> – which have included allegations of malpractice and mismanagement of the asylum accommodation contract. </p>
<p>In 2014, the National Audit Office also <a href="https://www.nao.org.uk/report/compass-contracts-provision-accommodation-asylum-seekers">found</a> G4S and Serco failed to meet key performance targets “notably relating to the standards of property” and their “poor performance[s]”. This failure led to fines which <a href="http://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/fc8e1ca0-0eb1-45f6-8c9d-45c8b25c0cbd?in=09:29:59">stood at</a> £5.6m in 2013-14. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmhaff/637/637.pdf">new report</a> from MPs indicates a continuation of the dismal housing conditions. Problems include: a house with a known asbestos risk, vulnerable women placed in mixed-sex accommodation; children living with the presence of vermin (infestations of mice, rats or bed bugs); women in the late stages of pregnancy being placed in rooms up several flights of stairs, and unrelated individuals being made to share a bedroom. “No one should be living in conditions like that,” <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/home-affairs-committee/news-parliament-2015/asylum-accommodation-report-published-16-17/">said</a> Cooper. </p>
<p>Yet, the COMPASS contracts, which were due to end in August 2017, have been extended for two more years. The government did little to explain its decision, but in his <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2016-12-08/HCWS335/">written statement</a> Goodwill said he recognised that “there are improvements that can be made”. As a result, the amount of money that the Home Office pays has been increased, and a new higher price band introduced for any increases in the number of asylum seekers requiring accommodation. The additional money will also allow the contracted companies (G4S, Serco and Clearsprings) to increase their property portfolios and widen the areas in which they operate. </p>
<h2>Warnings ignored</h2>
<p>G4S has attracted <a href="https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2016-01-%2011/debates/16011114000003/PrisonsAndSecureTrainingCentresSafety">censure</a> in parliament over a number of years. A number of MPs, including the <a href="https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2013-07-%2011/debates/13071159000006/ElectronicTagging">now mayor of London Sadiq Khan</a>, have specifically called for G4S not to be awarded further government contracts. </p>
<p>In 2012, Keith Vaz, the former chair of the Home Affairs Committee, suggested the government <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/home-affairs-committee/news/120921-olympics-rpt-published/">should</a> “establish a register of high-risk companies that have failed in the delivery of public services”. Such a register would allow MPs to consider whether G4S, and other private companies, are suitable for bidding for further government contracts – such as those running asylum housing – and prohibit those who are not from bidding or being awarded. </p>
<p>In September 2016, Liberty and 40 other organisations <a href="https://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/news/press-releases-and-statements/liberty-and-40-other-organisations-demand-inquiry-after-infamous">demanded an inquiry</a> after G4S was awarded the contract to deliver the Equality Advisory Support Service, which provides expert advice and assistance on issues relating to equality and human rights across England, Scotland and Wales. </p>
<h2>A way forward</h2>
<p>Many of us who have worked with people seeking asylum during the <a href="http://www.symaag.org.uk/2016/09/14/rats-in-the-yard-4-years-of-uk-asylum-housing-by-g4s/">challenges of COMPASS</a> believe the contract and provision of asylum housing would be better transferred to a consortia of local authorities. In its report, the Home Affairs Select Committee <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmhaff/637/637.pdf">suggests</a> arrangements “could have been replaced with a better approach when the term of the contracts ended”. It argues that local authorities are crucial to COMPASS, recommending immediate action to transfer the necessary resources to enable local authorities to improve standards and monitoring – including giving them powers of inspection, higher standards and new penalties, and report publicly on their findings. </p>
<p>Looking to the future after 2019, Cooper <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/home-affairs-committee/news-parliament-2015/asylum-accommodation-report-published-16-17/">concluded</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>When the current contracts run out, they should be replaced with a completely new system – handing power back to local areas to decide on asylum accommodation rather than this top down approach. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Asylum housing should be delivered by voluntary sector and statutory providers who know and understand the local area, and are committed to ensuring that people are treated with dignity and are accommodated in safe, secure and suitable housing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70949/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council in the form of a 1+3 scholarship (2010 -2014) for her PhD research into the stories of women seeking asylum. In 2014 - 2015, she received funding from the Nationwide Children’s Research Centre to carry out research into asylum support for children and young people. Kate is employed by and a member of WomenCentre Kirklees where she works within the Women in Exile service for women seeking asylum, refugees and new migrants. </span></em></p>
The government has extended a contract with private security companies G4S and Serco.
Kate Smith, Research fellow, Asylum and Migration Centre for Applied Childhood, University of Huddersfield
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/72109
2017-01-30T18:29:50Z
2017-01-30T18:29:50Z
Why British criticism of Trump’s anti-refugee stance is so hypocritical
<p>The world has been quick and loud in its condemnation of the Trump administration’s ill-informed, <a href="https://theconversation.com/qanda-what-legal-obligation-does-the-us-have-to-accept-refugees-72007">legally suspect</a>, and morally bankrupt new immigration policies. Alongside a travel ban on citizens of seven, mainly Muslim majority countries, a new “refugee ban” has been the subject of fierce denunciation. Protests are <a href="http://news.sky.com/story/protests-planned-in-uk-as-opposition-mounts-over-trump-travel-ban-10748052">planned</a> across the UK against the move. </p>
<p>But the US retreat from refugee protection only serves to underscore the gaps and weaknesses in the commitments of the rest of the world, in particular by countries like the UK.</p>
<p>There are around <a href="http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/regional.php">5m Syrian refugees</a> – and an even greater number of internally displaced persons. In 2016, the US resettled “only” around <a href="https://reports.zoho.com/ZDBDataSheetView.cc?OBJID=885676000000645339&STANDALONE=true&privatelink=c02db2abc200268db3527cb53b36fe1b&INTERVAL=-1&REMTOOLBAR=false&INCLUDETITLE=true&INCLUDEDESC=true">11,000 Syrian refugees</a>. This number still made the US one of the top three destinations for resettlement of Syrians that year, and it remains behind only Canada in the number of Syrians resettled since the start of the conflict. </p>
<h2>How the UK compares</h2>
<p>The US population is five times larger than the UK’s – 318m compared to 61m. However, in the same year, according to UNHCR, the UK resettled <a href="https://reports.zoho.com/ZDBDataSheetView.cc?OBJID=885676000000645339&STANDALONE=true&privatelink=c02db2abc200268db3527cb53b36fe1b&INTERVAL=-1&REMTOOLBAR=false&INCLUDETITLE=true&INCLUDEDESC=true">less than 3,000 Syrian refugees</a>. The UK government gives <a href="http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN06805">a slightly higher figure</a>, though one still around a third of the US figure. </p>
<p>Given the scale of the outflows of people from Syria, with much less fanfare, the UK has effectively been pursuing a similar policy to the one Trump has just put in place in the US. </p>
<p>In the same executive order, <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/158/text">Trump announced</a> that America’s quota for resettled refugees would drop to 50,000 refugees in 2017 – cut in half from the <a href="https://www.state.gov/j/prm/releases/docsforcongress/261956.htm">target of 100,000</a> set by the outgoing Obama administration. </p>
<p>While past performance suggests that the US might struggle to meet even this lower quota (as the resettlement quotas are targets that are often missed due to processing bottlenecks, especially if “extreme vetting” is implemented), if it did it would have resettled more refugees than the UK <a href="http://www.inderscience.com/info/inarticle.php?artid=81199">has resettled over the last half centry</a>. In fact, the UK has only had a formal refugee resettlement programme since 2004. </p>
<p>And the UK only gets close to the figure of 50,000 over the last half century by including the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369183X.1976.9975463?journalCode=cjms20">unprecedented movement of Ugandan Asians</a> in the early 1970s – a population that had the right of abode in the UK until legislative amendments a few years earlier and that the UK government of the day tried its hardest to ship elsewhere. </p>
<p>In response to the Syrian crisis, in David Cameron <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34171148">promised</a> in 2015 to resettle 20,000 Syrian refugees in the UK before 2020 – a target MPs suggested would be missed in a <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/home-affairs-committee/news-parliament-2015/migration-crisis-report-published-16-17/">report</a> in 2016. </p>
<h2>Barriers to claiming asylum</h2>
<p>Ultimately, resettlement policy only affects a tiny number of refugees. Despite UNHCR estimating that <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/uk/protection/resettlement/575836267/unhcr-projected-global-resettlement-needs-2017.html">over a million of the world’s refugees are in desperate need of resettlement</a>, only a small fraction of those who have endured decades of insecurity in protracted refugee situations, or have acute protection risks are ever selected for resettlement. Meanwhile, the overwhelming majority of refugees remain in so-called “countries of first asylum” – <a href="https://theconversation.com/syrian-refugees-in-turkey-jordan-and-lebanon-face-an-uncertain-2017-70747">such as</a> Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon.</p>
<p>In terms of providing asylum to refugees, both the US and the UK have been abysmal. These low numbers are not accidental. They are a deliberate outcome of a series of policies ranging from visa restrictions to interdiction efforts by immigration officers overseas, to the use of detention and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-economic-case-for-allowing-asylum-seekers-to-work-and-giving-them-more-cash-69250">forced destitution</a> as deterrents for asylum seeking. </p>
<p>In 2016, the UK received <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/unhcrsharedmedia/2016/2016-06-20-global-trends/2016-06-14-Global-Trends-2015.pdf">less than 2% of new claims for asylum</a>. More Syrian refugees have crossed into Jordan, Turkey or Lebanon – or even Germany – in a busy day than the UK or the US provided first asylum to since the civil war broke out five long years ago. </p>
<p>The British and American policies stand in sharp contrast to those elsewhere. The states of the Middle East host the overwhelming majority of Syrian refugees, with refugees constituting <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/02/syrias-refugee-crisis-in-numbers/">a fifth of Lebanon’s population</a>. </p>
<p>Canada has resettled <a href="http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/refugees/welcome/">39,000 Syrians</a>, with 25,000 of them being resettled over a period of four months in late 2015 and early 2016. The country’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has now offered to resettle those Syrians turned away by Trump. Germany has also opened its doors to around half a million asylum seekers. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"825438460265762816"}"></div></p>
<p>In contrast, while Theresa May belatedly criticised the new immigration policies of the US, the British prime minister <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-donald-trump-immigration-ban-muslim-turkey-refugee-refuses-to-condemn-latest-a7551121.html">defended</a> Trump’s new approach to refugee protection: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The United States is responsible for the United States’ policy on refugees. The United Kingdom is responsible for the United Kingdom’s policy on refugees. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>When it belatedly responded to Trump’s executive order, the UK government <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38789821">restricted its concern</a> to British dual nationals. The foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, has warned against <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/30/british-dual-citizens-will-now-allowed-travel-us-boris-johnson/">“pointlessly demonising”</a> these policies. Unfortunately, with much less fanfare and criticism, May and the UK have adopted very similar policies and deserve to be demonised alongside him.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72109/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Jones has received funding for research on refugee policy from the Economic and Social Research Council (UK) and is affiliated with AMERA International (an NGO focusing on refugee legal aid in the Global South) as a trustee and the Egyptian Foundation for Refugee Rights (the leading provider of refugee legal aid in Egypt) as a co-founder and its vice-chairman.</span></em></p>
The UK welcomes a woeful amount of Syrian refugees.
Martin Jones, Lecturer in International Human Rights Law, Centre for Applied Human Rights, University of York
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/70930
2017-01-11T10:46:43Z
2017-01-11T10:46:43Z
Handing regions power to set their own immigration policy will not fix social integration
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152243/original/image-20170110-29028-1b3ujnj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tupungato/www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a bid to improve the integration of immigrants in Britain, a group of MPs has suggested different areas of the country could be given control over how many people are allowed to live and work there. </p>
<p>The idea was included as one of six principles outlined in the interim <a href="http://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/themes/570513f1b504f500db000001/attachments/original/1483608320/APPG_Interim_Report_Screen.pdf?1483608320">report</a> on the integration of immigrants by the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Social Integration. Other principles included ensuring immigrants either speak English or are enrolled in compulsory lessons on arrival. </p>
<p>The MPs’ proposal for a regional immigration policy draws on the model of the <a href="http://www.cic.gc.ca/ENGLISH/immigrate/provincial/index.asp">Canadian Provincial Nominee Program (PNP)</a> of region-specific visas and regional quotas. Established across Canada in 1995, the PNP enables the federal government to delegate authority to provinces, which nominate migrants for visas within regionally agreed quotas. </p>
<p>An individual’s immigration status is tied to a specific region for usually two years, before they are free to move elsewhere. Its purpose is to provide regions and localities that have not been traditionally favoured destinations with the ability to attract new workers. It also aims to divert migrants away from population centres such as Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver and so reduce the perceived impacts of migration. Overall, within Canada <a href="http://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/giving-cities-and-regions-voice-immigration-policy-can-national-policies-meet-local-demand">the scheme has been viewed as a flagship success</a>. It is based on a <a href="https://www.border.gov.au/about/corporate/information/fact-sheets/26state">similar system</a> in Australia. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152244/original/image-20170110-29031-weisg6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152244/original/image-20170110-29031-weisg6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152244/original/image-20170110-29031-weisg6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152244/original/image-20170110-29031-weisg6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152244/original/image-20170110-29031-weisg6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152244/original/image-20170110-29031-weisg6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152244/original/image-20170110-29031-weisg6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Vancouver skyline. Canada allows provinces, such as British Columbia, to set regional immigration policy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/magnusl3d/6044910841/in/photolist-adaKoH-oXJMqt-iuZJCa-BFA8X5-Dp3y8k-zLATJ8-ARvbkv-bWrS1A-2aivwG-65owkd-3JwCBw-rxydSK-AXLdRg-qi5Qu8-buaomD-4ukqmE-AGZ18W-pPEQW8-55kLiN-dmDvJZ-EdArzj-APs9FM-DDvuUy-qjZXhr-MoPbG-E89C4C-7RkvLA-rUfbih-ea8qvk-H8oNYi-LzYR8T-wFKrEw-NaAuQN-iuZx8i-7DCw92-9kktPG-oJih29-cA8Gzq-dGJeAE-AeUDji-PWYKVD-e1LgS9-DKXBKT-6Eh5wL-QuZ37L-PtCyRd-bcq7i2-pF11rF-EcggaV-dGE3f8">Magnus Larsson/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the UK, proposals for region-specific visas are not a new idea. The Liberal Democrats first proposed a regional version of the “points based system” (which governs the allocation of work permits to non-EU migrants), in their <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/apr/14/liberal-democrat-manifesto-at-a-glance">2010 election manifesto</a>. Since then, the idea has re-emerged in the context of devolution to the English regions, and is gaining traction within the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/apr/14/liberal-democrat-manifesto-at-a-glance">context of the Brexit debate</a>. </p>
<p>The Scottish government has long <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/24/immigration-work-visas-foreign-students-scotland">argued for</a> having its own immigration policy. In a limited sense, it already does so. There is a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules/immigration-rules-appendix-k-shortage-occupation-list">Scotland-specific “shortage occupation list”</a> – which currently includes, for example, all anaesthetists, paediatricians, obstetricians and gynaecologists. However, in practice the Scottish shortage occupation list is almost the same as the UK national one. </p>
<p>To deal with existing regional shortages, employers mount targeted recruitment campaigns for both EU and non-EU nationals. And they are already free to offer incentives such as better pay, terms and conditions in order to attract the employees they want.</p>
<h2>Could it work in the UK?</h2>
<p>Given that the CBI, the lobby group for business, <a href="http://www.cbi.org.uk/cbi-prod/assets/File/pdf/cbi-business-priorities-for-a-new-migration-system-dec%20-016.pdf">is in favour</a> of making it easier for employers to recruit from overseas, it is also unlikely that business would be supportive of regional quotas or region-specific visas. </p>
<p>It is not at all clear that such a scheme would be remotely feasible. Operating it would be <a href="http://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/giving-cities-and-regions-voice-immigration-policy-can-national-policies-meet-local-demand">hugely complicated and risky</a>. </p>
<p>The Institute For Public Policy Research has also proposed a regional immigration policy and submitted evidence to the APPG. It <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2016/10/how-devolved-immigration-policy-could-work-brexit-britain">suggests that the entry of migrant workers would be regulated by issuing work permits</a>, each tied to one specific employer and place of residence. This offers two unpalatable outcomes. On the one hand, it would present a nigh-on impossible regulatory burden on employers, apparently required to keep track of workers even when they are not at work. </p>
<p>On the other, it would offer employers enormous unchecked powers over the lives of individual employees, in a modern version of indentured labour. Making workers dependant on employers for their place of residence and work will make them even more vulnerable to <a href="http://www.bath.ac.uk/ipr/pdf/policy-briefs/Temporary-Agency-Work.pdf">existing illegal practices</a> such as the confiscation of documents, debt bondage and non-payment of national insurance. </p>
<p>The APPG recommends that in the UK, regional quotas could be agreed by “devolved administrations, city regions and other democratic forums”. Yet in the wake of austerity measures <a href="https://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/default/files/jrf/migrated/files/Summary-Final.pdf">local authorities who are already struggling to deliver essential services</a> will struggle to find the capacity to agree regional immigration quotas, let alone monitor and nominate individuals for additional rights of settlement and citizenship.</p>
<h2>A backwards move</h2>
<p>The APPG has not made a convincing case for a regional immigration policy. The report claims that UK regions are unable to benefit economically from labour migration, and also that migration causes problems of social integration in areas with high proportions of migrants. Yet the MPs also argue that diverse places like London are less likely to have the problems of social segregation and conflict which were expressed during the debate ahead of the UK’s referendum on EU membership.</p>
<p>These contradictions express the muddled thinking at the heart of the report. The term “immigrant” is used to described everyone from newly arrived temporary labour migrants, to refugees needing settlement, to non-immigrants in Britain’s existing diverse communities. With such a confused starting point, the political or policy problem that the regional immigration proposal is supposed to solve remains unclear.</p>
<p>The report notes in passing the difficulties of securing “integration” where migrant workers are employed together for extremely long hours. The reality is that migrants’ work in low-skilled jobs is marked by very low pay, little to no <a href="http://www.bath.ac.uk/ipr/policy-briefs/portability-of-social-security-rights-within-eu-poland-UK.html">social security</a>, <a href="http://www.bath.ac.uk/ipr/policy-briefs/temporary-agency-work.html">employment protection</a> or affordable housing. But this reality is also shared by many non-migrant workers, sometimes in the same locations and workplaces. A regional immigration policy will not solve these issues. </p>
<p>To tackle these shared insecurities, inequalities, disempowerment and lack of integration in the current climate of austerity presents a huge political and policy challenge. It cannot be resolved by superficially borrowing from a Canadian scheme for labour migration, while being equivocal about the scheme’s premise of inclusion and citizenship.</p>
<p>In the end, these policy proposals look at least as much backward to Elizabethan England, as outward to Canadian progressivism. The proposed policy would create committees with powers to selectively control entry, residence and inclusion in local communities. Without the strong federal political accountability of Canada’s provincial system, and the premise of inclusion in its regional immigration policy, this would effectively disavow the UK government responsibility for population management, economic development and inequality. It sounds more like the end of the first Elizabethan age than the end of the second.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70930/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Carmel receives funding for a current research project, TRANSWEL, from NORFACE. NORFACE is a consortium of national social science research councils and the European Commission. The opinions expressed in this contribution are personal. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katharine Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
MPs have proposed Britain follows Canada’s model allowing regions to decide how many immigrants they let in.
Emma Carmel, Senior Lecturer, University of Bath
Katharine Jones, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Coventry University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/69250
2016-11-29T14:19:10Z
2016-11-29T14:19:10Z
The economic case for allowing asylum seekers to work – and giving them more cash
<p>Most asylum seekers in the UK do not have the right to work. But our <a href="https://asylumwelfarework.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/welfare-costs-working-paper.pdf">new research</a> has calculated that allowing asylum seekers to get a job while they wait for their application to be processed, could save the government up to £173.6m and help prevent vulnerable people from living in destitution.</p>
<p>In order not to violate its <a href="https://justice.org.uk/asylum-human-rights/">human rights commitments</a>, the government is obliged to provide welfare support to asylum seekers. <a href="https://www.gov.uk/asylum-support/what-youll-get">Welfare payments</a> are delivered through a separate system to the payments provided to unemployed citizens, and are set purposefully low. The government <a href="https://www.theyworkforyou.com/lords/?id=2014-03-17a.13.2#g32.0">justifies</a> the low level of support by arguing it won’t act as “pull” factor for economic migrants who might claim asylum in order to access benefits. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/sites/default/files/tcs/asylum_support_inquiry_report_final.pdf">Charities</a> and some <a href="https://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt200607/jtselect/jtrights/81/81i.pdf">parliamentarians</a> who support asylum seekers have been critical of this policy and have been arguing for many years that asylum seekers should both have the right to enter the labour market, and should receive welfare payments in line with at least 70% of Jobseeker’s Allowance. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/Documents/college-social-sciences/social-policy/iris/2014/working-paper-series/IRiS-WP-1-2014.pdf">Poverty</a> and destitution are very common among asylum seekers and refused asylum seekers in the UK. Refused asylum seekers can apply for what’s called “<a href="https://www.gov.uk/asylum-support/what-youll-get">Section 4</a>” support if they are complying with certain Home Office rules, which include somewhere to live and a cash allowance.</p>
<p>The asylum support rate is currently £36.95 for asylum seekers and £35.39 for refused asylum seekers who comply with certain rules. This is currently calculated based on the weekly expenditure of the poorest 10% of British households, minus any non-essential purchases. Asylum seekers are living on an income which is just a third of the income of the poorest 10% of British households.</p>
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<p>In <a href="https://asylumwelfarework.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/is-access-to-the-labour-market-a-pull-factor-for-asylum-seekers-long.pdf">research</a> published in the spring of 2016, we looked at whether there was any evidence that access to benefits and the labour market was acting as an economic “pull factor” for migrants coming to the UK. We found no empirical support for this assertion. Other <a href="https://stillhumanstillhere.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/ra_the_destitution_trap2.pdf">research</a> has found that the threat or experience of destitution for refused asylum seekers does not lead to increased deportations.</p>
<p>Low levels of welfare support and barriers to working are thought to encourage those who are here to leave, though in practice they mostly increase levels of poverty and destitution. This is particularly the case for people whose application for asylum has been refused and they are waiting for an appeal decision or to be deported. The impacts of such deprivations upon asylum seekers include <a href="https://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/sites/default/files/tcs/research_docs/thechildrenssociety_idontfeelhuman_final.pdf">mental health problems</a>, high levels of <a href="http://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/sites/default/files/tcs/asylum_support_inquiry_report_final.pdf">hunger</a>, <a href="http://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/assets/0002/6402/When_Maternity_Doesn_t_Matter_-_Ref_Council__Maternity_Action_report_Feb2013.pdf">maternal</a> and <a href="http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/Documents/college-social-sciences/social-policy/iris/2014/working-paper-series/IRiS-WP-1-2014.pdf">infant</a> mortality, and <a href="http://www.redcross.org.uk/%7E/media/BritishRedCross/Documents/What%20we%20do/UK%20services/Greater%20Manchester%20destitution%20report.pdf">difficulty</a> navigating the legal process. </p>
<h2>The current cost of asylum support</h2>
<p>In our <a href="https://asylumwelfarework.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/welfare-costs-working-paper.pdf">new research</a> we explore the cost implications for the public purse of denying the right to work to asylum seekers, and refused asylum seekers who cannot be returned. Using <a href="https://data.gov.uk/dataset/control-of-immigration-statistics">Home Office data</a>, we have calculated that the total cost in accommodation and support payments to asylum seekers and refused asylum seekers is £173.6m, rising to £233.5m if staffing and administration costs are included. </p>
<p>With no changes to the rules on working, if all asylum seekers in receipt of support were entitled to approximately 70% of the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/jobseekers-allowance/overview">Jobseeker’s Allowance</a> rate – assuming there is no change in their right to work – the asylum support bill for 2014-15 would have been £14.5m higher, as the second graph shows. If asylum seekers were entitled to the full level of income support on Job Seekers Allowance, the cost would increase by £36.2m. </p>
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<p>When set within the context of a £146 billion <a href="http://visual.ons.gov.uk/welfare-spending/">welfare bill</a> in 2014-15 (excluding pensions) these figures appear relatively low: £36.2m would add 0.02% to the total. Bringing asylum support up to the level of about 70% of Jobseeker’s Allowance would add just 0.01% on to the total welfare bill. </p>
<h2>What if asylum seekers could work?</h2>
<p>We might imagine that if asylum seekers were allowed to work the asylum support bill could be zero. But it is not realistic to assume that all asylum seekers would be 100% employed. However, even if we assumed that just 25% of all asylum seekers had a job, then we calculated that the asylum support bill would drop from £173.6m to £130m. This would save a quarter of what it spent last year.</p>
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<p>If we calculate the net costs to the public purse of doubling asylum support so that it is almost in line with the level of Jobseeker’s Allowance, as well as factoring in that a quarter of asylum seekers would be employed as so wouldn’t need support, this could lead to a saving of around £70m a year. </p>
<p>Though recent governments have sought to minimise welfare provision for the unemployed and promote work as being positive for both individuals and wider society, asylum seekers are maintained in a position of welfare dependency, and those who have had their application refused are often destitute. Given the lack of evidence that levels of welfare support, or access to jobs act as a “pull” for asylum seekers to come to the UK, maintaining asylum seekers in situations of poverty can only be politically, not financially motivated.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69250/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lucy Mayblin receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Poppy James does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
It could save the British government up to £173.6m in savings in asylum support.
Lucy Mayblin, Assistant Professor, University of Warwick
Poppy James, Posdoctoral Research Associate, University of Warwick
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tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/66092
2016-09-28T10:39:15Z
2016-09-28T10:39:15Z
Immigrants told to leave UK face huge hike in fees to appeal decisions
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139554/original/image-20160928-572-3ymhhd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A protest outside the Yarl's Wood immigration removal centre. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Knox O (Wasi Daniju)/flickr.com</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Immigrants appealing through the courts for a right to remain in the UK will soon face a huge increase in procedural costs after the government <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/proposals-to-amend-immigration-and-asylum-chamber-fees">announced</a> fee hikes of over 500% for some types of appeal through the immigration and asylum tribunals. </p>
<p>There are two stages of appeal against immigration decisions by the Home Office, such as refusal to grant or extend leave as a student, worker, family member or for refugee family reunion, refusal of asylum, or a decision to deport someone. The first way to appeal is to the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/courts-tribunals/first-tier-tribunal-immigration-and-asylum">First-tier Tribunal</a>. After a decision by a judge in this tribunal, either the appellant or the Home Office can apply for permission to appeal against the decision at the second level – the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/courts-tribunals/upper-tribunal-immigration-and-asylum-chamber">Upper Tribunal</a>, but only on the basis that the First-tier judge made an error of law in the judgement.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2016/928/pdfs/uksi_20160928_en.pdf">From October 10</a>, the fee for an oral hearing in the First-tier Tribunal will rise from £140 to £800 per person. At an as-yet unspecified date there will also be a brand new fee of £455, just for applying for permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal if the first judge dismisses the appeal. There will then be another new fee of £510 to have that appeal heard if permission is granted. </p>
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<p>The tribunals have the power to order repayment of the fee if the appeal succeeds, but appeals can drag on for two years or more. This will now leave even a successful appellant significantly out of pocket for a long time – up to £2,115 to reach an Upper Tribunal hearing. Double that for a couple appealing together. Treble it if they have a child. The government believes the new fees will generate £34m in income per year – but this of course depends on how many people are put off appealing by the fees. </p>
<h2>Reducing access to justice</h2>
<p>This potentially denies access to justice to large numbers of people who have been told they need to leave the UK, the vast majority without having committed any offence. There have always been some exemptions from these fees which will continue – for example for people receiving legal aid, those appealing against asylum decisions or revocation of citizenship, and children in the care of a local authority. Those with a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/420914/Fee_Waiver_Policy_-_April_2015.pdf">Home Office fee waiver</a>, which may be given to people who are destitute, are also exempted. </p>
<p>But in my recent <a href="https://www.brighton.ac.uk/crome/research-projects/minas-unaccompanied-minors-rights.aspx">research</a> I found that young people who sought asylum as children and have reached the age of 18 often face particular problems. If there is no longer a good asylum claim because they are adults or because the conditions in their <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-does-the-uk-decide-who-gets-asylum-52924">home country have changed</a>, but they have built a life for themselves in the UK, they cannot get legal aid to apply to stay on that basis. They are no longer in local authority care so do not qualify for a fee exemption on that basis. With the new fees, not only will they have to do without a legal representative, they may be unable to appeal because of the prohibitive cost.</p>
<p>The new fees might be less important if the Home Office made well-reasoned decisions in the first place. But in the quarter between April and June 2016, statistics from the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/tribunals-and-gender-recognition-certificate-statistics-quarterly-april-to-june-2016">tribunals</a> show 42% of appeals to the First-tier succeeded, as did 32% of those to the Upper Tribunal. Yet, only 22% of unrepresented appellants win at the first stage, suggesting that at least some of those who lost appeals might have won with the help of a legal adviser. The poor quality of decision-making is perhaps not surprising, given that some of it has been delegated to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/feb/27/gap-year-students-deciding-asylum-claims">gap-year students with five weeks’ training</a>. </p>
<h2>Rising costs all round</h2>
<p>The government <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/proposals-to-amend-immigration-and-asylum-chamber-fees">consulted</a> on the fee rises. Out of 147 responses, 142 opposed the increase. The five who agreed with the changes said the new fees would discourage “unmeritorious appeals”. But I’d argue that they are at least as likely to discourage meritorious appeals, especially those by families who have to pay a fee for several family members. </p>
<p>Most courts and tribunals charge a fee, but <a href="https://www.freemovement.org.uk/government-confirms-fees-immigration-tribunal-hearings-will-skyrocket/">lawyers believe</a> this is the only area of justice in which users are expected to pay the full cost of the tribunal proceedings. There doesn’t appear to have been any attempt to justify this apparently discriminatory approach in the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/proposals-to-amend-immigration-and-asylum-chamber-fees">impact assessment</a> for the new fees. </p>
<p>This comes on top of several years of large rises in Home Office fees for applying for permission to enter and remain in the UK. In October 2010, the <a href="https://www.jcwi.org.uk/sites/default/files/2010/01/general-stakeholder-letter-21.pdf">government decided</a> that some application fees should far exceed the actual cost of processing the application, in order to pay for other parts of the system such as asylum and, in fact, the appeals system. The fee for a citizenship application was set at 437% of the actual cost of processing it. The fairness of such a system is highly questionable.</p>
<p>Add to all this the fact that rights to appeal decisions have been <a href="https://www.freemovement.org.uk/rights-and-grounds-of-appeal-commencement-and-transition/">limited by the Immigration Act 2014</a>, so that many can only be exercised from outside the UK. That increased £800 fee is for an appeal hearing which the actual appellant may not even be able to attend – only the witnesses and a lawyer, <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-mckenzie-friends-and-why-are-they-appearing-in-more-courtrooms-65756">if they can afford one</a>. </p>
<p>The appeal tribunal considers whether the Home Office has made an incorrect legal decision. It can only order enforcement of rights and entitlements given by the law and immigration rules. Whatever you think about migration as an issue, people are entitled to fairness in the administration of the laws and rules that parliament creates, and access to the courts where fairness has broken down. The idea that some people should pay disproportionately for that access, in effect because they are migrants, suggests the UK is creating a chauvinistic kind of justice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66092/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jo Wilding is a barrister at Garden Court Chambers, specialising in asylum and immigration law and an associate member of MigrationWork CIC.</span></em></p>
Access to immigration and asylum tribunals is about to get a lot more costly.
Jo Wilding, PhD candidate, University of Brighton
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