Briefing paper No 11

THE EMBEDDING OF STATE HOSTILITY A background paper on the Windrush Scandal

FRANCES WEBBER Additional research by Anya Edmond-Pettitt The embedding of state hostility: A background paper on the Windrush Scandal

The embedding of state hostility

‘The UK hostile environ- are some of the questions thrown up by the ment policy is a set of administrative and Windrush scandal. legislative measures designed to make staying in the as difficult On 17 April 2018, prime minister as possible for people without leave to stood up in parliament and apologised for the remain, in the hope that they may “volun- treatment of pensioners who had tarily leave”.’ Wikipedia been rendered jobless, homeless, destitute and unable to access hospital treatment for cancer ‘It is wilfully misleading to conflate the after a lifetime living, working and paying situation experienced by people from taxes in Britain. Some had been detained, some the Windrush generation with measures deported. Some had died without hearing her in force to tackle illegal immigration and apology. protect the UK taxpayer’. Home Office, June 2018 But there has been no apology for the policies which were directly responsible for their treat- ‘This is not a glitch in the system; it is the ment; quite the reverse. What had happened system. [They have] violated no law. It to this group, the ‘Windrush generation’, was is the law that is violating [them].’ Gary presented as a series of unfortunate mistakes Younge, April 2018 in the application of legitimate and neces- sary measures for the protection of the British What exactly is the hostile environment? How public from illegal immigration. did it happen that people who thought they were British were told they were illegal immi- Finally, though, the voices of those whose grants? Who are the illegal immigrants that the lives have been blighted by ‘hostile environ- hostile environment was designed to catch? ment’ policies are being heard – not only those How did a person’s immigration status become of the Windrush generation, but others who such a life-defining issue, and the term ‘illegal have been unheard until now: children born immigrant’ change from a regulatory issue into in the UK, entitled to citizenship but unable a badge of criminality? Who decides who is a to afford the fee to register; women married ‘good’ immigrant and who a ‘bad’ one – and to British men who have left after domestic are we, if we accept these distinctions, helping violence; people who have overstayed visas to to perpetuate the hostile environment? These care for sick relatives, or through inability to

CONTENTS 1. The hostile environment 4 7. Who are the ‘illegals’? Slipping into 21 2. The Windrush scandal 6 illegality 3. The roots of the hostile environment 9 8. The new numbers game 25 5. The ‘bad immigrant’: race, class and 15 9. The retreat from universal human 26 immigration rights 6. The role of the media 19 10. Resistance 28

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afford rocketing visa fees, or through sheer exclusion, surveillance and enforcement, have inadvertence – all these and others who turned all foreigners into a suspect population have found themselves denied and excluded, and our society into a nation of border guards, perhaps detained and deported as ‘bad immi- establishing state xeno-racism and nativism as grants’, ‘illegal immigrants’. central to government policy.

This background paper takes a historical While the change of name, from ‘hostile’ to perspective, demonstrating how the good ‘compliant’, is a tacit acknowledgement of immigrant/ bad immigrant dichotomy, and the the state racism informing the policies, much term ‘illegal immigrant’, have been deployed more is needed to dismantle the edifice – but and weaponised by politicians at different a start has been made, as some of those tasked times. We show how the roots of some hostile with implementing the policies – doctors and environment policies can be traced back social workers, landlords, teachers and even several decades – but it is the Cameron and some Border Force officials – come forward to May governments which, by building up a denounce them. complete set of interlocking policies of denial, Global Justice Now

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1. The hostile environment

A number of policies came together to create produce evidence of their entitlement to be in the ‘hostile environment’: the UK, to work, etc.1 »» making access to most of the necessities of life dependent on immigration status, and shifting the burden of proof to those Conscripted into immigration seeking jobs, benefits, housing and other enforcement services, who must prove entitlement, rather than requiring the Home Office to The following people must check (and in some disprove it; cases record) the immigration status of those »» requiring providers of jobs, benefits, to whom they provide benefits or services: housing and other services to check immi- »» employers, who can be fined £20,000 per gration status of all applicants, and data unauthorised worker, or imprisoned for up sharing between the Home Office and many to five years for employing such a worker other agencies; knowing or reasonably believing them to »» aggressive immigration policing. be unauthorised; »» civil servants dealing with benefits; »» local authority housing and benefits Necessities of life officers and social workers, who have a duty to notify the Home Office of unau- Those without permission to be in the UK thorised applicants; cannot: »» private landlords, who can be fined or »» Work legally: they can be arrested, charged imprisoned for up to five years for accom- with illegal working and have their wages modating someone without permission to confiscated be in the UK; »» access means-tested benefits »» colleges and universities with interna- »» access social housing or homeless tional staff or students, who can be fined persons housing etc as employers and have their sponsor- »» legally rent private rented housing ship licence withdrawn for lax controls on »» embark on further or higher education international students; »» access non-emergency hospital treat- »» NHS hospital staff; ment if they cannot pay the full fees (150 »» Bank and building society managers percent of cost) »» The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency »» have a bank account, making renting (DVLA) property impossible »» Marriage registrars, who have a duty to »» legally drive: they can be arrested for notify the Home Office of ‘suspicious driving whilst unlawfully in the UK marriages’. »» marry: marriage may be investigated, postponed or stopped on suspicion that it Additionally, the Home Office is entitled to is an ‘immigration marriage’ demand, and routinely receives, information

It is for the person seeking employment, 1 Other groups apart from undocumented migrants welfare benefits, housing (social or private), are not entitled to work, eg, visitors, most asylum hospital treatment, enrolment on a course, a seekers, college students. University students may driving licence, marriage, a bank account – to work only ten hours per week in termtime.

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on suspected ‘immigration offenders’ from »» Immigration officers have conducted con- other government agencies including the troversial immigration status checks at police, Department for Work and Pensions London tube stations; (DWP), Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), NHS Digital and the Department for »» Immigration officers have all thepowers Education. of arrest, search of persons, use of force, search of premises, seizure of potential Immigration officials are ‘embedded’ in the evidence, of vehicles and documents that DVLA, in a number of police custody suites and police have, without most of the safe- in some local authority housing and children’s guards against abuse. departments. »» Although detention is ‘a last resort’ accord- ing to Home Office policy, around 27,000 Aggressive policing people, including thousands of survivors of torture or trafficking, vulnerable and The abject failure of Operation Vaken, the bill- mentally ill people, are detained annually board van hired by the Home Office in 2013 for , most for to broadcast the message ‘Go Home! Or face days or weeks but some for months or arrest!’ to irregular migrants, has obscured years. At least half are released, lending the thousands of immigration raids routinely weight to the belief that detention is taking place all over the country: unnecessary, arbitrary and responds to Home Office targets rather than a real need From 1993 to 2009 the number of immigra- to detain. Despite strong campaigning and tion enforcement officers in the country parliamentary pressure, governments have grew from 120 to 7,500; consistently refused to introduce a time »» Many thousands of enforcement visits limit for detention, opting out of the EU or raids, involving several officials, take maximum of 18 months. place annually;

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2. The Windrush scandal

Awareness of the ‘Hostile Environment’ only records – although shipping companies’ ledgers, became widespread when it was revealed, in recently found stored at the National Archive, April 2018, that over the past few years, thou- will help many prove their arrival date. sands of elderly British or ‘virtual British’ residents, mainly from the Caribbean, who Why did the Home Office reject the evidence they came to the UK as children before 1973 with presented? Officials demanded four pieces of or to join parents, were finding themselves documentary evidence for each year of claimed treated as ‘illegal immigrants’ and fired from residence. Some later claimed they were not jobs, denied welfare benefits, housing and allowed to accept other forms of evidence. health care, and made homeless and destitute. National insurance and tax records were often Some were detained, some deported, others rejected, as were personal testimonies and refused entry to the UK when they tried to those of friends and neighbours. Often, schools return from visits to family in the Caribbean. and GP surgeries attended in the 1950s or ‘60s had closed and attendance records lost. Why? The evidence they showed officials of their right to be in the UK was not accepted, How many people are affected? The Migration and they were deemed illegal entrants or Observatory calculates that around 57,000 overstayers. Commonwealth-born long residents have not formalised their status in the UK, of whom an What did they need to prove? Either that they estimated 15,000 are from , and 13,000 were British citizens, or that they had indefi- from India. In August, a Home Office analysis nite leave to remain in the UK. of 12,000 cases found 164 people wrongly detained and/ or removed – the analysis does Why couldn’t they prove they were British? They not indicate how many had lost jobs or become would have lost UK & Colonies citizenship homeless. when Caribbean colonies became independent in the 1960s. Although those living in Britain Some of those affected are: had the opportunity to register as British »» Michael Braithwaite: born 1952, arrived citizens after nationality law changed in the in the UK from 1961, has worked 1980s, many would not have realised that they continuously since leaving school, has needed to; as Commonwealth citizens, their three British children and five grandchil- passports would still have described them as dren, was fired from his job as a special ‘British subjects’, although this status gave needs teaching assistant in 2017. them no rights. »» Anthony Bryan: born 1957, arrived in UK If they weren’t British, were they still entitled to 1965, worked for over forty years as painter be here? Commonwealth citizens settled in the and decorator, has sons and grandchildren UK since before 1973 were entitled to indefi- in the UK, lost his job when Capita wrote nite leave to remain. saying he was illegally in the UK and his employer could be fined for employing him; So didn’t the Home Office have records showing he spent three weeks in detention and offi- when they arrived? No, the landing cards they cials broke down his door and arrested him arrived on were destroyed, and the Home for deportation in 2017. IRRnews Office appears to have kept no other relevant

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»» Melvin Collins: born 1946, retired youth children, lost job in computer shop after worker, stranded in Jamaica since he went sixteen years in 2017 and was challenged for a visit in 2015 and his passport with by Benefits Agency to prove entitlement to an indefinite leave stamp was taken by benefits. an official at Gatwick airport. He was not allowed to return, and remained destitute »» Tony Perry: born 1956, arrived in UK 1959, as his UK pension was stopped. refused passport 2001 as ‘not British’.

»» Trevor Ellis: born 1947, arrived UK 1958, »» Elwaldo Romeo: born in Antigua 1955, was threatened with deportation after arrived in UK 1959, has worked here for arrest for a motoring offence in 2014. more than 40 years, has held a British passport, owns his own home in London, »» Judy Griffiths: born 1955, arrived in UK has two adult British children and five 1962, stopped from working in 2015 as British grandchildren, receives a letter in ‘illegal immigrant’. March 2018 telling him he is ‘liable to be detained’ as a ‘person without leave’. »» Hubert Howard: born 1957, arrived 1960 from Jamaica, was unable to go to his »» Gladstone Wilson: born 1956, arrived in UK mother’s funeral as his application for a 1968. Could not go to his mother’s funeral British passport was refused; lost his job in 2014 and was stopped from working and with Peabody Trust in 2012. had his security guard’s licence revoked.

»» Desmond and Trevor Johnson, brothers »» : born 1957, arrived from born 1960 and 1961, in UK since 1971. Jamaica 1968, has a daughter and grand- Desmond was unable to return to the UK daughter born here, worked for 34 years after returning to Jamaica in 2001 for as a cook, including in House of Commons his father’s funeral and to look after his restaurant, was told in 2015 she had no mother, and was unable to see his daughter leave to be here, was detained for a week for 16 years. Trevor, a widower with two in 2017 for deportation. British-born daughters, was told by Capita he could not work or claim benefits in How did the scandal come to light? In 2014, the 2014, and the family was destitute, relying Legal Action Group (LAG) published Chasing on food banks and sometimes begging for Status: The ‘surprised Brits’ who find they are two years until the Home Office accepted living with irregular immigration status, citing evidence confirming his long residence. (among others) case studies of long-resident Commonwealth citizens. As law centres and »» Renford McIntyre: born in 1954, arrived clinics, CABx, migrant support organisa- from Jamaica in 1968, has worked for 48 tions and Commonwealth high commissioners years as an NHS driver and a delivery man, became aware of more and more cases, and was fired in 2014 as he could not produce came up against a brick wall at the Home documents evidencing his right to remain, Office, they began to turn to the media. The his local authority refused to help with Guardian’s began reporting housing or benefits, leaving him homeless; the cases in 2017, and in April 2018 MPs and an the Home Office rejected evidence of tax- unprecedented intervention by the Caribbean paying over 40 years. high commissioners forced an apology from Theresa May and , »» Sarah O’Connor: born 1961, arrived in UK who resigned after misleading parliament over from Jamaica 1967, has four British-born removal targets.

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What has happened since? »» By the end of July, according to the immi- »» The home secretary announces a ‘Lessons gration minister, 2,272 Windrush victims Learned’ review in May 2018. have received papers confirming their right to stay, and 1,465 have been granted »» In June, the Home Affairs Select Committee British citizenship, with fees waived. tells the government urgently to set up a hardship fund for those in financial »» Despite a promise that a dedicated task- difficulty. force would resolve cases in two weeks, five months later many have not received »» A compensation scheme is set up, but new papers and are still destitute, unable to home secretary is accused of work and homeless, or with rent arrears demanding non-disclosure agreements in mounting, blacklisted by credit agencies exchange for speedy compensation, and and unable to open a bank account or get a of seeking a cap on compensation and mobile phone contract, and some of those a minimum threshold for claims, to save wrongly deported are still stuck in Jamaica. public money and administrative costs. »» In September, immigration minister »» An inquiry into the detention of two tells parliament that ‘This Windrush victims, Paulette Wilson and Government do not intend to remove our Anthony Bryan, by the joint parliamentary compliant-environment policies; we believe committee on human rights, finds both that they provide an important part of our suffered ‘total violation’ of their rights as suite to address illegal immigration.’ a result of ‘systemic failure’ at the Home Office, with no credible explanation for »» In November, the home secretary reveals officials ignoring clear and consistent that at least eleven wrongly deported evidence of lawful stay. Windrush victims died before their situa- tion could be remedied.

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3. The roots of the hostile environment

1. Policing the undocumented: and workplaces, and the time limit for a brief history catching those entering illegally is lifted. Illegal entrants are summarily removed. Deportation of Commonwealth citizens Being forced to live on the margins of society, who overstay or commit offences is allowed, to work illegally, with all its attendant risks of with an exemption for those living in the abuse and exploitation, or to starve, beg, steal, UK for five years if they arrived before 1973 at constant risk of being dragged off to deten- (when the Act came into force). tion and forced deportation: how is it that a stamp on a passport has become so determina- »» 1970s: an illegal immigration intelligence tive of a person’s life? unit is set up within the Home Office to investigate allegations of illegal stay. Enforcement has always been a part of immi- Police begin to carry out ‘fishing raids’ on gration controls, but it assumed increasing ethnic businesses, conduct marriage visits political importance as the term ‘illegal immi- to see if couples are cohabiting, and prose- grant’ was weaponised by politicians and the cute overstayers. After a Moroccan student media from the 1970s on, as a vital ingredient is arrested on the steps of the registry of the ‘bad immigrant’ stereotypes to be used office on the day of her marriage in 1978, against unwanted migrants. the Registrar General says it is customary to report suspected illegal immigrants to As the term became a badge of criminality the Home Office. (Guardian, 19 June 1978, rather than a pure regulatory issue, undocu- cited in The Thin End of the White Wedge, mented migrants began to be treated as Manchester Law Centre, 1980) real criminals and security threats, and ever more legislative, policing and technological »» 1993: A new dedicated immigration deten- resources were deployed against them. The tion centre opens at Campsfield, near whole edifice of immigration control of non-EU Oxford, with 200 beds. With only 120 immi- nationals has come to be built around detect- gration officers working in enforcement, ing and removing those without permission (in police play the main role in arrests and strong contrast with the soon-to-be-disman- deportations. Joy Gardner dies during her tled system for regulating the admission and arrest for deportation, bound and gagged stay of EU nationals, which was built around with thirteen feet of sticky tape round her rights of free movement). nose and mouth. The public outrage at her death makes police unwilling to continue Until 1968, those entering the UK illegally in immigration enforcement. could only be deported if they are caught within 24 hours of arrival – extended to 28 »» 1999-2006: Successive Acts give immi- days in 1968. gration officers more powers of arrest, search and use of force, to enable them »» 1971: Immigration Act gives police to act independently of police in opera- powers to search for and arrest illegal tions against undocumented migrants, and entrants and overstayers in private homes at least 1,600 more detention places are

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created with the opening of four immigra- –– abolishes all immigration appeals tion detention centres. except those against decisions denying refugee or human rights protection; »» 2008: The UK Border Agency is formed, with –– strengthens the presumption that 7,500 enforcement officers organised into deportation is in the public interest 70 local teams in six regions encouraged to and limits the discretion of judges to compete in raids and arrests. Thousands of allow appeals on family life grounds; raids are carried out on homes and work- –– allows naturalised British citizens with places annually, with officers often wearing no other nationality to be deprived of stab vests and using force. citizenship; –– strengthens immigration officers’ »» 2011: Prime minister urges and private escorts’ powers of search, the public to report suspected illegal seizure and use of force. entrants to the Border Agency to ‘reclaim our borders and send illegal immigrants »» 2016: The Immigration Act extends the home’. ‘deport first, appeal later’ provisions to those facing administrative removal from »» 2012: Operation Nexus, a new partner- the UK (as overstayers, refused asylum ship between the Home Office and the Met seekers or illegal entrants). police (later including other police forces), is launched to check criminal suspects’ immigration status and to enable easier deportations. 2. Starving them out

»» 2013: The Home Office launches Operation ‘As to there being no obligation to maintain Vaken, to frighten undocumented migrants poor foreigners … the law of humanity, into leaving the UK, with billboard vans which is anterior to all positive laws, obliges saying ‘Go Home or face arrest’ sent into us to afford them relief, to save them from mixed neighbourhoods. At the same time, starving.’ (R v Inhabitants of Eastbourne immigration officials are posted at London (1803), quoted by Lord Justice Brown in R tube stations to perform immigration ‘spot v Social Security Minister ex parte JCWI and checks’, which campaigners say involve B (1996) racial profiling. ‘There was a time when the welfare state »» 2014: The Immigration Act: did not look at your passport or ask why –– introduces ‘deport first, appeal later’ you were here … immigration status was provisions for those facing deportation a matter between you and the Home Office, from the UK; not the concern of the social security system.’ –– changes the definition of persons who (Lord Hoffmann in Westminister Borough can be removed from the UK so as Council v National Asylum Support Service to include those born in the UK but (2002) without leave to remain, and their family members; Deportation is expensive. The Tories under –– gives the Home Office a veto over immi- Cameron and May realised that it is much gration bail; cheaper to make life impossible for the people –– covertly abolishes the exemp- they did not want, so they would deport tion from removal for long-resident themselves. They were not the first to align Commonwealth citizens; eligibility for public services and immigration

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status, but they extended and completed In the 1980s and 90s, the Tories bring in the process, flaunting its hostile intent and more checks, and exclusions from benefits, seeking to recruit civil society in the mission and the first employer sanctions (although of ridding the country of ‘bad immigrants’. rarely used):

But exclusion from public services on the »» 1980: basis of immigration status requires an elabo- –– The Social Security Act makes it a rate network of data sharing and enforcement criminal offence for the sponsor of a mechanisms, which we see being built in family member entering the UK to fail parallel with exclusionary rules. to abide by an undertaking to support them; –– DHSS instructions to caseworkers The first links between receipt of public reveal that the Home Office is notified services and immigration status are made of benefits claims by people subject to in the 1970s: immigration control. »» 1975: Applicants for National Insurance numbers (NINO) are required to produce »» 1982: NHS regulations introduce the first evidence of identity such as a passport. charges for hospital treatment for overseas visitors. They are rarely collected as NHS »» 1978: Slough borough council offers a staff do not want to make the checks. homeless woman married to a foreign man a loan to leave the country rather than »» 1984: Regulations require universities and rehouse her, in what its leader admits is a colleges to check students’ connection ‘repatriation scheme’. with and residence in the UK.

»» 1979: »» 1985: Regulations exclude most non-EU –– reveals that the students from housing benefit, requiring Department of Health and Social local officers to check their immigration Security (DHSS) has issued a circular to status. Campaigns against internal controls hospital administrators, ‘Gatecrashers’, start in London boroughs such as Hackney, saying that they should check patients’ and in Manchester. immigration status, and indicating a close relationship with the Home »» 1987: Staff at over 100 job centres are told Office; to ask claimants to identify their ethnicity –– The Department of the Environment when they register. issues guidance to local authorities asking them to cooperate with the »» 1988: Home Office where a person using local –– Camden and Hammersmith councils services (housing, social services etc) refuse to house homeless immigrant appears to be an overstayer or illegal families, arguing that by leaving their entrant; countries they have made themselves –– A number of boroughs refuse to house ‘intentionally homeless’; homeless immigrants, and Hillingdon –– The Immigration Act for the first time ‘dumps’ a Zimbabwean refugee on the makes long-resident Commonwealth steps of the Foreign Office. citizens and their families subject to the ‘no recourse to public funds’ rule; –– Regulations require Department of Social Security officials to check the

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immigration status of claimants in the »» 1999: The Immigration and Asylum Act: UK for less than five years and to report –– provides for an information exchange receipt of benefits to the Home Office. network between police, Home Office, customs and crime databases, replac- »» 1991: Asylum claimants are required to ing ad hoc arrangements; produce Home-Office issued documents, –– allows the Home Office to demand often delayed by months, in order to information on tenants from property receive benefits. owners and managers; –– requires marriage registrars to report »» 1993: ‘suspect’ marriages. –– The Court of Appeal rules Department of Environment guidance that immi- »» 2000: Non-EU migrants are excluded from gration status is irrelevant to housing non-contributory benefits (from 1999, des- ‘wrong and misleading’, and new DoE titute asylum seekers are provided with guidance obliges housing departments no-choice accommodation and minimal to make inquiries about immigration support in ‘dispersal areas’). status and to report suspicions to the Home Office; »» 2002: The Nationality, Immigration and –– The Asylum and Immigration Appeals Asylum Act: Act puts into law the right of local –– gives the Home Office powers to authorities to investigate the immi- demand information from the Inland gration status of those applying Revenue (now HMRC), local authori- for housing if they have reason to ties, employers, other state agencies, believe applicants are asylum seekers, to trace suspected illegal residents and and limits housing obligations to unauthorised workers; them. –– provides for biometric information (eg, fingerprints, iris features) to be taken »» 1996: from applicants for visas and from those –– Criminal penalties are introduced for in the UK seeking to extend their stay; employers who recruit undocumented –– denies all support to refused asylum workers; seekers without children. –– Migrants and asylum seekers are excluded from local authority homeless »» 2002: The ban on asylum seekers working persons’ housing. Refused asylum is made permanent. seekers are excluded from all support. »» 2004: The Home Office is given powers to set immigration and nationality fees at New Labour (1997-2010) completes the commercial rates. exclusion of migrants from welfare benefits and social housing, begins the process of »» 2005: Asylum seekers who have waited for removing discretion from the immigration a year or more for their claim to be deter- rules, pours resources into an enforcement mined are permitted to work. network based on biometric controls and data sharing, conscripts employers, colleges, »» 2006: Employer sanctions (introduced in marriage registrars and other civil society 1996 but rarely used) are strengthened, actors into immigration policing, and allows with employers required to check and copy fees for immigration applications to be set specified documents before recruiting, to at commercial levels: avoid stiff penalties.

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»» 2008: Biometric residence cards are intro- prospective tenants and to refuse ten- duced for non-EU migrants coming to the ancies to those unable to prove their UK for more than six months, under the right to be in the UK, and penalising Identity Cards Act 2006 (the provisions for those who fail to. The provisions are ID cards for British citizens are repealed by piloted in the West Midlands; the coalition in 2010). –– prohibits banks and building socie- ties from opening current accounts for »» 2009: those in the UK without permission; –– The ban on support for refused asylum –– extends the categories of people from seekers is extended to families with whom biometric information can be children who fail to report for removal; required, to include applicants for –– The points-based system is introduced citizenship, and those ‘liable to be for students, requiring universities and detained’; colleges to send regular reports to the –– requires DVLA to refuse driving licences Home Office on their attendance and to those without the right to be in the progress. Laxity leads to suspension or UK, and provides for the revocation of withdrawal of sponsorship licence. undocumented migrants’ licences; –– makes marriage more difficult if one party is not British, an EU national or The Tory- Lib Dem coalition (2010-15) Swiss, strengthens the duties of those removes legal aid and appeal rights from conducting marriages to report suspi- migrants, continues the process of removing cions to the Home Office and creates a discretion from the immigration rules; detailed protocol for the investigation extends the conscription of civil society of possible ‘immigration’ marriages; actors as immigration officials to banks and –– introduces a ‘health levy’ for those with the DVLA, and to private landlords through limited leave, following regulations the ‘right to rent’ pilot; excludes everyone restricting free NHS non-emergency not settled in the UK from free hospital hospital treatment to those with per- treatment; and allows immigration fees to manent resident status (indefinite rocket: leave to remain). »» 2010: Asylum seekers waiting over 12 months for their claim to be decided may »» 2015: A formal agreement is reached work only in ‘shortage occupations’. whereby the Department for Education (DfE) provides the Home Office with details »» 2012: The requirement for biometric resi- of up to 1,500 children and their families dence cards is extended to refugees and each month to help trace undocumented people settled in the UK. migrants.

»» 2013: Legal aid is removed for advice and representation in immigration cases unless The Tories (2015 – ) continue the process they are challenging a refusal of asylum, of removing discretion from the immigration detention, or potential removal to a situa- rules, require NHS staff to check immigration tion of torture, persecution or war. status and to charge those ineligible for free treatment 150 percent of treatment costs; »» 2014: The Immigration Act: require schools to ask for schoolchildren’s –– introduces the ‘right to rent’ provi- nationality and country of birth; introduce sions, which require private landlords a nationality question into criminal courts’ to perform immigration checks on questioning of defendants; extend the ‘right

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to rent’ nationally, create criminal offences –– requires banks to perform quarterly of driving, working and letting property, immigration checks on all customers, demand more checks by banks: and to close accounts on demand by the Home Office. »» 2016: The Department for Education (DfE) adds nationality and country of birth ques- »» 2017: tions to the schools census, claiming the –– An agreement with NHS Digital comes information is for resource purposes. into force, allowing the Home Office to access thousands of patients’ »» 2016: The Immigration Act: details for the purpose of immigration –– extends the ‘right to rent’ provi- enforcement; sions across the UK and creates a new –– MPs make 68 calls to the Home Office criminal offence of letting property to enforcement hotline to report people someone without permission to be in attending their surgeries for help with the UK; their immigration status; –– creates new criminal offences of illegal –– Defendants in criminal courts are working and driving while in the UK obliged to give their nationality, as without leave; well as their name, date of birth and –– makes prosecution of those employing address, in open court, information unauthorised workers easier by replac- which is retained whether they are ing the requirement of knowledge by convicted or acquitted; ‘reasonable belief’ that the employee –– NHS charging regulations require may not work in the UK; NHS staff to check eligibility for all –– doubles the civil penalty for employ- non-urgent hospital care, including ers inadvertently employing ante-natal and maternity care, to undocumented­ migrants to £20,000 charge ineligible patients 150 percent per worker; of the treatment cost, and to report non-payment to the Home Office.

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5. The ‘bad immigrant’: race, class and immigration

The Windrush generation may belatedly be neighbour, vote Liberal or Labour’; Enoch finding themselves feted as national treas- Powell sanctifies racism with his ‘Rivers of ures – as Christian, God-fearing, hardworking Blood’ speech immigrants who made a huge contribution to the NHS and to British life – even as many »» 1970s: As the ‘numbers game’ contin- of them remain destitute, homeless, jobless, ues and the far Right makes electoral or stuck in Jamaica because of their treat- gains, Commonwealth immigration for ment by the Home Office – but as post-war settlement is replaced by the temporary colonial and Commonwealth citizens, encour- labour system of work permits, available aged to come to rebuild the UK, work in its only for the highly skilled and highly factories and man its essential services, they qualified, while accession to the EU gives found institutional as well as popular racism European workers free movement rights, in their way. and Margaret Thatcher says the numbers of ‘New Commonwealth’ immigrants were ‘Bad immigrant’ stereotypes of criminality and making people ‘really rather afraid that illegality were deployed against black and this country might be rather swamped by brown Commonwealth citizens, first to restrict people with a different culture’, so ‘we do their numbers and then, as governments have to hold out the prospect of an end turned from the Commonwealth to Europe as to immigration’. Jamaicans are stereo- a source of labour, to keep them out. Later, typed as criminals; south Asians as ‘illegal these stereotypes, interwoven with new ones – immigrants’. The ‘virginity testing’ scandal ‘bogus’, ‘scrounger’, ‘terrorist’ – were extended erupts at the revelation that medical to other groups including asylum seekers from officers at Heathrow are checking women Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and eastern arriving from the Indian sub-continent as European Roma, to justify their exclusion and fiancées. deportation – and finally, to bar the door to all except the global elite. »» 1980s: South Asian children seeking to join parents in the UK are X-rayed to determine bone age because the Home Office refuses Black and brown Commonwealth citizens to accept their stated age; the Commission »» 1960s: Popular racism against south Asian for Racial Equality investigates Home and Caribbean immigrants is whipped up Office practices for race discrimination; the by right-wing politicians and the press, British Nationality Act creates six types leading to the first immigration controls of British citizenship, with only the first, against Commonwealth citizens in 1962, British citizens, entitled to live in the UK, followed by further controls in 1965 and and removes automatic citizenship by birth the denial of entry to UK citizens of Asian in the UK (ius soli); up to two-thirds of origin in 1968 on their expulsion from husbands from the Indian sub-continent East Africa. Politicians gain popularity are refused permission to join wives in by expressing extreme racist sentiments: the UK under the ‘primary purpose’ rule; Peter Griffiths wins a parliamentary the first visa requirements are imposed seat on the slogan ‘If you want a n… on Commonwealth citizens, in response to

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the arrival of Tamils fleeing pogroms in Sri hostility led to the very term ‘asylum seeker’ Lanka; and long-resident Commonwealth becoming a term of abuse. citizens and their families are made subject to the ‘no recourse to public funds’ rule for »» 1980s: Visa requirements are imposed to the first time. stop what ministers describe as a ‘flood’ of Sri Lankan Tamils coming to the UK, as the »» 1993: All the passengers making a Times describes them as economic migrants Christmas visit to Britain on a charter and Britain continues to train and arm the flight from Jamaica are refused entry. Sri Lankan military; in response to the arrival of 57 Tamil asylum seekers without »» 2000s: Commonwealth citizens from visas, the Carriers’ Liability Act is rushed African, Caribbean and Asia form the main through parliament, to penalise airlines and targets of the ‘foreign national offenders’ ships for bringing in passengers without ‘scandal’, in which a campaign by the Right visas, whether or not they are refugees. and the press against ‘human rights for criminals’ forces the resignation of a home »» 1991 to 2005: there are 512 references secretary and leads to legislation imposing to ‘bogus asylum seekers’ by MPs and mandatory deportation for an ever-increas- peers in House of Commons and House ing range of offences and a ‘good character’ of Lords debates (Imogen Tyler, cited in test for citizenship applying to ten-year- John Grayson, ‘The shameful “Go Home” olds, and the introduction of prisons set campaign’, IRR News, 22 August 2013). aside for foreign offenders to enable easier deportation. »» 1990s: Compulsory fingerprinting is intro- duced for asylum seekers, justified by »» 2010s: As the press and Right’s campaign reference to ‘fraudulent multiple claims’; against human rights continues, Operation asylum seekers are excluded from local Nexus, prison-building agreements with authority homeless housing and from Nigeria and Jamaica and ‘deport first, appeal benefits after Peter Lilley’s populist speech at later’ all make deportation easier, while the 1995 Tory party conference; home secre- the exemption from removal for long-res- tary Michael Howard introduces a ‘white list’ ident overstayers from the Commonwealth of safe countries and curtails appeals; only is quietly abolished. two of 1,495 applications from Nigerians are granted, despite a military coup and brutal suppression of dissent; and the Commission Asylum seekers for Racial Equality is so concerned about As asylum seekers began arriving in numbers racist election campaigning that it brokers from Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, a ‘race pledge’ whereby major parties agree the UK, in common with other European states, not to play the ‘race card’. took measures to stop them arriving, justify- ing their ‘fortress building’ by castigating the »» 1997-9: After New Labour wins the election, new arrivals as ‘bogus’, ‘economic migrants’ (a a media onslaught on New Labour’s ‘soft’ term of abuse when applied to poor people), asylum policies leads home secretary Jack ‘scroungers’ ‘cheats’, ‘criminals’ and ‘terrorists’. Straw to abandon a ‘sanctuary by stealth’ Amplified by the media, these stereotypes strategy, and to pledge that ‘the govern- ‘trickled down’ and hardened into a culture of ment will deal with bogus asylum seekers’. disbelief of asylum claims by officials, and of After the Dover Express complains that ‘we ‘xeno-racism’ against Roma fleeing skinhead are left with the backdraft of a nation’s violence in eastern Europe. Unremitting media human sewage and no cash to wash it away’,

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and the Daily Mail presses the attack with provide warships to help destroy smugglers’ headlines such as ‘Kosovo-on-sea, Devon’, boats and funding for walls and fences ‘Suburbia’s Little Somalia’; ‘Good life on against Calais stowaways but decline par- Asylum Alley’, ‘They can’t find my dying ticipation in the EU’s refugee relocation granny a bed but they open the wards for scheme, with press stories like ‘This is how gipsies’, the government brings in a system the BBC is spending your money: Songs of cashless support and no-choice accom- of Praise filmed in migrant camp’, ‘Free modation away from the south-east, the hotel rooms for the Calais stowaways ‘ and National Asylum Support Service (NASS), ‘7 in 10 Calais migrants come to UK’, only described as ‘enforced destitution’, and a briefly suspended as the photograph of ‘white list’ of ‘safe’ countries. toddler Alan Kurdi’s body provoked a wave of sympathy in September 2015. »» 2000s: New Labour discovers that appease- ment of the right-wing media doesn’t work Muslims – their onslaught continues with headlines like ‘Britain’s had enough’, ‘Time to kick Anti-Muslim tropes began appearing in the the scroungers out’, ‘We need deportations press as long ago as the 1980s, but the ‘race on a huge scale’ which create a self-fulfill- riots’ and 9/11 gave the respectable cover of ing spiral of anger and popular racism (see anti-terrorism and ‘community cohesion’ to ‘Media lies fuel racism’, CARF 55, Apr-May virulent racialised anti-Muslim expression, and 2001). Fifty-eight dead asylum seekers informed immigration measures: are discovered in the back of a lorry, and Straw calls for a rethink on the right to »» 2000s: Internment for ‘suspected foreign asylum; the Race Relations Act, amended terrorists’ who cannot be deported, intro- to include police and other public services, duced after 9/11, is abandoned in favour of exempts race discrimination in immigra- a policy of deportation to torturing states tion control, and officials stationed at from whom diplomatic assurances of ‘no Prague airport question Roma passen- torture’ are agreed, after the House of Lords gers and deny them boarding on flights rules internment unlawful and discrimina- to the UK. The ‘race pledge’ is torn up in tory, while control orders (later renamed the 2001 election, as William Hague says TPIMS) and the Prevent counter-terrorism England is becoming a foreign land and strategy disproportionately impact on Michael Heseltine attacks ‘asylum cheats, Muslim communities. Becoming British is bogus claims, phoney asylum seekers’, and made more difficult, with English language Labour as a ‘soft touch’ (see Grayson, ‘The and life tests (then extended to applica- shameful “Go Home” campaign’); home sec- tions for settlement), as losing citizenship retary Blunkett says he will ‘blitz asylum is made easier; Muslims are disproportion- cheats’ who ‘swamp’ British schools, and ately questioned under anti-terror laws on introduces the ‘detained fast-track’, with arrival and departure, some lose British a refusal rate of 99 percent, and legal pre- citizenship while abroad and cannot return. sumptions of adverse credibility in asylum decisions. Housing and support are denied »» 2010s: English language tests are extended to refused asylum seekers. to visa applicants including those coming to join spouses or partners in the UK; new »» 2010s: As refugees flee Syria, minis- counter-terror laws allow British passports ters describe rescue operations in the to be seized and citizens to be banished Mediterranean and volunteers helping for up to two years; and Prevent becomes a in the Calais camps as a ‘pull factor’ and statutory duty for public bodies.

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Eastern Europeans minister Gordon Brown’s reference to creating ‘British jobs for British workers’ The arrival of Roma from eastern Europe, first at the 2008 party conference is taken up as asylum seekers in the late 1990s, then as by oil and construction workers striking EU nationals since the accession of eastern against the use of European workers to fill European states to the EU in 2004 and 2014,2 their jobs. engendered the same relentless media and political campaign of hostility as did the arrival »» 2010s: After another racist election of settlers from South Asia and the Caribbean campaign, the new Tory-Lib Dem coalition forty years earlier. In 2004, the press warned starts to deport eastern European rough of ‘1.6 million gipsies ready to flood in’: ‘The sleepers in the UK for over three months Roma gypsies of Eastern Europe are heading with no job, or prospect of work. Media to Britain to leech on us. We don’t want them scare stories lead to prime minister Cameron here’. ‘Gypsies: you can’t come in!’ (see Arun announcing yet more restrictions to deal Kundnani, ‘The media war against migrants: a with ‘scroungers’ and ‘benefit tourists’, new front’, IRR News, 21 January 2004). The causing Council of Europe human rights Right has accused eastern European economic commissioner Nils Muiznieks to condemn migrants of undercutting British workers’ wages the ‘shameful rhetoric’ of politicians who and of ‘benefit tourism’, and governments have ‘treat Bulgarian and Romanian citizens like responded by removing benefits and restricting a scourge’. Rough sleeping is defined as a residence rights: ‘misuse of EEA rights’ allowing removal, and at least 700 EU rough sleepers, many with »» 2004-9: UKIP wins 16 percent of the vote in jobs, are detained and deported before the the European elections, and social security High Court rules the policy unlawful in regulations are amended to exclude EU December 2017. nationals from specified benefits; prime

2 Bulgaria and Romania joined the EU in 2007 but media hostility to more migration made the UK government defer free movement for their citizens to 2014.

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6. The role of the media

1. The right-wing media people rather than describing their actions, dehumanises and causes offence. The creation and intensification of the hostile environment were driven in large part by »» In October 2013, under the heading ‘True constant hostile media scaremongering on scale of European immigration’, the Sunday ‘illegal immigration’. The brief history of scape- Telegraph reports: ‘An EU study has found goating above demonstrates the importance of 600,000 unemployed migrants living in the media in creating and inflaming the public Britain’. The European Commission says concern it claims to respond to. Sometimes this is a ‘gross and totally irresponsible it seems that (as Corporate Watch argues in misrepresentation of the facts’: the figure The media-politics of the hostile environment) includes ‘older school children, students, there is no immigration policy as such, beyond retired, disabled, those taking time off responding to, or pre-empting, media ‘concerns’. work to bring up children’. It points out In this field perhaps more than any other, the that 43 percent of Britain’s working age racist Right sets the agenda through the anti- population is ‘non-active’ but ‘no one immigrant, anti-asylum media. would seriously claim there were 12 million »» A Migration Observatory study in 2013 people unemployed in the UK’. (Jon Danzig, finds that the Daily Mail and the Daily EU Rope, Oct 2013) Express used ‘illegal’ before ‘immigrant’ in over ten per cent of articles about migra- »» In April 2015, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, UN tion between 2010 and 2012. (Guardian, Human Rights Commissioner, attacks Aug 2013) the UK’s media coverage as ‘extremist’, describing a ‘vicious circle of vilification, »» The attack on judges who acknowledge intolerance and politicisation of migrants migrants’ human rights, with headlines … Asylum seekers and migrants have, day like ‘He has Aids and convictions for drugs after day, for years on end, been linked and violence. But the asylum seeker has a to rape, murder, diseases such as HIV and human right to be in Britain, says a judge. TB, theft, and almost every conceivable And what’s more he can’t even be named’ crime and misdemeanour imaginable in (Mail, 25 October 2000) and ‘Human right front-page articles and two-page spreads, to sponge off UK: 3,200 foreign criminals, in cartoons, editorials, even on the sports failed asylum seekers can’t be kicked out pages of almost all the UK’s national because of right to family life’ (Mail, June tabloid newspapers.’ Many of the stories are 2011), intimidates immigration judges, ‘grossly distorted’ and some are ‘outright who fear ‘naming and shaming’ if they fabrications’. allow deportation appeals on family life grounds, according to lawyers, and results »» Award-winning journalist Liz Gerard’s in unjustified separation of families. Chart of Shame, shown at the Migration Museum exhibition No Turning Back: Seven »» In April 2013, following a years-long migration moments that changed Britain, campaign by migrant groups in the US, displays all the front-page stories on Associated Press, the largest news agency immigration in 2016 in the form of a bar in the world, drops the use of the phrase chart, shocking visitors with the amount ‘illegal immigrant’, explaining that it labels of coverage and its derogatory and hostile

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nature. In her ‘The press and immigration: 2. Social and liberal media reporting the news, or fanning the flames of hatred?’ (SubScribe, September 2016) she The liberal media (Guardian and Independent) reports that the Sun ran 120 negative news generally run more sympathetic stories on stories and opinion pieces on immigration individual cases, but even the Guardian’s between January and June 2016, when it Windrush reporting, a rare example of sus- had a headline ‘Racists shame Britain’. tained campaigning journalism, steers clear of a direct attack on the policies of the hostile »» What does it take for the media regulator environment. to act? More than 200,000 people demand far-right columnist Katie Hopkins’ sacking According to Emily Dugan (‘The Home Office after her comparison of migrants with cock- has created a secret process to solve immigra- roaches in ‘Rescue boats? I’d use gunships tion cases that generate negative headlines’, to stop migrants’ in 2015 – but a com- Buzzfeed, 31 August 2018), in 2017, home sec- plaint to Press Standards retary Amber Rudd introduced a ‘rapid-response’ Organisation (IPSO) is rejected on the unit to deal quickly with people wrongly grounds that ‘migrants as such are not a refused leave or citizenship whose cases are group that can be discriminated against’ highlighted in social media campaigns, with and the editors’ code does not cover giving staff told to use discretion and waive rules. offence. Lawyers complained of a ‘two-track’ system where outcomes depend on getting publicity; ‘In some cases, clients have been waiting five years or more to speak to someone at the Home Office, and then their case is solved 24 hours after publicity’. Ironically, the speed with which cases receiving publicity are resolved by the Home Office means that systemic problems are not addressed.

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7. Who are the ‘illegals’? Slipping into illegality

The Windrush migrants were not illegally in »» People who have overstayed a work or the UK, but their treatment exemplifies the study visa through illness or accident, or Hostile Environment in practice as the govern- because they fell in love, got pregnant, lost ment intends it to work against those illegally their job or unexpectedly ran out of funds; in the UK. The loss of jobs, homes and bank »» People ineligible to stay but who need to accounts, the denial of benefits and hospital support, or need the support of, UK-based treatment including ante-natal provision, the parents, children or other relatives. destruction of the ability to live in society, or even to exist at all, is what is intended against All of the above might be people who ‘need undocumented migrants. It is intended that leave to be in the UK but do not have it’, they go ‘home’. But can they? If not, why not? with no rights to work or rent, have a bank And who are the people who are the real targets account, drive or access hospital care, liable of the Hostile Environment? to be detained and removed. It has become extremely easy to slip into illegal status. Here They include: are some of the ways people find themselves »» People born in the UK, for whom it is slipping into illegality: home, who are unable to register as British citizens because they can’t afford the fees; Legal channels for entry and stay have been »» People brought to the UK as children, who made impossibly narrow: were unaware of their irregular status for many years and have no real connection »» Visa requirements and carrier sanctions, with their ‘home’ country; imposed since the 1980s, force refugees to »» People wrongly refused asylum or human use illegal means to get here. Resettlement rights protection, who risk persecution, programmes admit only a few thousand torture or death if they are returned to refugees (the UK has accepted around 12,000 their home country; Syrian refugees from camps in Lebanon and »» People trafficked to the UK or brought in Jordan since 2015); others wanting to come as domestic servants, who have escaped here because of family, language or cultural but risk re-trafficking or punishment if ties must travel illegally – either using returned ‘home’; forged documents or being smuggled. »» People who have left abusive relationships but have been refused permission to stay »» Legal economic migration is limited to under the domestic violence rules because those with a large amount of money to they cannot produce the correct sorts of invest, or with highly marketable skills evidence; and qualifications under thepoints-based »» People who cannot get permission to stay system introduced in 2009. under the rules because they don’t earn enough, but whose remittances are vital to »» Legal family migration for non-EU support families at home; nationals, particularly for elderly parents »» People refused asylum who have entered and grandparents and for adult children, relationships and have British-born has become virtually impossible since rule children at school here; changes in 2012;

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»» Two-year post-study work visas for inter- status for those seeking to overturn deci- national students graduating from British sions through administrative review, further universities are abolished in 2012, since representations or judicial review, leaving when graduates have only four months to them vulnerable to detention and removal. leave the UK. »» Concessions such as the seven-year rule »» A rule giving domestic workers a route to (allowing families with children in the settlement and the right to switch employer UK without leave for over seven years to was abolished in 2012, and although the regularise their status), the fourteen-year right to switch employer was reinstated in rule (for those without children) and the 2016 the maximum permitted stay is six ten-year rule (allowing those in the UK months, making the right meaningless. legally to settle after ten years) have been abolished, and replaced by a rigid, narrow 20-year threshold under which settlement Immigration rules, regulations and require- takes a further ten years. ments are impossibly complex: »» Since 2010 there have been 5,000 changes Study in the UK, settlement and citizen- to the immigration rules, which now run to ship are increasingly affordable only to the 373,000 words in total, as well as two major wealthy: Acts of parliament and numerous sets of regulations. It is not surprising that people »» 2018: It is revealed that the Home Office don’t know what their status is or what to makes up to 800 percent profit in some do. cases, and a Home Affairs Committee review reveals that the department made £800 million from fees in six years. People are stuck in limbo with no legal status: »» Fees are set at commercial levels, »» People refused asylum who can’t be expected meaning that: to go home are given no status. Until 2003 –– British-born children who are eligible ‘exceptional leave to remain’ was granted for citizenship (because a parent gets in this situation, but this was abolished, settled status or because they have and ‘humanitarian protection’ (for victims lived here for ten years) face fees of of war or people who might be tortured or over £1,100, with no waiver for those subjected to the death penalty) and ‘discre- who cannot afford the fee, preventing tionary leave’ (for people needing to stay them from registering; an estimated in the UK for medical or other exceptional 120,000 children who have grown up reasons) are granted far less frequently, in the UK are unable to afford the fees leaving many refused asylum seekers irre- to register as citizens; movable but without leave to remain. –– Someone seeking to regularise under the 20-year rule will have to spend »» Legal changes mean that children born in £2,000 every 30 months and £2,389 for the UK who do not get automatic citizen- settled status – a total of over £10,000 ship (because neither parent is British or (including the health levy); settled in the UK), previously permitted to –– Workers and students bringing families stay, are liable to be detained and removed. from outside the UK must pay a full adult fee for each child, from 2014, »» Removal of appeal rights against wrongful costing a family with two children over refusal to extend leave means no legal £3,000 pa (including the health levy);

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–– A British or settled person seeking to and may obtain cashless support equivalent bring a parent or other adult depend- to asylum support, but many receive no ent relative to settle in the UK will support, and all are banned from working. need to pay £3,250 for a settlement visa for them. The loss of appeal rights makes many people vulnerable to removal although they should »» Since 2011, students at colleges have been not have been refused: unable to work in the UK, while university students may work only ten hours a week »» From 2014, thousands of students have during term-time. been accused of cheating in language tests, forced to leave courses and told to leave »» Rule changes mean that people on work the country; visas earning less than £35,000 pa are no longer entitled to settle in the UK, and may »» From 2010, homeless EU nationals rounded not stay for more than six years. up by the Home Office have had identity documents confiscated, preventing them »» Family reunion rights are subject to from obtaining work, and illegally removed income. Rule changes prevent families of for alleged ‘misuse of EU free movement British citizens or others settled in the UK rights’ from joining them unless the sponsor earns over £18,600 pa, £22,400 for a partner and »» Strict requirements for specified documen- child and £2,400 for each additional child, tary evidence has seen refusal of settlement making it tempting to come as visitors and rights for women entering on spousal visas overstay. who have suffered domestic violence have doubled between 2012 and 2016; »» Rule changes in 2012 mean that all catego- ries of people with leave to remain in the UK »» From 2016, highly skilled migrants in par- have a condition imposed of ‘no recourse ticular have been refused settled status to pubic funds’. A promised review in 2017 and ordered to leave under immigration to assess the impact of the condition on rule para 322(5), which brands them unde- struggling families has not materialised. sirable ‘in the light of character, conduct or associations or … a threat to national security’, for making minor amendments People unable to leave the country are to tax returns, despite being accepted as expected to live in destitution: honest mistakes by tax authorities. »» Asylum seekers housed by the Home Office are required to live on £35-37 pw for years, The criminal law is over-used and new waiting for their claim to be determined criminal offences have been created, and (just over half the level of jobseekers’ conviction can easily result in deportation: allowance, to cover everything except housing and bills), and although they may »» Asylum seekers arriving on false pass- seek work once they have waited a year ports are still prosecuted and imprisoned or more, they are restricted to ‘shortage for using false documents despite a 1999 occupations’ (requiring specialist skills and ruling that their prosecution breaches the qualifications). Refugee Convention.

»» Refused asylum seekers who cannot leave »» Working without authorisation (eg, when the UK may be housed by the Home Office in the country as an asylum seeker or

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language student) is a criminal offence, »» Officials routinely retain key documents, both for the worker and for an employer needed to prove entitlement to work, rent, who has reasonable cause to believe the study, drive etc, for months or years. worker is unauthorised (since 2016). The worker’s wages can be confiscated. »» In 2010, thousands of old landing cards recording immigrants’ arrival details are »» Driving while in the UK without permis- destroyed. sion is a criminal offence since 2016, and drivers can be asked to produce evidence of »» In May 2018, the Home Office is accused of immigration status. ‘shambolic incompetence’ as the immigra- tion minister says she has had no time to »» Letting property to someone without investigate the apparently improper use by permission to be in the UK is a criminal officials of ‘bad character’ immigration rules offence since 2016. to refuse settled status to migrants who innocently amended tax returns, despite »» Knowingly employing someone without being aware of the issue since January. authorisation is a criminal offence since 2006, and the requirement of knowledge »» Ignorant assumptions about how people was replaced by reasonable belief in 2016. behave, what motivates them and their ability to recall dates and past events accurately, inform Home Office decision- The adverse effects of all the measures making, and disbelief of migrants is the described above are multiplied by the leg- default attitude. endary incompetence and ignorance of Home Office officials. »» Only two percent of adverse decisions are »» Home Office officials routinely lose thou- overturned on administrative review (an sands of files and documents, including internal process conducted by Home Office irreplaceable original documents such as officials), which replaced appeals (heard passports, birth certificates and educa- by independent judges, who overturned a tional certificates, with deeply damaging third to half of Home Office decisions) in consequences, and compound their errors all except asylum and human rights issues. by denying receipt. The Home Affairs Select Committee (HASC) and the Independent »» In those cases still attracting a right of Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration appeal, if its decisions are overturned, the (ICIBI) issue repeated rebukes, to no avail. Home Office routinely appeals to the Upper In one inspection, 150 boxes of unopened Tribunal, where it loses three-quarters of correspondence from applicants, lawyers the cases. The further appeal adds another and MPs are discovered in a Liverpool year to the wait for status for asylum or immigration office. human rights applicants, during which they may not work.

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8. The new numbers game

In the 2000s, immigration policy was about New Labour first introduced targets for removal managing migration for the benefit of the – Tony Blair famously said he wanted the economy, rather than simply cutting numbers. numbers of refused asylum seekers removed New Labour’s ‘managed migration’ policies from the country to exceed the numbers of included the points-based system based on new asylum seekers coming in – and beefed up youth, qualifications and earning power, the voluntary returns schemes, which went hand preferential treatment of graduates and highly in hand with the measures making life more skilled migrants, the setting up of an advisory difficult for those without status. Both were committee to list ‘shortage occupations’ for maintained and tightened by the Home Office which migrant workers were needed, and the and the government under Theresa May. introduction of fees set at commercial levels. »» 2015: An inspection report shows a Home The 2010 election saw huge media scares on Office target of 12,000 voluntary depar- ‘foreign workers flooding Britain’, ‘taking yet tures, a 60 percent increase over the 2014 more jobs’, with the Mail and Express claiming target. ’92 per cent of new jobs go to foreigners’ and the BBC asking ‘Is Britain Full?’ The Tories’ use »» 2018: of the ‘immigration scare’ during the election –– In the wake of home secretary Amber led to the post-election Tory-LibDem Coalition Rudd’s denial that removal targets government setting itself an impossible and exist, a letter from her to Theresa May, absurd target for cutting migration, which has dated January 2017, is leaked in which manifested itself ever since in a scattergun she says she wants to increase enforced approach in which anything goes provided it removals by at least ten percent, and cuts the numbers – an attitude which encour- a letter to her from immigration ages the culture of refusal at the Home Office enforcement reveals a target of 12,800 and leads to the massive injustices of Windrush. in 2017/18. Lucy Moreton of the ISU union reveals that a ‘net removal »» 2010-16: The coalition government says it target of 8,337 appeared on posters will cut net migration ‘to the tens of thou- in regional centres’, and staff say the sands’; imposes a cap on work and student targets create huge pressures; visas, abolishes students’ post-study work –– It is revealed that the government visas, restricts colleges which can sponsor contract with Capita for the removal students, tightens immigration rules to of migrants without permission to require people joining partners in the UK to stay includes bonuses for exceeding speak English and minimum income require- the contractual quota, while the PCS ments to enjoy family life and for settlement. union calls for an end to the practice of rewarding immigration officers with »» 2016 on: Hundreds of highly skilled cakes for making the most arrests. migrants are accused of bad character for amending tax returns and told to leave the UK; the pledge to bring net immigration down to the tens of thousands is renewed as Theresa May moves from home secretary to prime minister.

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9. The retreat from universal human rights

Seventy years after the Universal Declaration »» Employer sanctions, the ban on work for of Human Rights, and despite the UK’s adher- asylum seekers and others, and the crimi- ence to a long list of human rights Conventions nalisation of work, breach the right to work and Charters, and its own Human Rights Act, recognised by Art 23 UDHR, and enshrined the foundational principle of the universality in Art 6 ICESCR and Art 15(1) EUCFR. of human rights is disappearing, overtaken by the stance that in the field of migration, there »» Measures deliberately depriving anyone are no rights, only privileges, to be enjoyed of the means of life breach Arts 9 and 11 only by the ‘deserving’. ICESCR (right to social security and to an adequate standard of living), and may also Hostile environment measures exemplify this constitute inhuman and degrading treat- retreat from universality in human rights: ment contrary to Art 5 UDHR, Art 3 ECHR »» The ‘right to rent’ provisions breach the and Art 4 EUCFR. right to adequate housing without dis- crimination, which is recognised in the »» Measures which deter parents from sending Universal Declaration on Human Rights children to school breach the right to edu- (UDHR) Art 25 (as an integral part of the cation without discrimination, recognised right to an adequate standard of living), by (inter alia) Art 26 UDHR, Arts 13 and and in Art 11 of the International Covenant 14 ICESCR, Protocol 1 Art 2 ECHR, Art 14 on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights EUCFR and Art 28 UN Convention on the (ICESCR). Homelessness and destitution Rights of the Child (UNCRC). impair human dignity and physical and mental integrity (protected by Art 1 UDHR, »» Data sharing, particularly obtaining Arts 3 and 8 of the European Convention patients’ and schoolchildren’s details, dis- on Human Rights (ECHR) and Arts 1 and proportionately interferes with rights to 3 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights privacy (Art 8 ECHR) and data protection (EUCFR)). (Art 8 EUCFR).

»» The denial of free hospital treatment to »» High fees preventing migrants from regu- those in need on the basis of immigra- larising their status interfere with rights tion status, and measures which deter to private life protected by Art 8 ECHR and people from seeking medical treatment, Art 7 EUCFR. violate the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical »» Measures restricting family life interfere and mental health without distinction of with the right to respect for family life, race, religion, political belief or social or protected by many human rights instru- economic condition, a right reflected in ments including UNCRC and Art 8 ECHR, the 1946 Constitution of the World Health permitted only if it is lawful and necessary Organisation, in Art 25 UDHR and in Art in a democratic society for public safety, 12 ICESCR. They also violate the right to the prevention of crime, the protection of physical and mental integrity recognized the rights of others etc. in Art 8 ECHR and Art 3 EUCFR.

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»» Immigration raids, aggressive policing also seen as fundamental in the UDHR and and indefinite detention violate rights to the ECHR; and to freedom from inhuman , proclaimed as a peculiarly British and degrading treatment. fundamental right and value by judges, and Global Justice Now

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10. Resistance

Migrant and refugee groups, anti-racist and Refugee Support Network, Refugee rights groups, churches, unions and others Survival Trust, Jesuit Refugee Service have been active fighting internal controls, (JRS), Maternity Action, the Platform on enforced destitution and the good immigrant/ Forced Labour and Asylum, the Children’s bad immigrant dichotomy for decades. A Society, Doctors of the World, Dignity for network of detainee support groups and anti- Asylum Seekers, Still Human Still Here deportation campaigns crosses the country (now Asylum Matters), the No Recourse to and protests around immigration detention Public Funds Network (NRPF) highlight the by detainees as well as supporters, and anti- impact of tighter controls on vulnerable deportation protests and actions, are too groups such as refused asylum seekers and regular and frequent to be included below. young people growing up undocumented in the UK; others such as Statewatch highlight »» Early protests include local authorities the dangers of increasing data exchange. adopting ‘No passport checks’ policies Councils including Glasgow, Sheffield and (Newham is the first, in 1982); civil servants Bristol condemn forced destitution and taking industrial action to halt a scheme ‘hostile environment’ policies. to record the ethnic origin of unemployed people (1986); conferences such as ‘No After the Windrush revelations: collaboration with internal controls’ and ‘Communities of Resistance’ (1989), cam- »» 2018: April: paigns such as ‘No Pass Laws Here’; the –– Let us Learn, a campaign group formed Committee for Non-Racist Benefits; the by young people growing up in the UK sanctuary movement; marches of workers, and unable to afford university or reg- many undocumented, following immi- ularisation, protest outside Downing gration raids in Hackney, Chinatown and Street at fees, wearing T-shirts pro- elsewhere; marches and protests against claiming them ‘Young, gifted and anti-asylum legislation; campaigning by blocked’; Kalayaan for domestic workers’ rights which leads to regularisation for many who »» May: have left exploitative and brutal employers –– London mayor Sadiq Khan calls for the and overstayed. ‘astronomically high fees’ for citizen- ship for children to be scrapped and »» 2000s: The No One is illegal group calls announces research on how the immi- for the defence of ‘immigration outlaws’ gration restrictions of the past decade and the abolition of racist immigration have affected Londoners; controls; a campaign for ‘earned regularisa- –– A public campaign led by Against tion’ for undocumented migrants, launched Borders for Children (ABC) results in in 2006 by civil society groups and unions, the Department for Education dropping becomes part of the LibDem manifesto, but the nationality and country of birth is dropped when the party enters the coali- questions from the schools census; tion government in 2010. –– Campaigning by medical professionals and activist groups including Docs not »» 2010s: Refugee and migrant support, and Cops leads to the suspension of the NHS many rights groups including Merseyside data sharing agreement with the Home

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Office after the parliamentary Health ineligible for free NHS treatment; and Social Care Select Committee –– JCWI is granted permission for a judicial condemns it; review of the Right to Rent policy; –– The All-African Women’s Group –– Hundreds protest the Windrush scandal demands the right to work for asylum outside the Home Office, and public seekers awaiting decisions, saying that outrage leads the new home secretary one in ten of those they support is to tell banks to suspend checks on the medically trained. status of new and existing customers until he is ‘more comfortable we have »» July: it right’; –– The home secretary announces a three- month suspension of data-sharing –– MPs launch a campaign against the use between the Home Office and the tax, of ‘bad character’ rules against highly vehicle licencing and work and pensions skilled migrants innocently amending agencies for people over thirty; tax returns; –– Chinese restauranteurs strike and march to protest immigration raids –– Heads, children’s and migrants’ rights and strict rules restricting recruitment, campaigners urge the government to following similar actions in 2007 and review the ‘No recourse to public funds’ 2013; policy which denies poor children free –– Twenty doctors awarded medals for school meals. their work fighting Ebola in return them in protests at the »» June: hostile environment in health. –– The parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights begins an inquiry into »» August: the treatment of Paulette Wilson and –– Global Justice Now launches a campaign Anthony Bryan, two of the Windrush ‘MPs not border guards’, announcing generation affected by hostile environ- that 100 MPs have pledged not to ment policies; report migrants who seek their help. –– As MPs and campaigners call for ‘obscene’ fees for immigration and »» September: nationality applications to be reduced, –– Twelve MPs (no Labour or Tories) sign the ICIBI announces an inquiry into an Early Day Motion applauding the the level and rationale of fees and their return of the Ebola medals and calling impact; on the government to end borders –– The campaign group Universities between health workers and patients; Resist Border Controls launches a –– Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants survey to see how institutions respond and Brighton Pride organisers launch to the requirements for surveillance a petition urging British Airways not of students and to prepare a united to profit from deportations, following opposition; Virgin’s announcement that it will not –– NHS organisations campaign to lift the take a new deportations contract. cap on medical visas; –– The Christie Hospital in Manchester »» October: formally challenges a Home Office –– Amnesty International sends observers decision that a refused asylum seeker to the trial of the Stansted 15, anti- with metastatic breast cancer is deportation activists who stopped a

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deportation flight in 2016, on charges –– Medact and Docs Not Cops organise a of endangering airport security; day of action against the hostile envi- –– A Conservative MP puts forward a private ronment in health. member’s bill to give Chagossians British citizenship as grandchildren of »» November: ejected islanders face deportation from –– The Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal puts Britain; the hostile environment on trial in –– The Residential Landlords Association a public hearing in London, with an demands that EU citizens in the UK international panel of jurors hearing after are given documentary testimony from unionists, campaigners, evidence of their right to stay, to avoid members of migrant rights and solidar- another Windrush scandal; ity groups; –– Over 100 refugee and asylum support –– Following a legal challenge by Migrant groups, faith groups, trade unions and Rights Network and Liberty, NHS businesses launch the Lift the Ban Digital announces the termination of campaign, demanding the right to its data sharing agreement with the work for asylum seekers; Home Office.

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