In the second of a series of blogs for Black History Month, international solicitor Hugh Johnson-Gilbert looks at migration and why it appears the UK's 'hostile environment' is here to stay.
In a 2012 interview with the Telegraph, then Home Secretary
Theresa May outlined her plans to create a "really hostile
environment" for illegal migrants in the UK. That intention
manifested in a series of divisive policies, such as the infamous
'go-home vans' or those that effectively forced doctors and
nurses to start
checking patients' immigration statuses before offering
treatment.
It was an environment that fanned the flames of nationalist
sentiment and was one of the reasons that the Windrush Scandal was
allowed to occur.
Towards the end of 2017, stories began to break of long-settled,
retirement-age, black UK residents being aggressively pursued by
the Home Office over their immigration status.
This moral, legal and political fiasco came to be known as the
'Windrush Scandal'. Over the course of many months, story
after story emerged of UK residents being threatened with
deportation, held in immigration detention centres and denied their
basic rights. The scandal was, at least in part, a result of the Home
Office's 'hostile environment' policy.
That policy mutated, with devastating consequences for many. It led
to enormous embarrassment for its architect, Theresa May, the
resignation of then Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, and the
acknowledgment that thousands of affected individuals were
entitled to compensation.
Speaking in the House of Commons on 21 July 2020, in response to
the publication of Wendy Williams' independent review
into the Windrush Scandal, Home Secretary Priti Patel announced
her ambition for a "fair, humane, compassionate and
outward-looking Home Office".
Two months later, the Financial
Times reported that she had asked Home Office officials to
explore the feasibility of building an asylum processing centre on
either Ascension Island or St Helena, two British overseas island
territories in the middle of the south Atlantic.
This troubling policy proposal suggests two things: firstly, that
the hostile environment is here to stay; and secondly, that an
'Australia-style' immigration system (the panacea promised
for the UK's unshackled post-Brexit future) potentially extends
beyond adopting a 'points-based system' and includes
mirroring Australia's approach to asylum processing. Both are
of grave concern from a human rights perspective.
Since the early 2000s, the Australian government has deployed the
ultimate hostile environment – detention centres on Nauru and
Manus Islands in the Pacific. Asylum seekers are detained in
appalling conditions on these desolate islands with no promise of
ever having their asylum claim processed.
As documented by Human Rights Watch, "Many have dire
mental health problems and suffer overwhelming despair –
self-harm and suicide attempts are frequent".
In 2016, a 23-year-old Iranian refugee set himself on fire in
Nauru, in protest at his continued detention.
Australia's offshore detention centres have been the subject of
a raft of legal claims. In June 2017, the Australian Government
settled a class action brought on behalf of nearly 2,000 refugees
in respect of their detention on Manus Island.
The Australian government and its contractors, including private
security company G4S,
agreed to pay compensation of A$70m to the claimants. More
recently, in June 2020, the Australian government and G4S
settled a claim brought by a security officer who claimed that
riots at the detention centre on Manus left him with severe
psychological injuries.
The last British politician to deposit a problem on St Helena was
Lord Liverpool in 1815. Writing to his Foreign Secretary on the
subject of where to exile the deposed Emperor Napoleon, the Prime
Minister suggested that "At such a distance and in such a
place, all intrigue will be impossible, and at such a long distance
from Europe, he will be quickly forgotten".
To house asylum seekers and refugees on the same island would no
doubt achieve some of the same insouciance.
However, it would also be expensive, impractical, morally bankrupt
and likely result in litigation. If the Home Secretary is genuine
in her stated desire to preside over a fairer and more humane
post-Windrush Home Office, she should publicly abandon the
suggested policy.
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