Re/Making Immigration Policy through Practice

Abstract

Refused asylum seekers living in the UK face hostility and legal restrictions on the basis of immigration status that limit access to statutory support, employment, and social goods. Working at a non-profit organization that offered an advice service for refused asylum seekers, I observed how the experiences of refused asylum seekers are constituted not simply by restrictions within immigration law, but rather by the ways in which laws are perceived and implemented by a wide range of actors. I argue that the legal consciousness of social workers hostile to refused asylum seekers plays an important role in making policy through practice. I show that social workers prioritized immigration enforcement over other legal obligations, thereby amplifying the meaning of immigration status and deepening the marginalization of refused asylum seekers.

‘Punishing those who do the wrong thing’: Enforcing destitution and debt through the UK’s family migration rules

“…Working in tandem with austerity measures, refusal to reimburse local authorities for the costs of providing a 'parallel welfare system' (Price and Spencer, 2015) to migrants with NRPF can be understood as an implicit policy of enforcing destitution as a mechanism of immigration control. In response, under-funded councils attempted to deter migrants with NRPF from seeking support through 'gatekeeping' tactics such as threatening to remove children from parents (Dennler, 2018), and, where forced by advocates to provide support, offered only minimal levels. The extension of NRPF in 2012 compounded these issues, which the Home Office had been explicitly warned of by the NRPF Network in response to its family migration consultation.…”