A world in which everyone has the freedom to move and to stay might sound pie in the sky, but it can work On 28 April, the Nationality and Borders Act passed, taking an axe to Britain’s international legal obligations to refugees. This came just after we marked 10 years of the hostile environment, the set of policies introduced by the then home secretary Theresa May in 2012 – albeit trailed by New Labour minister Liam Byrne in 2007 – that saw immigration checks outsourced to trusted public services, and the creation of a surveillance infrastructure to check people’s entitlements and target migrants for removal. Despite the revelations of the Windrush scandal, the hostile environment endures; in the recent Tory leadership contest, all candidates were unanimous in their support for deporting refugees to Rwanda. And this hostility isn’t unique to the UK. Day in and day out, we see the global impact of racialised border violence. Scores of migrants found dead in the back of a trailer truck in Texas. People beaten by the authorities and left for dead in the Spanish enclave of Melilla. Rescue ships in the Mediterranean unable to find a safe port. Refugees on the Greek border coerced by police into pushing back their compatriots. Gracie Mae Bradley and Luke de Noronha are the authors of Against Borders: The Case for Abolition Continue reading...
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