Having worked in the migration sector for quite a while, I am no stranger to horrendous Home Office policy announcements. If I wrote a blogpost about every one, I'd probably never write about anything else. But the latest "earned settlement" announcements feel worthy of comment. I'm not sure it is necessarily because they sit at the top of a hierarchy of nastiness (although they are awful), perhaps it is partly because of how far-reaching their impact will be on society as a whole. Mainly I guess, I feel the need to write something as part of my own processing of the enormity of the devastating impact they will have on many of the people I care about. This post is still, in parts, perhaps less coherent than I would like and is, undoubtedly, too long but I think says at least some of what I want to say.
And yes, we did know this was coming. I took part in the consultation earlier in the year. I encouraged others to do the same. I supported Stories of Hope and Home participants to do so too. But I am not naïve. I knew, even as I pored over it, that it would probably make little difference. The Home Office have more or less admitted as much: according to their own statistics, 84% of individuals and 79% of organisations who responded were against the proposals. They have come in regardless, with a few minor tweaks. Not so much a consultation after all then.
Knowing this is where we were headed makes it no less awful now it is upon us.
Half a million people who are currently building their lives in the UK have just been told they will have to wait longer, in some cases much, much longer before they have the right to permanent settlement with the sense of security and stability that offers them. There are hoops to jump through which mean there are people who will be effectively frozen out of permanent settlement for ever. Countless thousands of those who follow them to our shores, almost everyone who ever considers wanting to make the UK home, will be impacted. Almost all of us will have friends, neighbours, colleagues, members of our local communities who are affected.
Although my particular concern (and the bit I feel most able to speak / write about) is for those seeking sanctuary among whom I mostly work, the effects of this are much further reaching. I am very conscious that our response to this needs to not be trying to analyse which groups have the most to lose from the new rules, to seek minor tweaks for exceptional cases, but to unite around the common recognition of the negative impacts on all those who are affected.
For a country that claims to want to promote cohesion and integration this seems remarkably short-sighted. It is not rocket science to know that keeping people trapped on the margins of society, increasing their sense of instability and vulnerability, is hardly conducive to building integrated mutually supportive and mutually beneficial communities. Aside from knowing it through common sense, there is plenty of evidence that people, individually and collectively, thrive when they feel a sense of belonging. I genuinely believe that all of us: those subject to immigration control, and those of us who aren't, will be all the poorer for these new rules.
Aside from everyone directly affected, let's think about what this says, explicitly and out loud, about how we earn our right to exist in society. There are, still, some quicker routes to settlement. They come with a high price tag. For everyone else, there are also financial barriers to be crossed before an application will be considered.
I realise it is not exactly a secret that much of our society operates on the belief that somehow the more you earn or the more you have the more you are valued, but to me at least there does feel something slightly sinister about someone standing at the dispatch box and stating that your income defines your worth. In theory there are to be some exemptions (as yet undefined) for people with health needs and disabilities, but coupled with the current rhetoric around those other demonised groups that doesn't fill me with confidence. Children are to be exempt from the minimum income threshold, so at least we haven't yet resorted to sending kids back down the mines but still...
I have watched people I know and love struggle through the asylum system, submit to every dehumanising process, answer every intrusive question, make every impossible choice, cope with every past and present trauma. I have watched them contribute to their communities with generosity and compassion. Not that I agree with the concept of "earning" the right to settlement, but even if I did, if anyone has shown the resilience, tenacity and hope to "earn" the right to belong, many of these people have already done so.
Certain cohorts of people have been told they are now going to have to wait thirty years from their first grant of status to being given permanent right to remain. In some cases, that will come on the top of a long wait for recognition before that initial grant. I know people for whom that risks adding up to a total wait of fifty-plus years. Just how long that feels is quite hard to get my head around. Thirty years ago, Tony Blair was still in opposition hoping to become prime minister, and I was still at secondary school. Thirty years into the future, if the world still exists by then, I'll be well into my seventies.
Then again, no-one, in reality, expects the political landscape to look the same thirty years from now. Based on recent experience, who knows how many prime ministers will have come and gone?? Generally, in immigration policy, it is hard to make plans based on what might happen in the next thirty days let alone thirty years, so this is, really, not about what happens in 2058, it is about forcing people into permanent uncertainty and insecurity. Even those for whom five years has just become ten must be wondering whether ten really means ten.
Our first Stories of Hope and Home session after these announcements was one of the hardest for a long time, possibly ever. It felt very important to help people be informed about what is coming their way, but there was no way to make it anything other than awful. The room was filled with sadness, disappointment, confusion, frustration and anger. There were a million questions, many of which remain unanswerable. There was a high level of anxiety about what the future holds. There was little I could offer by way of reassurance.
The asylum system has always been exceptionally challenging to navigate but, until now, we could always reassure people that, once you were out the other end, things get better. For those still trapped in the system, that promise of 'when you get refugee status' is the hope people cling to. Not to say there aren't still challenges, of course, especially in the initial transition phases. Language and culture remain as barriers; separation from family and home is still difficult; finding employment, especially for those who might have been out of work for a long period due to restrictions, is not easy; housing is a mess. But overall, the processes became clearer, and some sense of security and stability was more or less assured. I have watched people, after that initial grant, move towards greater independence, less reliance on support. The challenge of this particular set of announcements is that it rips all of that away.
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