By Kieran Lewis
Rights & Migration Policy Manager at NSUN
Over the past few years, migration has taken up ever more space in the headlines. With relentless news stories about small boats and the presence of violent groups outside hotels housing people seeking asylum, the Government is stepping up its cruelty towards migrants in an attempt to appease the far right. With all of this going on, we at NSUN feel the need to reiterate our position; that migration is not a crime, and that all people deserve to move freely without fear of persecution or violence. Beyond this basic ethical stance, we also wish to reiterate why, for us, migrant justice will always be a mental health issue.
In recent weeks alone, we’ve seen how:
The Government weaponises distress in the name of immigration control
Last week, the Home Office targeted thousands of international students whose visas will expire in the next few months with text messages threatening deportation if they stay in the country for longer. Sending these threats directly to students who have done nothing wrong is not a simple public information campaign, but a calculated move to cause distress and make migrants feel like they are being watched.
This is a continuation of the same openly hostile rhetoric that fuelled the Home Office’s widely-criticised ‘go home’ advertising campaign, directed towards migrants in 2013. The supposed goal of tactics like these is to create an atmosphere so hostile and distressing that people simply leave the country. In practice, however, it is obvious that decisions about whether to migrate to or leave a given country are complex and deeply personal.
The UK immigration system traumatises and retraumatises, often intentionally
The Government also recently announced the suspension of family reunification for refugees until further notice. This means that people who make it through the years-long asylum process and are granted refugee status are now unable to apply for their partners and children to join them in the UK. Refugees in this situation are dealing with a government that, on one hand, recognises the danger they face in their countries of origin enough to grant them international protection yet, on the other, refuses to acknowledge their loved ones’ right to live in safety with their family.
Following the same logic as threatening texts and vans with the phrase ‘go home’ emblazoned on the side, actions like this clearly show us that the Government prioritises optics over reason or genuine concern for people’s welfare.
People in the psychiatric system, the welfare system and the immigration system face overlapping barriers to participation in society
The Government is keen to appear ‘tough’ on immigration to appease far-right groups who blame migrants for our crumbling NHS, the rising cost of living and a range of other problems – or perceived problems – in society. These are the kinds of groups that may also argue that funding the welfare system and protecting Disabled people or people living with mental ill-health, distress or trauma is incompatible with having a functioning asylum system, as though we cannot do both.
This could not be further from the truth. We have an inadequate welfare system, overwhelmed mental health services and a broken asylum system for the same reason: political choice. The resources we need to ensure everyone can live in dignity are already there – the problem is that they are concentrated in the hands of people and companies who do not care. Instead of improving people’s living conditions, those with power would rather pit minoritised groups against one another to preserve the status quo.
Disabled people’s access to welfare is determined by poorly-run assessments carried out by the same outsourcing companies whose fingerprints are all over the asylum system; people in the immigration system are detained in a similar way to people experiencing mental ill-health, and all of these groups are often forced into dangerous housing. While these overlaps are often hidden, we can find and expose them by working alongside other social justice movements.
What we are doing about it
The more we speak to and organise with our friends across the migrant and disability justice movements, the more intersections we see between the issues that matter to us and the strategies we use to win change.
NSUN is an active member of the Disability and Migration Network – a coalition of groups and individuals from across the migrant and disability justice movements – which recently held its first in-person conference. We will continue to work with the Network as it turns ideas from the conference into a plan of action and solidarity across movements.
Along with our Mental Health and Migrant Justice Working Group, we are pushing for better funding for grassroots groups that work on these issues. Keep an eye on our website and social media for updates.