The UNESCO Chair (RILA) (Refugee Integration through Languages and the Arts) at Glasgow University has published a response to the UK Government's immigration bill with three key points.

The new immigration bill, introduced on 7th March 2023, less that 12 months since the Nationality and Borders Act received Royal Assent in 2022, is entitled the 'Illegal Immigration Bill' in the Home Secretary’s letter to MPs.

There are three clear points to be made about the new bill:

1) It is important we do not further normalise talk of 'illegal immigrants'. The preferred term in academic literature is 'irregular migration' because it acknowledges that when fleeing persecution and subject to many precarious and difficult journeys, including often the loss of belongings and papers, many people end up without being able to easily prove who they are.

2) Lawyers will comment further on this but there is little in what is being proposed which is not already in existence in the law.

3) The bill is impractical, inoperable, and eye-wateringly expensive on given estimates, taking the asylum back-log into account. It will cost billions to bring a new detention and deportation infrastructure into being at scale. 

Professor Alison Phipps spoke with The National newspaper about the bill.

See more the full statement on the UNESCO RILA website

You can read Alison Phipps: Three key things to know about realities of migration on The National website 

Image credit: Radek Homola on Unsplash

 

First published: 8 March 2023

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