A 'No Entry' sign, with the flag of the USA above the words, and the British flag below. Photo: By Matt Seymouron via Unsplash.
Follower of fascism? Catherine Henderson on immigration and asylum in Britain and the USA
‘What is happening in the USA is contagious.’
It is unsettling being in the USA at the moment. I am not American, but am staying in Illinois with my daughter and her family. Our nearest big city is Chicago, but we feel relatively cocooned. What is happening in Washington is, in the main, a shadow in the background, a little like Covid was until you were directly affected, which generally happened sooner or later.
Covid is a useful metaphor. What is happening in the USA is contagious. The contagion is already spreading in Europe, and many have noted echoes of Germany around a century ago. Mostly, though, we are in denial, and that too is an echo of Germany in the 1930s.
Take Donald Trump’s choice of Madison Square Garden for a rally in which he talked about the US being an ‘occupied country’, and pledged to ‘restore America to the true Americans’ (the indigenous ones?). There was a Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden in 1939. At a New Hampshire rally, Trump accused undocumented immigrants of ‘poisoning the blood of the country’.
It is easy to look at all this from a safe distance. Perhaps even to think ‘thank goodness we’re not as racist as they are’. But consider the language that successive UK governments have used to talk about immigration and asylum. We may not be building a detention centre in Guantánamo for 30,000 migrants who ‘threaten the American people’, but we are reopening two immigration centres that were closed over five years ago (Campsfield House and Haslar). This is part of a drive to increase deportations. The centres will provide 1,000 new places, where people will be held prior to expulsion.
The UK is not offering safe routes to people seeking asylum. The government white paper on borders and migration talks about threats to the UK in one paragraph and small boat crossings in the next. (The people who arrive in this way are routinely and incorrectly referred to in the mainstream media as ‘illegal migrants’.) The implication is, of course, that those fleeing across the Channel, practically the only route available now to claim asylum on British soil, are a security threat. This is essentially the same as the message heard in the US. As far as I can see, the white paper offers no suggestions for safe passage. Deaths are conveniently blamed on smugglers, rather than government policy. Apart from resettlement schemes for Syrians and Afghans, safe passage has only been offered to Ukrainians, who presumably aren’t seen as a threat.
Politicians on both sides of the Channel have talked about ‘people who don’t share our values’, and incompatible cultural differences. But what values allow people to die while trying to reach safety in Europe? Our cultures have been formed by migration. But immigrants are easy to blame for housing shortages and hospital waiting lists – even when they may be the people we need to help build houses and work in hospitals. The normalisation of disparaging attitudes and dehumanising language has paved the way for right-wing parties across Europe.
Donald Trump’s policy of arresting ‘illegals’ is terrifying. Apparently the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been instructed to detain 1,200–1,500 people a day. Many US citizens support the arrest of immigrants who have committed crimes, but there is little taste for this policy when it involves splitting up families or arresting people at their places of worship, study or in hospital. Indeed, US Quakers are taking the government to court over the decision to allow ICE officers to arrest people at their place of worship, arguing that this is unconstitutional, and that, because our worship is communal, the risk of excluding immigrants is a loss of religious freedom to the entire Meeting (see news, 7 February). There have even been reports of ICE hassling indigenous Americans. Part of the aim of this (along with other policies such as the threat to end birthright citizenship) is of course to spread fear and confusion.
‘What are the attitudes and assumptions that lie behind our immigration policies?’
Well, at least that doesn’t happen in Britain… but, actually, undocumented people in the UK are less likely to seek medical help for fear of arrest. People seeking asylum can be detained when they go to sign in. We still operate a cruel and expensive system of ‘indefinite detention’ for people whose asylum applications have been refused, and people seeking asylum are not allowed to work. The crippling fees for the ten-year route to citizenship are punitive and indefensible. Not content with non-British nationals who have committed crimes serving their time, we deport them to countries many have few, if any, connections with, once they are released from prison.
The UK government has been so desperate to be seen as reducing immigration figures that it has caused serious damage to the economy, as well as great distress. Universities are laying off staff and closing departments following the disastrous decision not to allow graduate international students to bring their families to the UK. My daughter and her family here in the US will have to negotiate the Minimum Income Requirement when they return to the UK, as her husband is not a British citizen. This is to be reviewed in the summer, but the previous government raised the required income by roughly £10,000, to £29,000, and proposed a similar increase this year. This policy has meant that many children grow up in poverty, without one of their parents – apparently the right to family life does not apply in their case. Ironically, these families often have to rely on benefits, and many find it harder to integrate. The Immigration Law Practitioners Association says the policy is ideological, not pragmatic, and ‘makes loving a person from abroad a privilege that only higher earners can afford’. It is a redundant policy because immigration and benefits rules already stop visa holders from claiming benefits before they are settled.
So, will it be a case of ‘What America does today Britain does tomorrow’? Bear in mind that the need for asylum is only going to increase with the changing climate and increasing environmental destruction. What are the attitudes and assumptions that lie behind immigration and asylum policies in both countries, and are they comparable? Despite the differences in scale, I believe there are unmistakable similarities: migration is a threat and our borders are not secure; politicians need to keep us safe from this threat; migrants are potentially dangerous; immigration is behind social ills such as lack of housing; migrants are ‘not like us’ – their cultures are incompatible with ours…
In both countries a history of colonialism and slavery informs attitudes. In Britain, some politicians hold views very close to those of Donald Trump – a number attended his inauguration. Before things fall apart here, those in power need to tell the truth about migration, build a fair and compassionate asylum system, and face down those who seek to dehumanise migrants. We’ve seen what happens when they don’t: the centre cannot hold.
Catherine is part of the Quaker Asylum and Refugee Network (QARN).
