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“Australians don’t have integration issues the way migrants from, say, Somalia or Pakistan do; indeed, nobody really thinks that Australians are foreign at all.”
In August, Melanie McDonagh, a columnist for the Evening Standard, commented on Boris Johnson’s proposal that Commonwealth citizens be given “preferential treatment” with regards to the immigration cap on non-EU migrants:
“Arguing about immigration simply in terms of bald numbers always seems a dud idea because it ignores the fact that some immigrants assimilate without even trying; others don’t.”In case there was any doubt, she drove her point home:
“Australians don’t have integration issues the way migrants from, say, Somalia or Pakistan do; indeed, nobody really thinks that Australians are foreign at all.”It was a short comment, almost an aside – as if she was simply restating a self-evident truth, so true in fact that she did not have to elaborate further on what these “issues” of integration might be. So often, those who decry the racism in immigration policies or rhetoric are chided for over-reacting or “playing the race card.” However, the reason Melanie could make such a sweeping statement was because she knew that everyone knew what she meant: it’s a coded discussion, and the code was ‘race’.
Race and immigration are intertwined, and have been since the first major immigration controls were introduced as a reaction to people from the Caribbean, Africa and South Asia immigrating to the U.K. during the 1950s. Institutional racism is more insidious and difficult to pin down than overt racism, but the recent government has made it easier with policies such as the “Go Home” van, a van emblazoned with the words, “In the UK illegally? Go home or face arrest.” The advertising campaign was allegedly targeted at those in the UK illegally, but only driven around some of London’s most ethnically diverse boroughs, including Hounslow and Brent during its week-long trial.
If ethnic minorities bear the brunt of an elaborate immigration policy aimed at keeping people out rather than facilitating the reality of migration in a global marketplace, the measures targeted at family are a particular issue of concern for black women. Feminist campaigner Chitra Nagarajan has written an excellent blog post about the intersection of migration and women’s rights and the implications of new spousal immigration rules. She also highlights historic injustices, such as the virginity tests of the 1970s:
“The practice of ‘virginity testing‘ in the 1970s has been well documented. Immigration rules at the time did not require women arriving in the UK to have married their fiancés in order to have visas if the wedding was due to take place within 3 months of arrival. Internal Home Office papers show the practice of conducting medical examinations to see whether a woman entering the UK under this bracket was a ‘bona fide virgin or fiancée.’ At least 80 ‘virginity tests’ or, to give them their proper name, state sanctioned sexual assaults took place, based on racist and sexist stereotypes that south Asian women are submissive, meek and always virgins before marriage and on the biologically false notion that all women have hymens before having sex. The UK state has still not apologised for this. [1]”
New spousal rules, among other measures, have raised the amount of money a person has to earn before their spouse can join them in the UK. Consequently, these rules have been roundly criticised for breaking up families. People of all races are dragged into the net, and married couples are more likely to end up separated because they are students for example, or because one is self-employed and cannot prove a steady income for a said spouse. Richard Fabb, a British man married to an Australian, wrote in his article on Comment is Free about the toll that a longer probationary period was having on his family. His wife could not take up work until her probation expired and as a result was reluctant to leave Australia and return with him to the UK:
"The long probationary period is meant to make it harder for sham marriages to last, and to be a period in which the applicant can assimilate into society. To me, it feels as if there is a presumption of criminality that I find offensive. I do not want my wife to spend that long as an outsider when she’s already lived in the UK for four years on an ancestry visa. She’s pretty well assimilated thanks very much. What’s more, in marrying me she cemented a lifelong connection to Britain."Perhaps the universality of the policy and its effects on British citizens and their families as well as migrants is the reason why it has received a moderate amount of press coverage.
Britain is not alone in its ever hardening stance towards immigration, particularly given the ongoing recession. Europe has long strived to create “Fortress Europe.” Colonel Gaddaffi warned that without Libya policing its coastline, Europe would “turn black” due to migration from Africa to Italy across the Mediterranean Sea. For years, there have been reports of African migrants and refugees aboard boats leaving North Africa for Europe with an untold number perishing in the sea. On 3rd October, a boat packed with more than 500 Eritrean men, women and children caught fire and capsized, killing 364 people and causing shockwaves around Europe. Author and broadcaster Kenan Malick blamed the tragedy on EU border policies:
“Last week’s horror was neither an accident nor merely a tragedy. It was the gruesomely inevitable consequence of EU border policies. For more than three decades the EU has been constructing a Fortress Europe to keep the ‘unwanted’ from landing on the shores of the continent, spending hundreds of millions of euros on external border controls. At the end of this year the latest scheme, Eurosur, a new Mediterranean surveillance and data-sharing system making use of drones and satellites is due to come on stream. European policymakers claim that the system will help prevent disasters such as the one in Lampedusa. History suggests that it will be deployed to prevent migrants from reaching Europe but not to save their lives.
Fortress Europe has created not only a physical barrier around the continent, but an emotional one, too, around Europe’s sense of humanity. Migrants have come to be seen less as living, breathing human beings than as so much flotsam and jetsam to be swept away from Europe’s beaches.”
Asylum and immigration are often conflated, more often to the detriment of the asylees, who, it is often forgotten, are seeking refuge. In Switzerland, some towns have moved to segregate asylum seekers entirely, banning them from public places due to fears about “criminal activity.” A “rising climate of Islamophobia” in France a concern for its Muslim population, while, in Italy, the first black MP and anti-racism campaigner, Cecile Kyenge has been likened to an orang-utan, had bananas thrown at her, and labeled a prostitute. Kyenge’s struggle goes to the heart of the issue. The epitome of grace under fire, she has been targeted personally for daring to push for Italy’s immigrant’s to be recognised as citizens, backing a new law that would grant citizenship to children born in Italy, regardless of their parentage.
The benefits of migration are usually cast in economic terms. It is true, migrants give more to the public purse than they take out, and they are less likely to use social housing. According to the latest figures by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, migrants make a net contribution to the public purse of 0.46% of GDP (including pensions). But there is more to the story; it has a human element. Where the state intrudes so deeply into people’s lives, the least we can demand is a system that treats everyone equally and with respect for human dignity. If not, Ethnic minorities will always feel like their citizenship is under review. The policy of immigration spot checks in tube stations and on buses, in which racial profiling is allegedly rife, exacerbates that feeling. The message from the British Government is clear: don’t get too comfortable. You don’t really belong here.
Source | [1] “Uncovering virginity testing, controversy in the National Archives: The intersectionality of discrimination in British immigration history” (2011)
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