I've said in this tweet that I am certain that this policy commitment is commiting our government to a new Windrush scandal. I want to explain why I am so certain of this. THREAD 1/?
2/? First, we need to understand what conditions created first Windrush crisis. It was a combination of 3 things:
1. An imperfect system for proving status
2. A large population who needed to prove status but was unaware of this
3. A draconian and inflexible enforcement system
1. An imperfect system for proving status
2. A large population who needed to prove status but was unaware of this
3. A draconian and inflexible enforcement system
Windrush was a consequence of two sets of legislation combined: the 1971 Immigration Act which gave Home Office huge discretionary deportation powers and the Coalition legislation setting up the "Hostile Environment" which meant those who could not prove status to... 3/?
4/? ...employers, landlords, health care providers etc were denied jobs, housing, medical treatment and referred for deportation action. The strong and inflexible demand for proof of status collided with a population of mostly old Caribbean migrants who had no proof of status...
5/? ...and no notion they needed to prove status. The result was the infliction of misery on innocents. So fast forward to today. The same conditions are in place. Imperfect system for proving status. Large at risk population. Draconian enforcement.
6/? The situation on status is less bad for EU migrants. A comprehensive registration system is in place and they are being encouraged to use it. But, balancing that, the at risk population is *much, much larger*. This is what makes failure inevitable
7/? Imagine the EU registration scheme is 99% successful. that's v optimistic IMO, so its a best case scenario. Even then with 3.5M EU citizens resident here, that mean 35,000 families who will not be registered properly come the end of the scheme. 35,000.
8/? We can make a reasonable guess what sort of people these will be. Old and frail people whose relatives don't know they need to register. Vulnerable people with chaotic lives who don't know they need to register. And so on. 8/?
9/? Those people will then be fed into the same "guilty until proven innocent" hostile envt culture. They will be thrown out of their homes. They will be denied health care. They will lose their jobs. And this will be inflicted on 35,000 innocent families in the *best case*.
10/? Tl;dr - the EU resident population is *so large* that some families are guaranteed to fall through the cracks however well any scheme works. And then they will be hit with the hostile environment sledgehammer. Policies which continue to wreck lives.
11/? Today's announcement makes it certain that misery and injustice will be inflicted on more innocent families, unless the hostile environment is changed. The only question is how many lives are wrecked. /ENDS/
PS - for a more systematic look at what sort of people will be most likely to fall through the cracks, check out this report from last year by @MigObs - the old and disabled, children, the very vulnerable...
migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/repo…
migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/repo…
@MigObs "Perhaps the largest category is children..."
Imagine thousands of British born kids threatened with deportation to a country they've never seen. You won't have to imagine in a few years time if the current Home Sec gets her way.
Imagine thousands of British born kids threatened with deportation to a country they've never seen. You won't have to imagine in a few years time if the current Home Sec gets her way.
