Thread by @ZoeJardiniere

Today @jameskirkup has a piece in the Times explaining where he thinks people who campaign for a less brutal immigration system go wrong
He's far from alone in taking this view from a generally liberal perspective, so without any personal antagonism to him, I'm going to respond👇

The first charge - that we want open borders.

Well, we might well see that as the end goal, yes, but it's not a fair charge. When people stand up against deportations it
1. doesn't follow that anyone should be able to come in, just that these people shouldn't be forced out

2. Is not necessarily the appropriate time for advocates to start discussing who they *would* kick out. Not talking about who it is legitimate to deport, when talking about not deporting one or other individual, does not = calling for open borders.
This is a strange straw man.

Fewer people might think asylum seekers lie, if that narrative weren't being spread by others, not the people he's blaming for it.
People do not believe refugees are liars for no reason, on instinct. The target here should be those who delegitimise refugees, not their advocates.

This part is factually incorrect. There's still cooperation from the charity sector with the Home Office on encouraging "voluntary" returns.
What such programs have found lately, however, is that this actually doesn't help them getting "reasonable" reforms from HO in other areas.

Classic "anti-fascists are to blame for facism" trope that isn't worth my time.

This confuses me? Surely the basis of the current attacks on refugees is that they're in fact not refugees but "economic migrants".
All this shift shows us is that the anti-migrant side will never be satisfied, will always find a new scapegoat, so we must stand for all, or lose.

This is true, but doesn't really support the argument being made. Evidence shows that more representation of the positives of immigration, of migrants thriving in our communities, is what is driving the change in attitudes. Not acceptance of harsher measures, but better stories.

And here his conclusion, which I think is the most mistaken part of the article.

No proposal for what this tolerant system looks like, but he doesn't engage with the serious, thought-out and workable campaigns for change that the people he admonishes in his piece do put forward.

Most migrants rights advocates may long for open boarders eventually, but I've never seen someone calling for it to happen at once.

The aim is to reform the immigration system in humane, workable ways to do away with egregious rights violations that are a daily occurrence today.

Migration liberals like this build a straw-man of angry, uncompromising activists to position themselves against & claim the support of the public, but the public see the constant chaos & injustices of the immigration system and want something different & they have no suggestion.

These people, with their newspaper columns, do not have a real or workable approach. They have a "yes yes I also want to deport some people of course, but cant we just be sensible about it" line, that gets us nowhere, I'm afraid.

If I wanted a more liberal immigration system AND had a column in the Times I'd use it to highlight the carefully thought-out campaigns of groups like JCWI for ending insecure immigration status and introducing real safe routes to protection, instead.

But maybe that's just me 🤷‍♀️

Anyway here's the article, not pay-walled for a change so tell me where I'm wrong. I genuinely want to have a respectful discussion with the people in this space to understand why they write about us, instead of about our supposed common enemy? thetimes.co.uk/article/891734…

Thoughts relevant to this thread continue here.

https://twitter.com/ZoeJardiniere/status/1394672656541179906