THREAD: It doesn't matter what side of the "debate" you are on, the fact that we have turned immigration into a "debate" is possibly one of the single largest root causes of the issues we have with it. 1/
Setting personal political affiliations aside, and looking at it objectively, we can see way in which migrants are talked about across the political spectrum as being dehumanising, just by the very nature of deciding that their lives are something we have decided to "debate". 2/ 
It's not just politicians either, from right wing think tanks to left wing organisations, way in which immigration is framed treats migrants as "commodities". Whether it is to make a point, or even help raise funding, they are portrayed as "something", rather than "someone". 3/
Let's strip that debate back though. Change the words "migrant", "refugee" or "asylum seeker" to "human". Ignore where someone was born and think, seriously, about how some of the "debates" would sound if you just spoke about them as "humans". 4/
Right now in the UK the government is talking about overhauling the Human Rights Act and implementing the Nationality and Borders Bill, in part to combat "foreign criminals". Remove the word "foreign" from that though and what do you have? 5/
Imagine if the government seriously said it was working on policies to deport anybody who had served a prison sentence, after they have served that sentence. Imagine if they said that British nationals would be denied the right to a family because they had a criminal record. 6/
The only thing which allows them to gain support for making such claims is by the addition of the word "foreign". It's not just the Conservatives either, Labour under Blair and Brown made similar claims. What if we just saw "people" though. 7/
I'll hold my hands up, I'm part of this debate. This thread is part of the debate. What I do on a day to day basis is part of the debate. We function within the frameworks, structures and society which is formed around us. What if we started thinking differently though? 8/
What if instead of journalists using migrants as a way to fill column inches, or organisations talking about them as if they aren't involved. What if, instead of discussing economic benefits or negatives as a reason to support or vilify people, we talked about them as people? 9/
There is no argument that can be used to deny people rights which can hold up to scrutiny if you remove the fact that they were born elsewhere. "Too many people move to London". Okay, so are you going to suggest banning people from moving from Manchester? 10/
"The country is too overcrowded". Righty ho, so are you going to tell voters that you are imposing a cap on how many babies they can have? Do you want to think for a second how well that one would go down? So the only argument is that people are "foreign". 11/
What we need is a complete reframing of the "debate" away from it being a "debate" You don't debate stripping people of rights. You can't say that the rights you enjoy are open for a debate when it comes to someone else. 12/
When you talk about people as less deserving of rights than others because of where they're born you have to acknowledge the only way you can "legitimise" your concerns is by saying where you're born makes the difference, and at that point your concerns become less legitimate 13/
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