Humpty Dumpty Housing Policies?
June 11, 2024
Vulnerability and Destitution
June 20, 2024
Inderjit Bhogal, founder and President of City of Sanctuary UK, draws our attention to some arresting facts and theological basics at stake in our political debates about migration.
Migration is a hot topic this General Election. There are claims and counter-claims about the putative preventive potential of the Rwanda scheme. Bringing net migration down seems to be top of the agenda for both Labour and the Conservatives. In this blog, Inderjit Bhogal, founder of the UK Sanctuary movement, reminds us of the facts at the heart of the matter, and brings us back to what is at stake theologically.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has recorded that over 100 million people have fled their homes because of the danger to their lives. Many are separated from families and friends in the process.
Ninety percent of the world’s refugees are from countries in or close to war and conflict, like Afghanistan, Gaza, Myanmar, Syria, Sudan, Yemen, Ukraine.
Around seventy percent of them are displaced, trapped in their own countries.
Around ninety percent of those who manage to get out take sanctuary in a neighbouring country.
People from Afghanistan go to Pakistan. People from Myanmar go to Bangladesh. People from Sudan go to Uganda and Egypt, People from Syria go to Lebanon.
Those who manage to escape, and go in search of safety face horrendous hardships, dangers and obstacles, crossing the wilderness of deserts, treacherous sea waters, unscrupulous smugglers and water tight borders, and horrific sufferings.
Those who manage to cross deserts, Mediterranean Sea, many borders, then the English Channel, face what the government has called ‘a hostile environment’, detention and deportation, with the threat to be sent to Rwanda. The message is, you are not welcome here.
Deterring people coming to the UK is not going to stop people coming here for sanctuary.
Long term, the solution lies in eradicating war, ending poverty, tackling global warming, being at ease with those who are different.
More immediately, people coming here seeking sanctuary require hospitality, not hostility.
This is the context in which we do our work of challenging hostility with hospitality, by building cultures of welcome, hospitality and sanctuary.
Migration made us who we are and defines us, migration is in our blood and bones and being.
Roman Catholic Theologian Gemma Tulud, from the Philippines, makes a strong, coherent, cohesive and compassionate case for theological reflection on migration, exploring the positive dimensions of migration and migrants. Working from a theology of ‘one bread, one body, one people’ she argues for social justice in immigration.
What would social justice in immigration look like? Here are a few reflections from me.
SOCIAL JUSTICE IN IMMIGRATION
The UK approach to Borders and Nationality, and the Rwanda deportation scheme is a monstrous response to a human catastrophe. You cannot fix a ‘broken’ system with a broken thread. Any attempt by the UK to control its border alone, as an Island, is doomed to be a failure. We need to work across borders and divides. Britain needs migrants and the skills they bring. Most UK ‘migrants’ last year came here legitimately on work, student and holiday visas, and as refugees (eg from Ukraine). A much smaller number came through the tortuous route of the English Channel on unseaworthy vessels because there are not safe routes for people to come to the UK and apply for refugee status. Stopping migration is like trying to stop glaciers melting in global warming.
There is an urgent need for global cooperation to manage the global movement of people, and immigration in the broadest understanding of its meaning. What this means minimally for me is:
- processes to manage not prevent immigration
- distinguishing between people who travel on work, student and holiday Visas, those who apply for refugee status, and those who come here as refugees
- broadening the definition of who is a refugee
- creating safe passage for people seeking sanctuary and refugees, not reducing them or shutting them down
- supporting search and rescue of those in danger
- care and speed in asylum decision and ending detention of already hurting people
- establishing the right for asylum seekers to work
- investing in instruments of peace, not war, healing not harming, mercy and compassion, not cruelty
- building cultures of welcome, hospitality and sanctuary
It is possible to protect borders and provide reformed immigration and asylum policies that are based on justice, mercy and humility. Resettlement Schemes can be expanded and enhanced with quality inclusion and integration support of refugees and people seeking sanctuary. As a member of the United Nations and a signatory of the UN Refugee Convention the UK should share the responsibility for the protection of refugees globally.
2 Comments
Congratulations – well done.
Article PLUS news of Cathedral and
CoS.
X to all
What is really driving the crisis surrounding immigration, refugee, asylum status and border control in the UK are the politics of fear. Underlying almost all political responses to these issues is a deeply rooted xenophobia, a fear of people who are ‘not like us’, who might ‘steal our jobs’, and ‘overwhelm our health services and schools’. This xenophopic (largely unspoken) attitude is further aggravated, and underpinned, by a collective sense of historic guilt, having to do with Empire and more recent unrest, especially in inner cities, related to racism. These issues, particularly the former can only begin to be addressed through education. We need to face these fears, by discussing them in our schools, in our homes and in our churches. We need to own and understand them before we can move on with what is the most compassionate and hospitable way to treat our migrant guests. They themselves have an important part to play in this process of arriving at a deeper mutual understanding. In regard to the legacy of Empire, as well as of race, we need to seek the healing and forgiveness we need through them by listening deeply into their suffering, both present and historic. We also need them and their skills in crucial areas of our own often depleted labour force, notably the health services. There are many highly qualified medics (as well as engineers, designers and architects, to mention only a few) coming to us through the immigration channels. They have much to give this country and they are very keen to do so. These considerations, I hope, might help to dispel the fears that cloud our judgment as a nation in regard to those who are desperate for our help and whose help we badly need.