On 13 July the draconian Immigration and Asylum Bill passed its second reading in Parliament. The Bill will speed up the process of depor-tations, strip migrants of legal protections, and reduce the cost of supporting asylum seekers through punitive measures. The hostile environment – the British state’s never-ending war on migrants – has reached fever pitch and must be resisted. KOTSAI SIGAUKE reports.
Tightening the noose
The Bill closes several avenues for migrants to appeal deportations. Key to this is changing how Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the right to a private and family life, is interpreted by the courts. Previously it prevented migrants from being deported on the grounds that it would harm their families and this has been under constant attack since the previous Tory government’s expansion of the hostile environment. The definition of family considered under Article 8 will now be restricted to ‘core cohabiting family’, meaning a spouse, parent or child under 18 who they live with. Those designated as ‘foreign criminals’ will have this right further reduced. Additionally, this right will be given ‘no weight’ for undocumented migrants – essentially stripping them of this human right completely.
Migrants will no longer be able to make multiple appeals on different grounds but will have to bring their claims all at once. Claims considered ‘late’ will be subject to an ‘expedited process’. The rights of victims of modern slavery are also being eroded by imposing a similar arbitrary deadline; claims made after deportation proceedings have started will be treated as damaging a person’s credibility.
The Bill attacks the appeals process by replacing the First-Tier Tribunal, which previously handled appeals, with an ‘Independent Immigration Appeals Authority’ (IIAA). Such a body will be independent in name only: the Home Secretary will appoint the IIAA’s Chair and First Chief Executive, who will then appoint unqualified adjudicators to make decisions on appeals. The body will ‘have regard to the public interest, and in particular to the fact that the IIAA operates as a key part of the immigration and asylum system.’
These attacks on the scraps of democratic rights afforded to migrants will enable the state to carry out more deportations in a shorter space of time. It is the culmination of decades of ideological attacks by successive governments and the British media on the legal system which gives migrants and asylum seekers an avenue to challenge their treatment. These measures are designed to shore up the support of the most racist, reactionary sections of the British electorate who despise ‘lefty lawyers’ for defending migrants from the state’s vicious immigration system.
‘The generosity of the British people’
Migrants who receive asylum support will be forced to pay around £10,000 to the state once they start working. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood arrogantly stated: ‘Receiving asylum support is a right, but it is also a responsibility. Once people can contribute and repay the generosity of the British people, we expect them to do so.’
Asylum seekers, banned from working and so forced to rely on pitiful allowances of around £7 a day, will be saddled with debt to repay such ‘generosity’. Further entrenching their precarious status, the Home Office has indicated that asylum seekers will have to pay off the full amount before being eligible for settlement. If they leave the country, they will have to pay back the full amount before being eligible to return. This comes off the back of the Home Office boasting of cutting the cost of asylum support, down from £4bn a year, by forcing them into squalid ex-military barracks.
Resist the hostile environment
The Immigration and Asylum Bill will intensify the state of siege imposed on migrants. The Labour government has deported close to 70,000 people in two years, in large part due to an un-precedented crackdown on undocu-mented workers. Between July 2024 and December 2025, immigration arrests rose by 83% from the previous period to 12,300 while immigration raids rose by 77% to 17,400 – numbers the Home Office claims are the highest level in history.
The money saved on supporting asylum seekers will be used to strengthen repression. By 2028-2029, the budget of UK Immigration Enforcement will double while its workforce will expand by 60% between 2026 and 2027 compared with 2024. This is being accompanied by the expansion of immigration detention centres; Haslar and Campsfield Immigration Removal Centres will have their collective capacities tripled from 290 bed spaces to 1,000. The government is aiming to create a conveyor belt system – mass arrests, mass internment, little right to appeal and mass deportations.
The depths the Labour government is prepared to stoop to was made clear when Shabana Mahmood stated ‘I will stop at nothing to restore order and control to our borders.’ Restoring ‘order and control’ to Britain’s borders means entrenching a tiered hierarchy of workers that sees precarious migrant workers criminalised, ruthlessly exploited and then expelled when their labour power becomes superfluous. The working class must resist this brutal, racist system through a mass movement on the streets against the imperialist British state – the source of racist oppression in Britain.
