asylum seekers | Pandaemonium

IMMIGRATION POLICIES THAT CREATE THE IMMIGRATION CRISIS

November 10, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on why immigration policies create the immigration crisis, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 6 November 2022, under the headline “Sealed borders are a fantasy and talk of invasion is toxic. There is an alternative“. On one thing, Suella Braverman is right. The system is broken. But about almost everything else, she is grievously wrong, especially about the reasons for it being so. The cause of the brokenness is not a surge of migrants and asylum seekers, still […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: asylum seekers, channel migrants, deterrence, eu immigration policy, immigration panics, immigration policy, polarisation, priti patel, rwanda deportation scheme, suella braverman

HOME OFFICE STATISTICS AND HOME OFFICE PROPAGANDA

September 1, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the reality of immigration statistics, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 28 August 2022, under the headline “There are lies, damn lies, and then there is Home Office propaganda about migrants”. There are Home Office statistics and then there are Home Office press releases. And the gap between the two is often so wide that even the most resourceful migrant would be unlikely to discover a way of navigating from the one to the other. Last week, the […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: afghan refugees, albanians, asylum seekers, channel migrants, home office, immigration, immigration statistics, priti patel, refugees, rwanda deportation scheme

LIBERTARIANS WHO WOULD DENY LIBERTY

December 21, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on Tory libertarians, was my Observer column this week. It was published 19 December 2021, under the headline “Strange beasts, these ‘libertarians’ who love to curb the freedom of others”. When is a libertarian not a libertarian? When, apparently, it is the wrong kind of people whose liberties are being curtailed. The past week has seen so-called “libertarian” Tory MPs rebel against the government’s Covid plan B – the necessity for vaccine certificates or negative tests to attend large venues, mandatory vaccinations […]

Categories: Britain, Justice & Liberties, Politics • Tags: asylum seekers, david davis, illiberal conservatism, libertarianism, liberties, marcus fysh, nationality and borders bill, police, police crime sentencing and court bill, right to protest, rightwing libertarianism, tory libertarians, walter bagehot

REFUGEE POLICY FROM INSIDE THE BUNKER

August 24, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the Afghan crisis and Home Office refugee policy, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 22 August 2021, under the headline “Britain’s offer to Afghan refugees is not ‘generous’. It’s blindly inhumane”. Boris Johnson and Priti Patel believe that Britain’s “bespoke scheme” for Afghan refugees is “one of the most generous in our country’s history”. That says more about their ignorance of British history than it does about the scheme itself. The government has promised 5,000 refugees […]

Categories: Britain, International, Race & Immigration • Tags: afghan refugees, afghanistan, asylum seekers, boris johnson, david blunkett, deportations, home office, hungarian refugees, iran, margaret thatcher, nationality and borders bill, pakistan, priti patel, refugees, ted heath, ugandan asians, vietnamese boat people

CYNICISM & CRUELTY DRESSED UP AS LAW

July 13, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the government’s new immigration proposals, was my Observer column this week. It was published in the Observer, 11 July 2021, under the headline “After Priti Patel has finished, which refugees will carry a torch for Britain?” “Before I died I contemplated how drowning would feel.” So opens Gulwali Passarlay’s 2015 book The Lightless Sky. Passarlay was, in 2006, a 12-year-old boy in a rural village in Afghanistan, caught in the crossfire between Taliban and American forces. After his father was shot […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: asylum seekers, british politics, gunwale passarlay, immigration, nationality and borders bill, people smugglers, priti patel, sabir zazai, the lightless sky

TURNING INHUMANITY INTO POLICY

September 15, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on what the fire at the Moria detention camp on the island of Lesbos tells us about migrant policy, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short tribute to Toots Hibbert.) It was published on 13 September 2020, under the headline “Moria’s only success has been to turn inhumanity into policy”. A fire rips through a refugee camp. Migrants are blamed for starting it. Outraged locals vent their fury and demand that the migrants be removed. […]

Categories: International, Race & Immigration • Tags: angela merkel, asylum seekers, deterrence, eu, fortress europe, greece, immigration policy, moria, pull factors, refugees