immigration statistics | Pandaemonium

ON IMMIGRATION, NEUROTIC POLITICIANS AND A MORE RELAXED PUBLIC

May 18, 2023 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on why the public is more liberal about immigration than are politicians, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 14 May 2023, under the headline “It’s no longer ‘the will of the people’ to turn our back on asylum seekers”. “It is designed to meet the will of the British people in a humane and fair way.” So wrote the home secretary, Suella Braverman, and the justice secretary, Alex Chalk, about the government’s Illegal Immigration Bill in […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: channel migrants, illegal immigration bill, immigration panics, immigration statistics, rwanda deportation scheme, suella braverman

IMMIGRATION POLICY AND THE THEATRE OF CRUELTY

December 22, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on immigration policy as more theatre than workable solutions, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 18 December 2022, under the headline “Workable proposals? No, western immigration policy is a theatre of cruelty”. A decade ago, on 3 October 2013, a boat carrying migrants caught fire and sank off the Italian island of Lampedusa; 366 people died. It was not the first migrant disaster in the Mediterranean – at least 12,000 migrants had drowned in the previous 20 […]

Categories: Britain, Race & Immigration • Tags: centre for policy studies, channel migrants, criminalising rescue, deterrence, human smugglers, immigration policy, immigration statistics, matthew goodwin, mediterranean migrants, migrant deaths, rwanda 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