The new Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill brings oppressive counter-terrorism powers into immigration. The Bill announced as part of the King’s Speech is part of a turn towards approaching migration through counter-terror, making space for even greater surveillance of and denial of rights for migrants.
The Bill will propose powers that have previously been confined to alleged terror offenders, including travel bans and restrictions in the UK and abroad, restrictions on access to internet and banking, and the ability to apply these measures before someone is even convicted of smuggling offences.
People are facing jail time under powers from the inhumane Migration Act 2023, which has allowed people, including underage migrants, to be prosecuted for steering small boats across the Channel. This is often under duress due to being unable to pay steep fees to so-called “people smugglers”, also known as ‘agents’ or ‘brokers’, who charge people for facilitating undocumented migration through Europe. It is likely that victims of people who exploit migrants who are made vulnerable in this way will be subjected to the same punitive legislation intended to target the people enacting this exploitation.
We are also concerned about proposed powers to enable Border Force officers to search people and examine and seize their belongings, including copying data from and retaining people’s mobile phones, without a requirement for reasonable suspicion. Officers would also be able to get warrants to carry this out before a supposed offence was even committed.
This practice of seizing people’s phones when they reach Britain is also already happening, and so this legislation would serve to formalise and expand this existing practice. The totalising impact of this must also be stressed: beyond the violating experience of personal belongings being taken, people lose access to memories, the ability to stay connected with family and friends from their country of origin – and therefore the ability to contact them after such a potentially harrowing journey. It also impacts people’s ability to form connections with the local area in their new home, preventing them from developing a sense of belonging in a community, as their ability to interact with others is affected.
The shadow of Schedule 7
This is comparable to powers under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000, where someone can be arrested and convicted for refusing to hand over sensitive and personal information, including passcodes to devices, in addition to failing to answer all questions or refusing to provide biometric data, all without the need for reasonable suspicion. Schedule 7 has therefore been highly criticised for its stringent, invasive nature, including the racism and Islamophobia involved in selecting people to stop and question.
With the introduction of the Prevent Duty into the immigration system, including the asylum system, we are troubled by the intensification of the Islamophobia and racism that already exists within the systems by the expansion of counter-terror approaches to migration.
Linked to the Bill is the Border Security Command, an inter-agency task force modelled on the National Counter Terrorism Security Office set to be headed by former counter-terror policing head Neil Basu. The linking of the racist criminal (in)justice and counter-terror systems will further the harm and punishment to people seeking safety and a new life. It will do nothing to target the true roots of why people migrate and are forced to make dangerous border crossings.
The answer to a lack of safe routes is not further criminalisation through the introduction of counter-terror powers, which are often opaque and almost impossible to challenge. This lack of safe routes is why brokers exist, to capitalise off people’s desperation – people who are forced to leave their countries of origin due to the conditions of capitalism and colonial legacies and the ongoing collaboration of countries like Britain in maintaining situations of systematic violence and corruption.
It must again be stated that many of the people prosecuted under current “anti-smuggler” legislation are migrants themselves who have been coerced into driving small boats to cross the Channel by agents. The Border Security Bill will further criminalise migrants and do nothing to address the complex reasons people are forced to turn to so-called “smugglers”.
It is unconscionable that the Government would link “strengthen[ing] the border” with “mak[ing] the streets safer”, when this Bill will continue the legacy of the previous Government in prosecuting migrants for the circumstances they have been forced into. The money saved from the Rwanda scheme should not go into yet another anti-migrant and oppressive institution like the Border Security Command. Instead of championing a more humane migration system, as they have suggested through scrapping the Rwanda scheme, this Government will further the scapegoating of marginalised members of our society, including migrants, particularly those that are Muslim.