Why we’re taking the government to court over the ‘hostile environment’ policy

When constantly proving your immigration status is vital to properly function, it’s incumbent on the government to provide people proof of their status, writes Ramfel’s Nick Beales

The government has repeatedly shown itself unable to create a system that distinguishes between those who hold status and those who do not (PA)

As reported last Friday, my charity, the Refugee and Migrant Forum of Essex and London (Ramfel), is taking the government to court. We are challenging their failure to ensure that migrants in the UK on “3C leave” are not routinely trapped by their “hostile environment” in the same way as happened with the Windrush scandal.

It may be surprising to read that there are hundreds of thousands of people in the UK who, like members of the Windrush generation, have valid immigration status but no visa documents to prove it. That, though, is the situation facing those on 3C leave, an immigration status designed to protect people when renewing their visas and allow them to continue living their life as normal whilst waiting for a decision. The hostile environment, though, ensures that when people do not possess a recognised visa document, they are often wrongly considered to not hold valid status.

The phrase hostile environment entered everyday lexicon in 2012, with then-home secretary Theresa May declaring her aim “to create, here in Britain, a really hostile environment for illegal immigrants.” In the following years, checks were introduced that made everyday life harder for those assumed to be migrants.