0:00

Isabelle Roughol: Hey, it's Isabelle, back with some uncut unedited early

0:03

interviews from the Borderline podcast for your holiday break.

0:07

Today, I am rerunning my very early conversation with Colin Yeo, who

0:13

is a British immigration lawyer, the founder of free movement.org.

0:17

And, uh, we talked about the hostile environment, how that came to be

0:22

and the genesis of the incredibly tough immigration system in the UK.

0:28

It was really an enlightening conversation that helps you understand

0:32

everything else that's happening in British politics at the moment, such

0:35

as the Nationality and Borders bill. So it's very much, very much a current conversation even

0:40

though this dates back... a year and a half almost now.

0:44

Have a listen, here is Colin Yeo in our full unedited conversation from 2020.

0:51

Well, thank you for doing this.

0:53

Um, I read the book last night.

0:56

I don't recommend it as a bedtime read.

0:59

It really gets your blood pressure up.

1:02

Um, but, but it was really interesting.

1:05

What is it like launching a book mid pandemic?

1:10

Colin Yeo: Yeah, well, that's interesting. Cause it's, um, you know, I don't really know and lots of

1:14

about publishing and things. This is my, this is the first book I've written.

1:17

It's been quite, quite interesting experience of going through the writing

1:20

process and the, the kind of launch bit.

1:22

But, um, yeah, we, we had to have an online launch, which,

1:25

which kind of went, okay. I think. Probably more people tuned in for that than we would have done if we'd

1:30

done it in person, which was nice. Um, but yeah, man, bookshops are barely open people.

1:35

Aren't sort of going to the shops. Um, the online distributors aren't necessarily ordering in many copies of

1:41

books because they're understandably focusing on, you know, slightly more

1:44

vital needs than, than, than reading.

1:47

Um, so yeah, it's a slightly, it's a slightly strange. Isabelle Roughol: Yeah, I bet bet as it must be to be an immigration lawyer

1:55

in a pandemic, how has that gone?

1:59

Has things sort of ground to a halt or on the contrary, is it been really.

2:05

Colin Yeo: Well, it's a quite strange time because, um, in, in the very short

2:09

term, there's basically no need for an immigration lawyer, which is, which is

2:12

kind of great, um, because the, uh, lots of countries and the UK is doing this

2:17

as well are basically saying that if.

2:20

Um, if you're a migrant and you're in the country, then your permission

2:24

to stay there will be extended automatically in the meantime.

2:28

Um, so people, you know, there aren't that many flights available

2:31

at the moment and sometimes flights just aren't available at all.

2:34

So people can't really move. And also people, you know, people are having to face some difficult choices

2:40

about what country to bunker down in effectively, you know, should they be.

2:45

In the country of nationality or should they be in the country that they happen

2:49

to find themselves in, perhaps they're with family members or that they're

2:52

working goals or something like that. So in the short term, people don't really need the help of an immigration

2:59

lawyer because things are being handled automatically, but there's also.

3:03

Um, a sort of huge demand for information.

3:06

And, um, certainly I don't know how it's been handled in other countries,

3:09

but here in the UK, the information that's been provided by the governments

3:13

has been pretty sketchy at times and not that easy to access or understand.

3:19

So there's a huge, huge demand for, for information, if not for the actual

3:23

sort of business of making application. Isabelle Roughol: Yeah, I've, I've wondered about that.

3:28

Actually. I, um, decided. Early on in March to go spend a lockdown in my country of residence.

3:37

And I found myself counting the days because.

3:41

Um, you know, six months out of every 12 months in the country,

3:45

residency requirement to get settled status, which I still don't have.

3:51

And so, yeah, I found myself counting days and being very unclear as do

3:56

you know what happens if, because of the pandemic you go over.

4:00

Um, I decided to not chance it and come back to the UK.

4:04

So I imagine there's a lot of these tricky situations.

4:09

Colin Yeo: Yeah, well, in the future, And we still just don't

4:12

know how it's going to work out. And like you say, there are residency requirements for various different

4:17

types of visas where you've got spend a certain amount of time.

4:19

It also has tax implications. I, not something I know nothing about basically, but I know

4:24

that there's an issue there. Um, and again, we don't really have very much clarity at the moment about how

4:30

these things work out in the long run.

4:33

And you know, another, another example of that is that in the UK,

4:36

and I think in quite a few other countries, we've got various.

4:39

Income requirements for migrants.

4:42

Migrants are kind of, this goes back away.

4:45

Now migrants tend to be valued in rather, um, basic utilitarian kind

4:51

of terms in the United Kingdom. You know, what are they worth to us?

4:55

Um, in, in, in fiscal terms rather than cultural or social

5:00

terms, which is very unfortunate. Um, and one of the ways that manifests itself in the rules is that migrants

5:06

have to earn a certain amounts. Otherwise they have to leave basically.

5:10

And, you know, during a global pandemic, when incomes have been hit, there's

5:14

a lockdown that's been imposed by the government and people are being

5:18

laid off and having their incomes reduced in various different ways.

5:22

We don't really know how that's going to play out in the longer run.

5:25

So it it's, it's a time of real uncertainty for us.

5:28

Isabelle Roughol: um, and we've seen that migrants also overly represented

5:33

these frontline essential jobs that ended up being very exposed to the pandemic.

5:39

That was this story on the, uh, the cleaners of the ministry of

5:42

justice that made a bit of a scandal.

5:45

This. Colin Yeo: Yeah. They've suddenly find themselves going from low valued, um, supposedly low,

5:52

skilled, um, roles to suddenly being key workers, which is, which is nice.

5:56

But, um, it doesn't really count for anything in the long run if the

5:59

rules don't change to reflect that. But it's, it's interesting cause it, it feels like it could be a time

6:05

where people are thinking again about. About the value of migrants and just that sort of priorities in life, perhaps.

6:13

And it's maybe a little optimistic and naive on my part.

6:16

I don't know, but it feels like it could be a time when people think, well, hang

6:19

on a minute, you know, they're the people who've kept our country running, kept

6:23

the supply chains functioning and so on.

6:25

Maybe they are actually quite important after all.

6:27

And maybe it would be a struggle if we had to cope without them.

6:31

Isabelle Roughol: right. We've been clapping for the NHS, which is by a lot of migrants and, and cashiers

6:38

and delivery people and, and all of that.

6:42

Yeah. Does this have weights in an application to the home office?

6:47

I don't know, not at this point, I guess maybe in the future.

6:51

Colin Yeo: Well, it's certainly not at the moment. Um, and what we see at the moment is, is that the home office plans

6:57

before the pandemic were basically to prevent the entry of what were

7:03

previously called low skilled workers.

7:07

It was never really back low skill. It was always about low salary and they're quite few skilled roles

7:11

that don't necessarily earn a lot. Um, but that was the kind of language that was being used.

7:17

And in particular, the end of free movement rights for European citizens

7:22

would have meant that, um, unless some sort of new scheme was introduced.

7:26

It would be that there'd be a lot less, um, it'd be a lot harder for those

7:31

kinds of people to come to the UK to pick fruit or work in the NHS or work

7:36

in supply chains, work in coffee shops. There'd just be, wouldn't be a route for them to come to

7:40

the UK to do that in future. Um, and as far as we know, that's still the home office

7:46

policy for after June, 2021.

7:48

When we're told there's going to be new immigration.

7:53

Isabelle Roughol: So you mentioned the, the income requirement, which

7:59

I think leads to one of the more.

8:03

Unjust and, and, and frustrating situation of all the unjust and

8:07

frustrating situations to that you discuss in the book, which is the

8:12

separation of family and the, and the pushing into exile, pretty much of even

8:18

British citizens and British children. Um, can you tell me a bit about, about how that works in,

8:23

how we got to that situation? Colin Yeo: Yeah.

8:26

So, so back in 2012, um, a new rule was introduced by then home secretary, Theresa

8:32

May, and it requires, um, a person in the.

8:36

You sponsoring a spouse or partner.

8:39

It requires the UK based person to be earning at least 18,600 pounds.

8:44

Now that's quite a lot of money. Um, you know, it's a lot more than the minimum wage was at that time.

8:50

Although the minimum wages has gone up since then, it's still a bit more.

8:54

Um, but it's particularly a lot of money for certain people.

8:58

So if you're living in working outside London, If you, um, if you're a woman,

9:04

if you're part-time, if you're young, you know, there's the whole groups of people.

9:09

Um, if you're an ethnic minority, you know, you'll pay on average,

9:12

is it ends up being lower. Um, so there whole groups of people who are affected by that.

9:17

So you find it very different. To sponsor, um, a spouse or partner.

9:22

And it means that either they have to go and live in another

9:24

country to be together as a family, um, or they have to live apart.

9:29

And, um, you know, one of the parents is going to be basically a single

9:33

parent and you get what was previously being called a Skype family, where,

9:38

you know, the children only really know one of their parents through,

9:41

through video calls, which is just. Isabelle Roughol: And so only in, in a lockdown, I think it gave a lot of people,

9:48

a window into what that means to only be able to reach your family through Skype.

9:54

Um, do you think that would change people's attitudes, make

9:59

them care a little bit more about this or is this something.

10:02

Really only people who have their own experience of immigration

10:06

are going to be aware of. Colin Yeo: I don't know.

10:09

I don't know who I knew. I could see that perhaps more thoughtful, um, people with a bit more empathy might

10:15

realize how inadequate video calls are.

10:19

Substitute for, for a hug for actual meaningful family life and

10:23

engagement between parents and child. Um, but others might well just say, well, you know, we cope during

10:28

lockdown, so, so they can cope. You know, I, I don't know, it, it, it's often things, you know, we might

10:35

hope that things will be different in future, but people often revert to type.

10:39

I think that's, that's what, um, this will be experience of life.

10:42

Tell them. Isabelle Roughol: And it's a type of.

10:46

Um, a bit ironic because it's coming from a conservative government, which

10:51

for whom, you know, family values is usually a big part of, of their platform.

10:57

Um, and, and thinking more broadly, not just about the UK, uh, I think family

11:01

separation has been a big issue as well in the U S immigration system the past or so.

11:09

And, and now we're seeing the U S really.

11:14

Uh, really restrict immigration to, to a trickle, in the pandemic.

11:20

Um, ha uh, wondering sort of what your reaction to, I mean, this, this

11:24

week we heard about international students essentially asked to leave.

11:29

Colin Yeo: Yeah, I, I saw the announcements on that and it,

11:32

it, it does seem extraordinary.

11:35

There's a chapter in, in, in the book, which I think we're going to talk

11:38

about, about, um, students and basically how, how valuable they are to, to the

11:43

country and to an economy and how.

11:47

How important it is to proactively attract them's one.

11:50

I think one of the mistakes that we see being made here in the UK and

11:54

perhaps also in future in the us, um, is the assumption that people

11:59

will want to come to our country.

12:02

So if you make it possible for people to.

12:05

Then they will come. Um, the kind of, um, it's a bit of an obscure reference this, but the kind of

12:10

Kevin Cosmo field of dreams build it. They will come type thing, and it, it doesn't necessarily work like that.

12:15

You actually have to proactively attract people and make your country a welcoming

12:19

place to get the kind of migrants to come.

12:23

Who, who, who people design these policies are kind of aiming it at.

12:26

So the sort of internationally mobile.

12:29

Um, very talented, potentially highly, highly skilled, highly paid individuals.

12:34

And if you have policies that, um, are.

12:38

Generally tough on immigration. If you use anti-immigrant rhetoric.

12:43

And if you have arbitrary policies, which make the future uncertain

12:49

for people, then they'll think twice about moving to that country.

12:52

Um, and it's not the lowest. Migrants who get put off.

12:56

It's the high skilled migrants who get put off because they've got

12:59

a choice about where they go to. There's lots of countries who are interested in sort

13:03

of trying to attract them. And, um, you know, it's, um, I, I saw something, I saw something

13:10

interesting where I'm a former minister, Boris Johnson's brother actually,

13:14

um, has written the introduction to a report on foreign students.

13:18

And he just mentioned in passing that.

13:21

And Theresa May was, um, was known as agent may by, um, by the Canadian

13:26

university people, because she was so helpful to their recruitment efforts

13:30

because she was putting international students off, coming to the UK.

13:34

It was actually a drive to reduce the number of international

13:37

students coming to the UK. And that was great for other countries, which were then able to attract them.

13:43

Isabelle Roughol: Yeah, I just did an episode recently on,

13:45

on international students. And it's a, was striking that, uh, you know, in fact, most international

13:52

students come in from Asia. But they now also mostly go to Asia.

13:57

Um, and the, the appeal of American or UK universities has really declined

14:03

as part of that, that rhetoric and, and the whole rhetoric around.

14:08

Um, you know, oh, we're we only want highly skilled people.

14:12

yeah. As you said, the problem is when you, when your, your rhetoric is,

14:17

is aggressively anti-immigrant, um, the, the, you know, wealthy,

14:23

professional, highly skilled immigrants, um, are also turned off, right?

14:29

Colin Yeo: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It's like a, it's like a market, um, you know, you're, you're

14:33

trying to attract people. Um, and in fact, politicians on the right are often doing yeah.

14:39

Saying that they want the brightest and best, but at the same time,

14:42

introducing policies and using language that, that puts those people off.

14:46

Isabelle Roughol: and then the first ones to leave because they can,

14:48

because they have options. Yeah. I was struck reading the book, uh, by the phrase hostile environment,

14:57

which I would have thought, you know, it was just a way for opponents to

15:02

describe the system, but is actually.

15:05

The actual policy, uh, that, that willingly, um, the home

15:09

office is, is putting forward.

15:12

So, so what did they mean by, by hostile environment?

15:14

And what's the goal Colin Yeo: Well, there's a bit of a sort of backgrounds to the, to

15:19

the words, hostile environment. That was developed in the home office.

15:23

In this early years of, at the millennium abarrotes and it was used

15:27

for terrorists in the first place.

15:29

The idea was that instead of catching them and prosecuting them and putting

15:32

them in prison, you'd kind of try and deter them and keep them away by

15:36

attacking their, their finances, their support base and things like that.

15:40

And it was kind of extended to serious organized crime.

15:43

And then just bizarrely, it was extended to.

15:47

So immigrants, um, from about 2010 onwards and you actually see that phrase

15:52

being deployed and used deliberately by ministers, like to resume, who was home

15:56

secretary at the time, the committee, um, cabinet committee that was set

16:01

up to look at various different ways.

16:04

Deterring illegal migrants and then trying to drive them out to the

16:07

country and stop them coming in. The first place was actually called the hostile environment working group.

16:12

Um, it was eventually retitled because I think, um, the, the coalition partners,

16:16

the liberal Democrats at the time thought I was a little bit just too sinister.

16:19

Um, you know, that, that was the, there was a clear intent there, and that was

16:22

the deliberate language of, of ministers.

16:25

They've renamed it out that, that compliance environment, which sounds.

16:30

Not that unseen sinister, if you see what I mean, frankly, but, but sort of

16:34

less overtly hostile because it doesn't actually have the word hostile in it,

16:37

but a lot of us still refer to it as the hostile environment, because that was

16:40

the name the policy was labeled with by, by the government itself at the time.

16:46

Isabelle Roughol: sounds like something out of quite sinister, bureaucratic

16:49

department of naming things. So, so what is the consequence of the hostile environment and does

16:59

it achieve what it's intended to. Colin Yeo: Well, and you can use words in different ways.

17:05

So, um, a lot of people when they're talking about the hostile environment

17:07

and they're talking about just being nasty to immigrants, basically, and there

17:11

certainly is a lot of that know, we've seen a lot of anti-immigrant rhetoric in

17:16

the UK over the last few years, started to change a little bit, to be fair,

17:19

um, with, with Brexit coming along.

17:22

Um, but, um, When, when I, when I use the word hostile environment,

17:26

I'm often referring to quite specific set of policies, which,

17:30

which is quite wide ranging, but it's basically a barracks introduce.

17:34

Sitters and on citizen immigration checks, so that employers have

17:39

to check your immigration status. Landlords have to check your immigration status.

17:44

So do banks and building societies, which are, you know,

17:46

they're not immigration offices. And then it also extends to two other public services.

17:51

Um, civil servants, um, who are working for different government departments

17:56

also have to look at immigration status and people working in local governments,

18:00

check your immigration status, the NHS checks your immigration status.

18:04

Um, so you get this kind of culture of checking everybody's immigration status.

18:09

That's, that's been spread by various different laws.

18:12

People are fined if they fail to do it properly.

18:15

Um, and, and the, the effect that it has.

18:18

Kind of similar to identity cards, but, but in my view, a lot worse actually,

18:23

because what you're doing with the hostile environment is you're forcing people

18:28

to prove their right to be in the UK.

18:31

And, um, the fines only kick in if the person turns out not to have a right to be

18:37

in the UK and therefore a lot of private individuals and civil servants and so on.

18:45

Take a shortcut and they think what if you're white and you've got a

18:48

local accent, then I don't really need to check your status because I'm

18:51

pretty sure you've got a right to be. But if you're black or Asian or you've got a foreign sounding name or something

18:58

like that, then I will check your status because I'm not quite so sure about that.

19:02

And it's one thing for white middle class.

19:06

Middle-aged male, like me to be asked to show my passport.

19:09

It's not particularly intrusive. It doesn't threaten me in any meaningful way, but to ask somebody who's, who's

19:17

black to prove their status in the UK, because you're not sure about.

19:21

That's a very different experience. I think it's much more challenging and existential, frankly,

19:26

and it's much more offensive. Um, but that's what this policy is, is all about us.

19:31

The whole point of this policy is, is to have people's immigration status checked

19:35

by other citizens and civil rights. Isabelle Roughol: is that your case?

19:39

Immigration policy racist intentionally or accidentally?

19:46

Colin Yeo: It's a really difficult question. I think it is intentional in the end.

19:50

Um, and I think ministers would deny that, um, that they'd say it wasn't intentional,

19:55

but it's, in some ways it's also. It's also the wrong question, because I don't think it matters

20:01

whether it's intentional or not. What really matters is the impact.

20:05

And there's it, there's a huge amount of evidence to show that

20:07

whatever the intention is before. It is racist in the way that it operates on the ground.

20:13

And there was a lot of evidence beforehand, and frankly, it doesn't

20:17

take much to think it through to realize that it was going to have racist

20:20

consequences, um, and, and ministers.

20:23

And, you know, I think to an extent civil servants as well, simply

20:27

ignored, or didn't look at that evidence or weren't bothered by it.

20:31

And they went ahead anyway. And that's what.

20:34

Triggered the, the kind of Windrush scandal to bubble to the surface and

20:39

that the causes of that were very long-term potentially, you know,

20:43

immigration policies over the last sort of few decades that, that, that

20:47

caused it to happen in the first place.

20:49

But it, people weren't being turfed out of their jobs and homes.

20:53

Until really from 2010 onwards, by real ramping up of enforcement of these

20:59

laws and a spread of these laws to, to other areas than just employment,

21:02

which is where I applied previously. Isabelle Roughol: and then in of enforcement that essentially deputized.

21:09

Uh, landlords employers, the entire British population and into

21:14

checking the immigration status, um, since our audience is global, let's just give people a summary of, of, you

21:23

know, who to when rush generation are and, and what that scandal was about.

21:28

Colin Yeo: Yeah. So the Windrush generation, that's a label that, that somebody particularly

21:32

campaigners is Patrick Vernon kind of invented re quite recently.

21:36

And, um, it's a label that's sort of broadly includes basically that

21:41

the post-war generation of people who came to the United Kingdom from.

21:47

The old, British empire, what was, what was then named the Commonwealth.

21:51

And when they came to the UK, they came as citizens.

21:55

So they weren't really migrants in, in that sense, they actually had a

21:59

citizenship of the United Kingdom and colonies as it was called.

22:02

And that was the same citizenship as people born in the United Kingdom itself.

22:07

And they came from the Caribbean, from the Indian sub-continent and

22:12

from Africa in the 1950s and sixties.

22:15

And then gradually over the 1960s and seventies, um, once they graduate,

22:20

it was, it was fairly sudden actually from, from 1962 onwards, um, new

22:24

rules were introduced, which kind of created a two tier type of citizenship

22:28

where basically new entrants weren't going to be allowed in very easily,

22:33

but the people who had already come, um, would be allowed to stay.

22:36

There was no talk about toughing them out or anything like that.

22:39

But they weren't issued with status papers at the time, they were just

22:43

sort of a law was passed basically saying that they were lovely

22:46

resident, but they didn't necessarily have documents issued to prove it.

22:51

And for decades they didn't need those documents because nobody

22:54

was checking their immigration status on a day-to-day basis.

22:57

But from 2010 onwards with this, this incoming conservative government

23:02

immigration checks became an everyday part of life in the United Kingdom.

23:07

And that meant that people suddenly found themselves losing their jobs, losing

23:11

their homes and facing deportation to countries that they'd, they'd come from as

23:16

tiny children, you know, decades before.

23:19

Isabelle Roughol: And many did, and I sinkewitz, what's probably most uncommon

23:26

incomprehensible to people looking at the Windrush scandal from the outside.

23:31

Is that there seemed that there was no way to prove your good faith, that, you

23:35

know, amount of, of having clearly been educated and lived in the UK for decades

23:43

and, and having worked in having, um, pay stubs and, and whatever, know, which

23:50

who has pay stubs from the seventies.

23:52

Um, it seemed like it didn't matter.

23:55

Was there a policy of disbelief on.

24:00

Colin Yeo: Yeah. W w lawyers and campaigners often talk about there being a culture of discipline.

24:04

Same office. And that that's a phrase that's been in circulation for quite some time.

24:08

And it's very accurately describes the general approach of officials at the home

24:13

office, who simply assume that you're lying unless you can prove otherwise.

24:18

And that kind of very.

24:21

Um, cynical approach was just astonishingly, also applied to

24:28

Windrush generation migrants. Who'd been, you know, obviously living here for decades and had

24:33

obviously good proof to show it.

24:36

And officials were just applying then the normal standards of proof, which

24:40

are incredibly hard to meet to, to these people in a completely inappropriate way.

24:45

Um, and I just, it just beggars belief really that those officials.

24:50

Couldn't see that what they were doing was wrong, but that was,

24:54

that was the approach that they're kind of policy documents and so on.

24:57

Talk them to. Isabelle Roughol: where does that come from?

25:01

Is there, you know, do they have, numbered goals to hit?

25:06

Do they, I am fascinated by, by organizational culture and sort of how

25:11

you get, you know, a bunch of people.

25:14

Decent people individually, uh, to, to somehow, you know,

25:19

become this, this hostile force.

25:24

How does that work in and how do we change it?

25:27

Do we burn the home office to the ground? Metaphorically, obviously not advocate advocating but how do we, how do we change

25:36

or do we just have to start from scratch? Colin Yeo: Well, I, I'm not sure that simply abolishing the home office.

25:44

Sorry the way forward. And you know, there are people out there who, who say we should

25:46

just abolish the home office. Um, th th the reason I think that is that, um, all the functions that

25:52

the home office currently sort of.

25:56

Um, follows or is responsible for, um, those would all have to be done

26:01

by somebody and they probably end up being done by homo festival servants.

26:04

They'd just be redistributed to other departments or a new department of

26:08

immigration or something like that. And I don't think that would necessarily achieve cultural change, but w w what

26:13

we've seen is leadership from the top of the home office that says that immigration

26:18

is a bad thing and needs to be reduced. And famously that that comes from the net migration targets set by David Cameron

26:25

as leader of the opposition in 2010.

26:28

And it was an official government policy and basically ministers.

26:34

And that, that, that policy was announced as a short-term political measure, I

26:39

think, um, in order to, um, position the conservative party, um, with the

26:44

electorate and also to position David Cameron within the conservative party

26:48

and to keep, keep certain people happy. Um, but it turns out when you get into government that reducing immigration

26:53

isn't as straightforward as you might think, and that, you know, which

26:57

migrants do you want to, to get rid of? Is it. The highly skilled ones who are coming in, in which case the economy suffers

27:02

and GDP falls and employers are unhappy.

27:06

Is it families, in which case families ended up being split?

27:09

Is it refugees in which case you're, you're being very inhumane and your

27:13

international reputation suffered. Um, is it international students who are incredibly valuable and, and sort

27:18

of heavily subsidized domestic students?

27:21

Um, so suddenly you've got all these hard choices about what, what you're

27:23

going to do, and what they decided is that they were just going to try and

27:26

do it, reducing immigration across the board, pulling every available.

27:30

Trying to make things as difficult as possible for migrants apparently.

27:34

And the policy was never really spelled out.

27:37

So you have to kind of read between the lines to see what they

27:39

were hoping to achieve with it. And it seems to me that it was to try and put people off, coming to the

27:44

UK in the first place, and also to encourage people to leave the UK and

27:50

to make their lives in sufferable. Um, but one of the things I talk about in the book is that there's no evidence that

27:57

it actually achieves that what it does do is it forces people out of legal status.

28:02

Once they're in the UK, the kind of complexity of the rules there that

28:06

arbitrariness that the cost of the rules or the income thresholds, and so on these.

28:12

Sometimes people can't meet the rules and they don't leave.

28:16

They just become illegally resident.

28:18

And we've now got this potentially very substantial unauthorized population in the

28:23

United Kingdom and estimates vary hugely.

28:25

It could be between guesses range between 600001.2 million.

28:30

And these are people that. I have no proper status, but they're not also not being forced out of the

28:36

country, which is just, it's really an intolerable situation for them.

28:40

And I think that for us as a society, Isabelle Roughol: right.

28:43

And they've been pushed to the margins and into, um, potentially,

28:48

you know, abusive situations with, with landlords who, you know, don't

28:53

look too closely it's et cetera. Is the solution a, an amnesty for a lot of these people.

28:59

Is it a case by case regularization?

29:03

Of these Colin Yeo: Well, I don't think you can remove them.

29:06

That's that's the start. You know, if you, if you look at the number of removals from the UK, you,

29:11

I think people think that there are more removals now than they used to be.

29:15

So, um, the, the labor government that was in place before 2008, Isn't are

29:20

regarded as being soft on immigration. Whereas the conservative and coalition governments from 2010 onwards have

29:26

regarded as being tough on immigration. But actually the number of enforced removals from the UK is, has fallen

29:32

since 2010, quite substantially. So there's less than 10,000 migrants in arrow, subject to

29:37

an enforced removal every year. And we also know from the statistics that an increasing

29:42

proportion of them are EU citizens.

29:44

Who've committed quite minor crimes and it kind of looks.

29:48

Officials are plumping. Even falling numbers with, with, you know, low risk removals

29:54

that are easy to carry out. So I don't think you can, you can remove them.

29:58

That's just, you'll be inhumane.

30:00

It will require building detention camps, tearing families and communities apart.

30:05

It would be horrendous. So that leaves when, if they're going to stay here, can you

30:09

just ignore the problem? And I don't think we really can or should.

30:13

Um, or do you want to deal with it?

30:15

And there are two ways of dealing with it. One is to try and bring as many people within the law as possible

30:21

with a kind of one-off amnesty or something of that nature.

30:24

But if you were to do that, um, it just potentially doesn't deal with the problem

30:28

in the long-term and it recurs you also have to address the rules that are forcing

30:32

people into illegality in the first place.

30:35

And also. Uh, route to, to regular status.

30:38

So I don't think it's an either or I think you need an amnesty because

30:41

there's just such a huge number of people who seem to be here without proper

30:45

lawful status, which is bad for them. And it's, it's bad for lawful residents as well, but also you want

30:51

to look at the rules more widely so that they're not forced into

30:55

that status in the first place. And there is a root activity in the longer term.

31:00

Isabelle Roughol: So I want to talk about the EU settlement scheme, and

31:05

Brexit, uh, because you suddenly have millions of people who never

31:09

really thought of themselves as immigrants who are realizing that they

31:13

are, um, where, where are we with?

31:17

The scheme, which is entering its last year now.

31:20

So people are eligible if they're here before December 31st of

31:24

this year, and they have to apply before the end of June, 2021.

31:28

So there's a little under a year left.

31:31

Um, where are we in terms of, um, the number of people who've applied,

31:36

number of people who have obtained status, uh, and, and does it look

31:41

like it's going to be success? Colin Yeo: Yeah.

31:45

Can't say whether it's going to be successful?

31:47

Uh, no, nobody can because one of the I'll come back to this.

31:50

One of them. Problems with this scheme is that we'll never know how many

31:54

people didn't apply and who were in the UK unlawfully as a result.

31:59

Um, but we, we know the latest statistics say that there have been,

32:02

I think 3.7 million applications.

32:05

And I think status has been granted. And something like 3.5 million of those cases, um, around 40% of

32:12

people are getting what's called pre settled status, which is, it

32:15

puts them on a kind of five-year route to being settled in the UK.

32:19

And then the other 60% have been granted settled status, which is

32:24

permanent residence in the UK. Although you can still be deported if you commit criminal offenses in, in future.

32:29

Um, there was a tiny number of refusals, although that has started

32:33

to jump up quite considerably. So. Last month.

32:36

I think it was an ounce, there'd be 900 refusals, which know in terms

32:40

of percentages is an absolutely minuscule number of refusals.

32:44

Um, but this month has jumped by further 1,400.

32:47

So it looks like, you know, the number of refusals is going up and we think that's

32:51

because the was quite a backlog of cases.

32:55

And a lot of the cases in the backlog were considered complex and somebody who.

33:00

It doesn't seem to meet the requirements of the scheme or who has committed

33:04

criminal offenses and declared them, or those are considered complex cases.

33:07

So the homeowner have been sitting on those for a while and it's finally gotten

33:10

around to actually dealing with them. And it is refusing a certain number of them.

33:13

So there's a high number of application has been made.

33:16

We don't know how many use systems that are in the UK though.

33:20

They've never been counted. There isn't a mechanism for counting them here in this country.

33:24

Um, and so the, the problem is that no matter how many applications that are.

33:29

We think that there will be many people who don't make applications, who

33:33

could have, and those people are going to end up basically as unauthorized

33:38

migrants, once the deadline passes. And we, we just, we just have no idea how many that's going to be.

33:43

It could be tens of thousands, you know, a small percentage of the estimate.

33:47

Three or 4 million EU citizens is still a very substantial number of people

33:51

and they will be subject to all of the hostile environment policies we were

33:55

talking about earlier, where they, they're not able to work properly.

33:58

Their bank accounts get shut down. They have to get turfed out by their landlords and.

34:03

Isabelle Roughol: Yeah. And get the emails from the home office on the settlement scheme.

34:07

And there was a, a tiny line at the bottom of the last email

34:10

that, that really chilled me. It said, don't forget to apply for children.

34:16

And I wonder if, you know, give it another 10 years, we're

34:19

going to have a situation like. In the U S where you have a bunch of children who one applied for they

34:28

couldn't speak for themselves and, and will find themselves without status.

34:33

When they're adults. Colin Yeo: Yeah, I think it's almost inevitable that it's going to happen.

34:37

Um, so other EU countries that are dealing with.

34:40

British citizens in a different way.

34:42

You know, some countries are basically doing what the UK did for the Windrush

34:46

generation in, in previous decades and passing a law, saying you are

34:50

automatically lawfully resident, and then trying to sort out the documents later.

34:55

Um, and other, some other countries like the UK are saying, well, those

34:59

who are resident have to apply. Otherwise there'll be unlawful.

35:02

And neither of those is a perfect solution.

35:05

They're the only two available solutions.

35:07

Um, but the neither of them is perfect because if you pass a law saying

35:11

people are lawfully residents, but don't issue them with documents,

35:14

then they can have problems later on.

35:16

Although I'd say it's a bit of a different. Problem being lawful, but not being able to prove it easily isn't as

35:23

bad as being unlawful and having no legal status and just being deported.

35:27

Um, which is what the UK is, is essentially doing to a very large number.

35:31

We think of a used systems. It could be like I say, tens, maybe even hundreds of thousands of people with.

35:38

Isabelle Roughol: and that's a distinction you make very early on in a book.

35:42

You, you choose to use the word unauthorized migrants, uh, Cause

35:47

because you can have people. With legal status, but just not the papers to prove it reading it.

35:54

I realized a, I think I'm an undocumented Mike, um, because I have

36:00

pre settled status and all I got is an email that made very clear that

36:03

this was not legal proof of my status.

36:06

So the EU settlement scheme does not in fact provide documents.

36:11

Colin Yeo: Well, yeah, you should be very reassured that you've got a

36:13

little number on a database, somewhere in the home office that employers

36:17

and landlords and banks and building societies and doctors and so on.

36:21

Can, uh, if they, if they can be.

36:24

Um, they have to sort of phone up the home office or, or get to the

36:28

home office website check whether you've got a, a black mark or a

36:32

tick against your name, basically. And, um, and then they can provide the service to you

36:37

without fear of being fined. If you have.

36:40

And it's one of the big problems with the EU settlement scheme and

36:43

there's lots of problems with it. But the biggest one is that it forces people to apply.

36:47

And some people won't for various different reasons.

36:49

But another problem is that no physical documents are being issued.

36:53

Um, and it means that say, for example, if you're an employer in the UK,

36:57

um, or a landlord, and you've got. Several people who apply for a job or for a tendency or whatever.

37:03

And some of them have got easy to understand proof of their residency, like

37:07

a British passport, and they can just show it to you and others of them don't.

37:12

And as the, as the employer or a landlord, you've got to go away and

37:15

check with the home office, whether somebody has status or hasn't, that

37:19

is going to lead to discrimination against the citizens almost inevitably.

37:23

Um, and that isn't what the government say they want, but that's

37:26

obviously what's going to happen. Isabelle Roughol: And they charge you for that check to when, uh,

37:31

when you're trying to get a place. Um, I want to talk about the Hong Kong situations, which I know you'll,

37:40

you'll tell me, but it, it sounds like it's actually, um, quite different.

37:46

Uh, you know, we've talked about this very hostile environment and

37:50

all of a sudden, you know, the prime minister is essentially.

37:54

Potentially opening the door to, I don't know, 3 million

37:56

people, is that what's happening? What, what is it that's being offered?

38:01

Colin Yeo: Yeah, I'd be cautious about saying opening the door to 3 million people.

38:04

Cause it's like saying. I don't know how many million people there are, who live in the EU.

38:08

Um, and yet obviously free movement rights opened our doors to all those

38:12

millions of people, but only a small number of them actually want to come.

38:15

You know? Um, and it's, it's like we talked about earlier, it's

38:19

kind of, it's not just about. Allowing people it's also about whether they, whether they want to, or not.

38:25

Now, Hong Kong is a bit different because there are what, what, uh, a sociologist

38:31

or an academic might call push factors. That's very neutral way of putting it.

38:34

You know, there's some, some pretty awful things going on

38:36

in Hong Kong at the moment. And that may well drive people to want to leave.

38:40

Um, and the, the group of people that the UK is saying can move narrow to the UK

38:47

are called British nationals overseas.

38:51

British nationality law is a real mess.

38:55

Basically. It's kind of, it's a, it's an after effect of, um, the withdrawal of

39:00

the United Kingdom from its empire. And there are several different types of nationality status, which

39:06

have the word British in them. One of them is British citizen and that allows you to live and

39:12

work in the United Kingdom itself. But there are several.

39:15

Um, one of which is British national overseas.

39:18

And it's really, basically just a piece of paper.

39:21

I already said it was just a piece of paper. It didn't allow you to live in the United Kingdom.

39:25

It gave you a few minor advantages over other categories of migraines,

39:29

but it didn't give you a right to live in the United Kingdom.

39:32

And what the UK is saying is that, that they're not changing.

39:36

Basic requirements. So they're not giving what's called the right of a boat, which would

39:40

allow people freely to move to the United Kingdom if they wanted to.

39:43

But they are going to say that you can get a visa and that's that the UK

39:47

will charge you a lot for that visa, but there will be a visa available and

39:50

you can come to the UK if you want to, you'll be allowed to work and you'll

39:54

be allowed to settle after five. Isabelle Roughol: Right.

39:57

That's something we don't talk about a lot, but the fees are incredibly high.

40:04

So not only do you have an income requirement to get to the UK, but it

40:09

can cost you a small fortune to get to the point of legal settlement.

40:16

Colin Yeo: Yeah. Yeah. It's, uh, it's very expensive.

40:19

The, the home office is trying to make the whole border system,

40:24

essentially self financing, so that migrants have to pay, um, enough money

40:30

that it basically funds all of the home office, immigration function.

40:34

And it ends up operating as a kind of double taxation because migrants who come

40:37

to the UK often, you know, most of them are working here and they pay their taxes,

40:42

but they also pay these really substantial fees, which are by as a standard.

40:47

Usually it's at least a thousand pounds for any kind of

40:50

application you have to make. And depending on the route that you're on.

40:54

You might have to make a number of different applications and it can be a lot

40:57

more expensive for some routes as well.

41:00

And the one that really just gets me is it particularly counter intuitive

41:05

is one right at the end of the process, which is the fee for service.

41:09

Because it costs, I think over 1,300 pounds to apply for British

41:12

citizenship, I said, well, some people might think, oh, well, it's a, it's

41:15

a privilege to be a British citizen. And therefore you should have to pay a lot for it.

41:18

But don't we want people who are long-term residents in the

41:22

United Kingdom to become citizens. Wouldn't we encourage them to do that and charging them a small fortune.

41:28

Th to, to do that just seems like a really insane policy to me,

41:32

particularly where their children and, and even children have to pay a

41:36

substantial amount to be registered. And we come across families where the parents simply can't afford it.

41:42

So the children never become British citizens, even though they are entitled

41:45

to it or that the parents have to pick one of their children to be British.

41:49

And the others don't become British because the parents just can't afford it.

41:52

It's just ridiculous. Isabelle Roughol: Yeah, but do we want.

41:57

People to become British if it's a system that is as you're right.

42:02

Um, set up to maintain the, I forget how you are.

42:06

You phrased it, maintain the, um, ethnic composition or integrity of, of what the

42:12

UK used to be in, in a certain, nostalgic phishing of what the UK used to be.

42:19

Colin Yeo: Well, I think if you have closed citizenship laws where you've got

42:24

high costs and it's difficult to become a citizen, particularly for migrants that.

42:29

The effect of that is that it's, it tends to preserve the existing,

42:34

ethnic composition of the population.

42:37

I'm putting that as neutrally as I can. Yeah. It's racist basically.

42:40

You know, it's about stopping migrants who are generally speaking, not

42:45

white from becoming citizens and whether that's the overt intention

42:50

or not, that certainly the effect.

42:53

And so. I would say that making citizenship easier to get, or at least not easier

42:59

in sense of lower standards or something like that, but just less reducing the

43:05

barriers to citizenship, you know, not having these ridiculously high costs,

43:09

um, not making it so difficult for migrant children to become citizens.

43:14

Um, even restoring what, what we call birthright citizenship.

43:17

So in the U S if you're born on the territory of the us,

43:20

you're automatically a citizen. And that was a rule we used to have in the United Kingdom until 1983.

43:24

That, that kind of thing, it hasn't affected diversifying

43:27

the population, which, which is surely, surely good and healthy.

43:32

Isabelle Roughol: I wonder, you know, what it is that makes us hold onto a

43:37

system that sees more interested in, in punishing, um, people who are, who are

43:43

trying to, to make it in this country as opposed to a system that actually works.

43:51

And you mentioned in the book, uh, China's.

43:55

Migrants as citizens and waiting.

43:58

And, um, now I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that and you know, what

44:01

it does to someone who will eventually be a British citizen to have been abused by

44:07

their own society and their own government many years before they get there.

44:13

Colin Yeo: Yeah. It's so that, that phrase systems in waiting is one that that's,

44:17

um, I borrowed from, um, from the U S essentially where the.

44:22

Status of American in waiting. It was actually, it was quite a really interesting bit of sort of

44:26

us citizenship, law, and history.

44:30

And it's a, it's a different way of seeing migrants.

44:32

So at the moment we've got in the United Kingdom, we've got all of these

44:35

policies, really, which flow from, I think the net migration targets of

44:40

basically reducing the number of migrants. We've got all these policies.

44:44

I've collectively called deterrent policies.

44:47

And the idea is that it stopped people from coming and it encourages

44:50

them to leave essentially. And that's the cost, the complexity, or these income

44:54

thresholds and, and, and so on. Um, and.

44:58

W what it, what it does. I sort of talked about it a little bit earlier.

45:02

It, it doesn't actually deter people from coming quite often.

45:06

Um, at least it doesn't deter, um, any, but the most internationally mobile, it

45:10

can deter them, but it, but it doesn't deter most migrants from coming, but

45:15

it does make their lives very difficult once they're in the United Kingdom

45:19

and this things like double taxation. Well, th the effect of that in real life is that a migrant

45:24

family has a lot less disposable income than a comparable family.

45:29

That's already resident. They can't take holidays, they can't afford, you know, new

45:33

clothes and nice things in the same way that other families.

45:37

And they're in extreme cases, they, they can't afford the fees that

45:40

they're being charged and they end up becoming unauthorized migrants.

45:44

But even when they don't, even when they can't afford the fees, it's

45:47

financially punishing for them. And it, it hampers their life chances.

45:52

And yet we also say that they should be integrating into our society and they

45:57

should be grateful to be here and so on.

46:00

And you say, well, that doesn't match with those deterrent policies.

46:03

You know, how, how is it, how is it encouraging people or facilitating.

46:08

The integration, if you make their lives here, so deliberately

46:13

difficult in the first place. And if it did have the effect of deterring people or forcing them out, then you could

46:19

see that there's a certain logic to it.

46:22

I don't like it, but at least I can see there's a certain logic

46:24

to it, but it doesn't do that. There's no evidence at all that it actually does force people I hurt.

46:29

So they end up living here anyway. Um, and, and what's the point of that?

46:35

Just, it just doesn't make any sense on a public policy level.

46:39

So if, instead we were to see migrants as future citizens, as citizens in

46:43

waiting and, you know, a small number.

46:47

Mike commit criminal offenses and might end up being deported and removed.

46:51

But most who come here for work or for family, or for refuge, for asylum,

46:57

they will be allowed to stay in the longterm either as a sort of unlawful

47:02

unauthorized, but strangely tolerated group, or as, as lawful resident.

47:09

Wouldn't it be better to be helping them to become active parts of

47:13

society and ultimately citizens rather than, or hampering them in this

47:17

way, which has know w w w we're all talking a bit more openly about race.

47:24

It has racist effects.

47:26

You know, a lot of migrants are from, um, from, from black and ethnic

47:31

minority groups and to, to be hampering their life chances and creating them.

47:37

Um, almost sort of an underclass or servant class of, of migrants

47:44

in a, in a society is just really unhealthy unhelpful thing to be.

47:49

Isabelle Roughol: And you're talking about a change policy that doesn't have to mean big numbers.

47:55

It's just about how you treat them the numbers that we do have

47:59

Colin Yeo: Yeah. And I I'm, I like to think of myself as being liberty-minded.

48:02

I don't, I don't really mind how many migrants come to the UK.

48:05

I welcome immigration. I'm an immigration lawyer, I think.

48:08

But, um, you know, it it's, I'm not that bothered about the

48:12

numbers when it comes down to it. If. Rules are introduced that stop people from coming in the first place.

48:18

If we stop skilled workers from coming to the UK or whatever, that that's kind

48:22

of economically self-harming, but I haven't got a particular problem with it.

48:27

I'd argue against it on a policy level. What I've got a real problem with, which I just think is just

48:32

unconscionable is treating people who do.

48:35

It without respect and as this kind of beasts of burden, almost with this really

48:41

starkly, utilitarian fiscal approach to, to their, their worth as human beings.

48:46

And that's just, it's really wrong and it's counterproductive and it does

48:51

not lead to, uh, a healthy society.

48:56

Isabelle Roughol: That's an important point that, that we can end on.

48:58

We could talk forever about how broken the system is.

49:02

I wonder if you have sort of a parting thoughts on, on how we fix it and how

49:07

we get people who, you know, British citizens who do not have a personal

49:13

or family experience of immigration, um, to care about this and about what

49:17

their government is doing in their name. Colin Yeo: I can't help on that last thing, how to make people

49:22

care is, is very difficult. And I think the.

49:26

Evidence suggests that the more contact people have with migrants,

49:30

the more sympathetic they are. And that that's something that happens over time, essentially.

49:35

Um, the, the areas that were our most hostile to immigration tend to have

49:39

the lowest levels of immigration.

49:42

So ironically, um, um, One of the things that we have seen over the last few years

49:47

is that concern about immigration has plummeted since the Brexit referendum.

49:51

Um, we're not quite sure why that is. Maybe it's because it's in the papers last, maybe it's because people

49:56

think that immigration is magically under control as a result of the,

50:00

the vote or something like that. Even though immigration policy hasn't changed yet.

50:04

Don't know, but immigration concern has really plummeted and people are

50:08

much more worried about other things. And that was even before the pandemic, um, in terms of making things better.

50:15

Quite concrete short term wins, like reducing the cost of the

50:21

system and the cost of applications I just think is, is wrong.

50:25

And it has all sorts of, um, brilliant, nasty effects.

50:29

Um, also I think creating proper routes to regularization is as campaign

50:33

is called it so that people who are here unlawfully come become lawful.

50:37

So amnesty and also proper routes to regularization, um, in the longer term.

50:43

We, yeah, we don't want people to start getting upset or feel that

50:47

migration is, is sort of an unknown thing or out of control in some way.

50:53

And I, I sort of reluctantly advocating favor of an ID card system in the book.

50:58

So I just think that the way the hostile environment works with.

51:02

Immigration checks is just again, I've used the word unconscionable.

51:06

I'm going to use it again. It's just wrong. It's racist, encourages discrimination, and it's just,

51:12

it's an appalling system, I think.

51:14

And identity card system where. People's identity is checked rather than their immigration status.

51:21

And where, for example, if you're an employer, instead of being

51:24

fined, if the person turns out to be illegal, you get fined for not

51:28

carrying out checks on anybody.

51:30

So it's a proper universal system. I think that would be significantly better.

51:35

It. I'm not a, I don't close my eyes to the fact that it might well

51:39

result in some discrimination. You know, if, if, if, if you're forced to carry ID cards, know other countries,

51:45

show that please disproportionately stop and check you if you're, if you're

51:48

black and ethnic minority and so on, but it would be a huge improvement on

51:52

the hostile environment was just, is. It's just wrong and should never have been introduced in the first place.

51:57

Um, and then there are other Simon was a long-term complex things like simplifying

52:01

the rules, making them less arbitrary and reforming citizenship laws as well, I

52:06

think is important to make citizenship bit more, um, accessible for, for those who.

52:12

Oh here and actually having a proper think even about our citizenship policy.

52:17

Cause we don't really seem to have a citizenship policy in the UK.

52:20

Like is citizenship reward for integrating or is it a step to,

52:24

to, to encourage you to grow? I don't, I don't know. W we just haven't really sort of talked about these things.

52:29

Um, so yeah, it was kind of a range of things that I'm trying to push

52:34

in the book, some of which are. Quite easy to do in a way where the public opinion agrees with

52:40

them is, is, is a different actor. But legally there'd be very easy to do.

52:43

Others of them would have to be a bit more long-term because it involves a bit more

52:47

thought, a bit more consultation and has longer term, more profound consequences.

52:53

Isabelle Roughol: Okay. Well, thank you so much, Colin.

52:56

Thank you for carrying that message. I really recommend the book.

52:59

I think, especially to people who do not have a personal experience

53:04

of immigration, I want to know it, what it's like in this country.

53:08

Um, thank you.