In this conversation, Zoe Gardner, policy advisor at the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, covers: 

• How immigration exposes women to a higher risk of violence and abuse
• Why policing and immigration enforcement must be decoupled
• WTF “no recourse to public funds” and the “hostile environment” are
• How legal migrants are pushed into undocumented status
• Getting your COVID vaccine even if you’re undocumented
• The exodus of European migrants from the UK & the post-Brexit settlement scheme
• How US immigration activists inspire the British movement
• What a safe and constructive immigration system would look like

Show notes

00:00 Intro
02:18 "All women understand how all women have felt over the last week"
03:28 "We have a deeply unfeminist immigration system"
06:21 "It's by dividing ourselves that we are doing the work of the oppressor for them"
08:09 "MPs must put their vote where their mouth is"
10:32 "We feed the business model of the worst criminals in our society"
16:38 "The hostile environment extends into our NHS"
21:55 "Tens and tens of thousands of new undocumented immigrants in our country just overnight"
26:27 "If you make a mistake, you are out"
29:38 "The movement in the US is a real inspiration to us in the UK"
33:52 "People move. People have always moved. People will always move."
37:43 Outro

Reports cited

When the clapping stops: EU Care Workers after Brexit. JCWI.
Migrants with No Recourse to Public Fund experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic. JCWI.
Migrants deterred from healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic. JCWI.
Estimating the UK population during the pandemic. Jonathan Portes and Michael O’Connor, Economic Statistics Center of Excellence.
More on the case of Osime Brown

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