Revisiting removability in the 'hostile environment'

Evidence shows that there may be more than 800,000 migrants living unlawfully in the UK, of whom a significant proportion, especially those who have been here a long time, may find it difficult to obtain national documents and return to their country of origin. The 2000’s saw extended delays in Home Office casework and growing backlogs in several categories of migrant, especially asylum-seekers, but also foreign national prisoners targeted for deportation. However, inspection reports and evidence in leading cases show that the increasingly shrill pronouncements about removing unlawful migrants, and in particular foreign prisoners, is not being matched by any significant increase in numbers removed. The recent Home Office measures aimed at ensuring a ‘hostile environment’ for unlawful migrants such that they will make a voluntary departure cannot achieve that aim unless those migrants can be documented and there is a country willing to accept them. Since the law provides only a limited basis for granting leave to remain in such circumstances, the effect of such policies can therefore only be the further immiseration of those migrants.