An article published in the
American "New York Times"
newspaper
criticized the
government of Boris Johnson in Britain, saying that it practices tyranny against immigrants and pursues policies based on cruelty and inhuman destructive towards them.
The article by British academic Maya Goodfellow - who has written extensively on immigration, borders and racism - stated that while Britain last week focused on gradual exit from lockdown, its Home Office laid out its "new immigration plan" in very ominous detail.
Goodfellow explained that this plan includes only welcoming those who come through resettlement plans, who represent less than 1% of refugees worldwide, and therefore anyone else who is forced to undertake dangerous trips that threaten his life, will be described as "illegal" and severely punished. .
They will be denied major state support, in contradiction to family reunification rights that will remain permanently vulnerable to deportation, even if they are granted asylum.
It may contradict an international agreement
The writer commented that some suggest that this plan - which took months to prepare - could contradict the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention.
She added that British Home Secretary Priti Patel raised last year the possibility of sending some asylum seekers to islands in the South Atlantic, and considered deploying naval forces to prevent people from reaching Britain's shores.
This cruelty goes far beyond the asylum process, the author said, since Johnson's government came to power in December 2019 and promised to "end Britain's exit from the European Union", it has sought to establish a tougher and more punitive immigration and border control system.
In the name of British sovereignty, it strengthened its anti-immigrant rule.
Since her election, the government has announced its intention to reconfigure the immigration system.
And on January 1, its new point-based system went into effect.
Demonstrators carry banners as they pass the British House of Commons during a pro-refugee rally in central London (French)
Expanding injustice
Despite all the talk about reform, the new rules expand in many ways the unfair treatment that immigrants from outside the European Union have long suffered, as they are subject to extremely high immigration fees, denied access to basic state support, and are forced to pay every year for services. National Health.
She said that this inhuman and cruel approach has emerged over the past year.
At the beginning of the Corona epidemic, a group of organizations handed the government a clear road map to ensure that all migrants - regardless of their status - are protected from the virus, including through access to health care and other public services, but the Johnson government did not listen and its ministers made some changes, but they They kept the system largely intact.
A hostile environment for immigrants
The Johnson government also refused to suspend policies of "hostile environment" for immigrants, a sprawling network of immigration controls through which undocumented people are denied access to basic services such as health care and housing.
Even a deadly pandemic has not stopped the government from detaining immigrants, deportation flights, and the bureaucratic cruelty and institutional racism that make up the British immigration system.
She explained that the human losses were horrific, and that Johnson's government left immigrants - especially people of color - exposed and weak, adding that there is no point in condemning the current system without understanding that it is based on decades of brutality, "British history is full of legislation, such as the Commonwealth Immigrants Act of 1968," Which aims to make it more difficult for people of color to reach the country. "