Refugees and Borders | Focus

Focus: Refugees and Borders

These Five Victories in the Fight for Migrants’ Rights Show We Can Win

by Charlotte England

The government backtracked on its demand that schools collect data on pupils’ nationality and country of birth this month, presenting a sudden and startling victory to campaigners opposing the hostile environment. Here are five other key wins in the fight for migrants’ rights in Britain.

Refugees in Indonesia and Iraq Condemn Western Indifference

by Matt Broomfield

Coverage of the 'refugee crisis' tends to focus on the West, particularly on Europe, but none of the seven countries worldwide to host over half a million refugees are in the EU or North America. Instead, most refugees live on the periphery, confined to squalid, brutal detention centres and stripped of even the scant protection afforded to asylum-seekers on European shores.

We Don’t Need Borders

We think of borders as the most natural thing in the world. In reality, they are an unnecessary evil, and fighting them has to be a top priority. Here’s why borders have no place in a just world.

5 Reasons Global Free Movement Isn’t Such a Bad Idea

by Aisha Dodwell

Arguing for fewer immigration controls has become an invitation for abuse and ridicule. Here are five reasons global free movement and open borders isn't actually such a bad idea.

Long Read: How Power Hungry Politicians and the Far-right Are Turning Italy Against Refugees

by Hsiao-Hung Pai

For years, the liberal left has thought of Italy as a humane country where refugees are welcomed. But following a series of attacks on African migrants, this appears to have suddenly changed. Dig a little deeper however, and it quickly becomes clear that far-right violence didn't rise out of nowhere, it was inspired by a toxic politics of race in Italy that has been worsening since the economic crash of 2008. Hsiao-Hung Pai reports from Sicily.

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On Migration and the State: Lea Ypi

On #NovaraFM, James Butler is joined by Lea Ypi, professor in political theory at the LSE to discuss ways of thinking about migration, what it tells us about the state and the possibility of an emancipatory cosmopolitanism.

No More Deaths at Sea

On the sixth of February 2014, the Guardia Civil fired rubber bullets at African migrants trying to swim into the Spanish-controlled Moroccan city of Ceuta. At least 14 deaths were recorded. Four years later campaigners marched against the callous disregard for life at Europe’s borders. A Film by Gosia Juszczak & Darío Unai Cristóbal Pulido

The Cargo Women of Melilla

Embedded in the Moroccan coast, the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla represent Europe’s southernmost border. There is no formal customs agreement between these two autonomous cities and Morocco, giving rise to a system where goods are smuggled across the border as personal luggage to avoid customs charges and taxes. The burden of this work […]

Ghettoes of Europe: The Private Landlords Making Billions From Refugee Shelters in Berlin

by Hsiao-Hung Pai

Refugees live in roofless, partitioned rooms without privacy or basic facilities, in isolation on the edge of the city. Despite high rates of depression and suicide, the authorities keep cramming more people in, benefiting only the private companies and individuals who run these mass shelters for profit.

The Bitter Fruit of Andalucia

Visible from space, the vast concentration of plastic greenhouses in Almeria supply more than half of Europe’s fruit and vegetables. An economic boom in this previously poor region of Andalucia has come at the expense of the African migrants who work in these greenhouses, under slave-like conditions. Approximately 200 workers live there during peak season. […]

Long Read: Good Refugees vs Bad Migrants

by Hector Uniacke

In international law and political discourse, 'migrant' is distinguished from 'refugee'. The latter is legally entitled to our aid, whereas the former can freely be treated with suspicion and contempt. But this binary obscures the conditions that gave rise to the so-called refugee crisis.