A compassionate refusal

Several years ago, I was put in touch with Grace, a Nigerian woman whose asylum claim in the UK had been refused. She was being detained with her toddler in the notorious Yarl's Wood immigration detention centre where they faced imminent deportation from the UK. While she was detained I spoke with a member of staff in her local member of parliament's office to ask for support for her case. This person was not hostile, aggressive or unkind. They listened to me and they expressed some sympathy for Grace's circumstances, but then reflected that it would be better for her and her small child if they were deported rather than living in limbo and hardship in the UK as refused asylum seekers. This person suggested that in trying to help Grace and her child to remain in the UK, their allies were possibly doing them a disservice and causing them further harm and suffering.

There has been extensive discussion of the now all-too-familiar hostile attitudes expressed towards undesired migrants and refugees in many societies that receive them (Wazana, 2004; Anderson, 2013; Chavez, 2013; Jones et al, 2017). In this instance, however, I was struck by the way that deportation was justified not simply as an enforcement of immigration restrictions against an undeserving migrant, but also as an act of compassion and care. Through this logic, deportation was presented as a means of alleviating suffering – in effect, this was a ‘compassionate’ refusal.

Introduction

During the 1880s and onwards, following the exclusion of Chinese migrants during the gold rushes in California (United States [US]) and Victoria (Australia), the US and self-governing colonies in Australia began legislating ‘to regulate the entry of “undesirable immigrants”’ (Bashford and McAdam, 2014:309). Although relatively late on the scene, Britain joined this legislative trend set by territories of its former Empire by introducing the Aliens Act 1905. It was passed in response to the arrival of Eastern European Jews in Britain who had escaped the pogroms in the Russian Empire (Solomos, 2003). Since this period at the turn of the 20th century, the discursive category of the ‘undesirable’ migrant has endured and become embedded at the heart of political debates and policy making on immigration, citizenship and national identity in the minority world.