The UK’s immigration system uses a combination of strong emotions and callousness to portray migrants as simultaneously ‘threatening, polluting and irrelevant’ – creating a group of people who are ultimately deportable and disposable, new research reveals.
Across immigration, asylum and detention systems, four emotions stand out – anger, disgust, suspicion and fear – creating an environment in which migrants’ feelings and lives are met with disinterest and disbelief, their emotional displays are ignored or punished, and immigration decision-makers and staff act with emotional detachment.
Writing in the journal Identities, Dr Melanie Griffiths of the University of Birmingham draws on 15 years of research into the UK’s immigration and asylum system to explore how emotions affect migrants and administrators.
Dr Griffiths says: “Although immigration systems are presented as rational and neutral, these four emotions – fear, disgust, suspicion and anxiety – are never far from the surface in the UK, creating a system that is both garishly emotional and seemingly emotionless.
“The system is rife with varying degrees of anger. From ‘fiery’ immigration judges who lose their temper to rude Home Office staff, antagonism, hostility and aggression are widespread.
“The immigration system is also saturated with anxiety. Immigration judges worry about tabloid attacks, Home Office staff fear the repercussions of missing targets, and ministers suffer from chronic fear of being criticised for being too ‘soft’ on immigration.”
Dr Griffiths uses the concept of ’emotional governance’ – or the government of the emotions of self and others – to explore how emotions are controlled, managed, manipulated, demanded and denied within the immigration system.
Despite a veneer of overarching legal rationality, immigration bureaucracies use emotional governance to disenfranchise migrants – promoting racial categorisation and domination, and creating people who are simultaneously seen as threatening, polluting and irrelevant.
Dr Griffiths argues that the four key emotions are so dominant in the UK’s immigration system that they should not only be seen as characteristic of it, but as actively producing the system that currently operates in the country.
Alongside these intense emotions, immigration practitioners operate through chilling coldness and disinterest – forbidding or ignoring migrants’ emotional displays, and contesting or disregarding their own and migrants’ emotions.
“Coldness and disinterest are widespread – for example, officials adjudicating spousal visa applications question the sincerity and strength of love, while those assessing refugee claims question the fears and honesty of applicants,” commented Dr Griffiths.
“Feelings of disgust or revulsion are also evident among those who implement border policies. Asylum claims based on sexuality may be particularly vulnerable to disgust, shame and humiliation. Similarly, the confinement of new asylum seekers in isolated barges and barracks reflects underlying feelings of contagion and disgust at people deemed offensive or contaminating”.
