Deadly Impact of Hostile Environment Policies on Undocumented Migrants

From our prior knowledge and experience we anticipated that the hostile environment agenda would be implicated in pushing undocumented migrants overcrowded housing and exploitative “no work, no pay” jobs that make it impossible for them to keep safe in the pandemic and lockdown. It is for this reason that the Status Now Open Letter call was sent to Prime Minister Johnson on 27th March. In this research, some respondents were paid as little as £2/hr as live-in domestic workers, and one had lived in a 5-bedroom flat with 13 other people, all of whom had COVID-19 symptoms in March.

The report concludes that hostile environment policies “constitute a danger to public health by present-ing people with the impossible choice of going to work and risking their health and the health of all those they are in contact with, or otherwise falling into destitution.” Its key recommendations are:

• Regularise all undocumented migrants

• End NHS charges and data-sharing

• End hostile environment policies putting the public in danger

• Raise awareness of migrants’ rights

Contact for more details, the full report, and interview requests:

Susan Cueva, Trustee, Kanlungan Filipino Consortium

info@kanlungan.org.uk / 073 9779 6238