Louise Calvey, executive director of Asylum Matters, argues that Keir Starmer’s decision to end refugee ‘golden tickets’ removes a vital safe route used by women and children
Days after a child and two women died trying to reach our shores, Keir Starmer says he’s ending refugees’ “golden ticket”.
He means scrapping the right for people who’ve lost their homes to rebuild a stable life with their family. Our refugee protection systems are already broken, abandoning human beings to cold water and busy shipping lanes.
The changes will shut off the small chink of light at the end of the very dark tunnel refugees face. Ending family reunion means more children dying in the Channel. Most (56%) of those who reunite with refugee families are children, while 37% are women. It’s horrifying to think how many removing this safe route will kill.
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Meanwhile, scrapping settlement could mean people living on probation, trapped in uncertainty until they’ve “contributed enough”. These are the “genuine refugees” the Government says it wants to protect. People who’ve fled war or torture, who’ve endured the complicated process of gaining refugee status.
Working in the asylum system for nearly 20 years, most people I’ve met want just two things. To work, and be with their families. That’s the hope that pulls people through years of waiting, while banned from working to support themselves.
After getting status, they’ve already been ordered to wait ten years, instead of five, to be allowed to stay indefinitely. Many refugees face a ban from ever becoming citizens.
The plan creates even more barriers to belonging in our communities. Refugees have a huge amount to contribute. They’re an incredibly resilient population who enrich our society.
But we don’t offer sanctuary because of what people can give us. Brits opened their doors to Ukrainian refugees, not to get something back, but because it was the right thing to do.
Many of us are proud of a history of protecting people in danger, but this Government seems determined to put a stop to this idea. In doing so they inflict irreparable damage, not just to refugee lives, but to who we are as a country.
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