There appears to be a trend for migrants around the world: in your struggles, you are to be quantified and spoken for – not to. 

This summer, my teammates Phoebe, Ladajah, Derin and I travelled to London, Rome, Athens and Istanbul to conduct a research project that aimed to (in the smallest of ways) challenge the dehumanisation of irregular migrants. We did so after arriving at a consensus on two things: that this dehumanisation is not a crime without victims, and that storytelling is a powerful form of resistance. We set out to interview irregular migrants, and personnel dealing with irregular migration (lawyers, activists, journalists etc) to understand how laws and policies are experienced outside the boardroom. As aspiring lawyers, policymakers and teachers, we recognised the importance of understanding the needs of people you hope to one day work for seeing as service is the core of such occupations (i’d hope).

Irregular migration is defined as “the movement of people to a place of permanent or impermanent residence outside the regulatory norms of migration”. Simply put, it refers to the transitory space between the departure from your home, and arrival at your intended place.  This has become especially pertinent now with the rise of xenophobic, racist and islamophobic sentiments in British, European and Turkish political climates. More often than not, immigrants are blamed for the systemic issues of a country – after all, it is easier to rationalise any sort of violence through the creation and maintenance of an ‘other’. 

In our interviews, we hoped to understand the cultural context of this ‘othering’, seeing how EU migration policies have addressed the problems faced by irregular migrants, systemic issues that still exist within this sector, and the experience of irregular migrants themselves in these transitory spaces. Due to ethical considerations and an acknowledgement of how translation might negatively affect the representation of irregular migrants, we decided to interview the lawyers, activists and social service-people who work with them instead. The contradiction of this and my opening line does not miss me – but it has contributed to my understanding of power and advocacy which I will expand with greater detail later on. Relying on a combination of anecdotal retellings through a legal and political framework, our eventual analysis sought to draw the links between policies, culture, history and experience. 

Throughout the process, I had the privilege of learning many things – some heartening, some painful – but these are the parts that stood out to me. Despite the centralisation of migration policies for EU nations, the implementation of these policies operate on a basis of good faith. Our interviews with the Greek Council for Refugees in particular highlighted this point ; specifically, the way in which Greece’s protectionist stance in migration have left many irregular migrants vulnerable through the weak implementation of assimilation systems. Free education does little for the future of a child when he immediately becomes a legal alien the day he turns 18. The difference between a society in which an immigrant can assimilate, and one in which they are forced into the periphery, is the collective will of that society’s leaders, teachers and parents in ensuring the social integration of all parties involved. Without this particular will, there is no hope. Nonetheless, there are programs like the Red Cross which fund classrooms that host local and immigrant students so they may learn to reject biases and prejudice against one another from a young age. 

The role of individuals in systems made me reflect on our relationship with power. Seeing as it takes people – the everyday people, yes, you and I – to will a policy into success, I think it redefines the responsibility each of us have towards one another. In the presence of vulnerability, there can be care, and there can be cruelty. It is difficult to forget a social worker’s anecdote of the way an immigration officer would refuse to touch the passport of a Sub-Saharan African woman without disposable gloves, or the way rental spaces were immediately taken off listings when landlords found out the inquisitor was someone of Middle Eastern origin. The way Arabic translators were let off in the October of last year despite the expectation of incoming irregular migrants from Gaza, and the way hostels with more than 50 people of Sub-Saharan African and Middle Eastern origin were cleared out for half the number of Ukrainian migrants. It was impossible to understand this, or even see a way forward without the consideration of cultural contexts.  

What I mean is, criminalising xenophobia doesn’t make it go away, it simply makes it illegal. Through the process of interviews, it highlighted the significance of person-to-person leadership in any attempt to affect sincere and meaningful change. We learned that Greek opposition to immigration stems from their recent post-war history and desire to build a homogenous society. We learned that Italians relied on language and cultural commonalities as a method of recognising their environment – the disruption of their perceived sameness triggers the desire to create an “us” and “them”.  

With this in mind, the process of policymaking might perhaps change – for example, instead of relying on the skeleton of pro-migratory policies produced by the EU, legislators might find other ways to assuage their citizens of a commonality beyond ethnicity, religion, and language. Indeed, they may even offer their support to more organisations like the Red Cross who attempt to pursue assimilation through relationship-building exercises. If people are the ones to choose cruelty, surely it is people who can remind one another about our duty of care. As leaders then, it instils in you a permanent consideration of people’s emotions and psyche in the process of policymaking – we will never be able to heal wounds without acknowledging they exist in the first place.

That said, the burden of care should also be sensitive to tangible priorities. While culture is a slow (but infinitely possible) process, it is the responsibility of leaders to acknowledge when the status quo imposes direct and structural forms of violence against people. I refer to the racism and colourism of irregular migration, to how the legacies of colonialism still affect the experiences of people today. The latter refers to the ways in which migrants from countries that were previously colonised by European powers and speak French, Spanish or English, have better chances at establishing a full life (social, political, economic and legal) in transit spaces due to the ease of communication or greater availability of translators. Recognising these forms of violence would warrant the drawing of a line in the sand, to say to one’s people: I acknowledge your emotions and the history that it is rooted in, but the marginalisation, persecution and discrimination of any peoples are unacceptable. For me personally, this notion alters the landscape of service – how exactly do we lead? Shall we be messengers of the majority, or are there universal standards of morality we can stick by? I won’t attempt to answer this question here, because if I could I would be awaiting a Nobel Prize in Peace – but these are the conversations worth having.

As a final note, to return back to the contradiction of choosing to interview migratory personnel rather than irregular migrants themselves: this project has amplified the way in which advocacy is a process which is constantly in flux. If there is a way to use one’s platform to push the pursuit of a group’s autonomy forward, it must also come with the ability to discern when these platforms can be handed over completely, or when it is time to step back and away. There is a fine line between speaking to and speaking for: building a relationship of trust over time is essential to produce a piece of work that candidly reflects the views, opinions, and needs of a people. Frankly speaking, a 6-week research project simply did not give us the time nor capacity to build this relationship of trust and acquire credible translators. Seeing as though the nature of irregular migration is also temporary, conducting interviews that could express dissatisfaction with a host country, or establish a record which they do not want would cause greater harm than good. Without the ability to ensure safeguarding measures, we conducted this project in the hopes that it can be the seed of works that are better-developed. With that, I can honestly say that this is one of the things I wished we could change about our project. Nonetheless, I do hope that this report can be a small contribution to the understanding of how there can still be a mistranslation between policies and its implementation, as well as to the experiences of irregular migrants as told by the primary personnel who work with them in their legalising and assimilating procedures. 

I’ll respect all of you here enough not to lie: it is easier to feel that the future is bleak as we lose the ability to have constructive and critical conversations with one another ; yet if this experience has taught me anything, it’s that we are no different from the individuals we admire. What separates you from the individuals in the history books you see? It is about privilege at times, yes, but it is concurrently also about will, about solidarity, and the willingness to love one another and lead one another. Academia is perceived as a passive field – and in some ways, it is – but if the foundation of culture is thought, and the foundation of thought is our relation of care to one another, I urge each one of you to take care of your relationships. Both small and big, it makes up the world around us more than you could imagine.