‘Undocumented migrants find themselves criminalised for doing what they must to survive.’
This is according to the April 2018 guidance (pdf) from Liberty on defending migrants’ rights and tackling the hostile environment
The guidance finds:
- Since October 2016, the Department for Education has required schools to collect the nationality and country of birth of children aged between five and 19 through the school census. Some parents will now fear that schools are not a safe place for their children – and may withdraw them from education entirely
- Over recent years, international students have endured a series of policies that have made them feel under attack and unwelcome. A significant step in this direction was the scrapping of the poststudy work visa in 2012, which allowed students to stay in the UK and work for up to two years after graduation
- Obligations on employers to check people’s documents have existed since the late 1990s, and the 2014 and 2016 Immigration Acts introduced increased financial penalties for employers and a prison sentence of up to five years for employing undocumented people.
