The Subject Section Award generously funded Raawiyah Rifath (University of Exeter) and Devyani Prabhat (University of Bristol), Migration Subject Section Members, for organising a one-day in-person workshop on the Nationality and Borders Act that they had proposed. The workshop was held at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies on May 3rd, 2022. It brought together several legal practitioners, NGOs, policy experts and legal scholars to discuss and analyse the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 (‘the Act’) and to suggest potential paths forward in asylum provision. Initially, the aim of the workshop was to explore a reimagined version of the Government’s ‘New Plan for Immigration’ drawing on best practices but just days before the workshop the Bill passed and became an Act so the workshop refocussed on the new Act and on the Rwanda deal on asylum signed by the UK government.
The Act plans to create a two-tier system that penalises people who arrive in the country through, what the Government deems as “irregular routes,” with a four year prison sentence, a direct breach of the Refugee Convention. Prior to the workshop, participants were asked to prepare answers to three questions so that the discussion could be focussed: 1) What tools are being used to promote best practice in asylum? 2) What are the current needs of asylum seekers? and 3) What would a reimagined version of the Governments New Immigration Plan look like? During the workshop, participants were split into groups to discuss answers to these questions and then brought back into plenary session for a full discussion and collaborative planning. Following the workshop, participants have produced one output published by Border Criminologies: https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/centre-criminology/centreborder-criminologies/blog/2022/05/reconsidering.
The workshop has been an essential first step and participants will be working together to continue to highlight how law can elevate the conditions of asylum seekers rather than penalising them based on their mode of entry. Participants of the workshop and others working in this area will meet again for further action once secondary legislation and rules connected to the Act have been published.