Since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the British public has shown strong sympathy for Ukrainian refugees and called for the United Kingdom to grant them sanctuary.
But while European leaders quickly waived visa restrictions for Ukrainians, the British government has dragged its feet on opening the country’s borders to the refugees.
Why We Wrote This
The disconnect between the British public’s desire to help Ukrainian refugees and the British government’s foot-dragging is highlighting a history of dysfunction in the Home Office’s immigration control.
After a series of chaotic responses, the government is finally offering a refugee policy more in line with what the public demands. But the delay in enacting it has many wondering why it took so long.
The answer seems to be a combination of anti-immigration sentiments in the current government and a lingering culture of distrust and dysfunction within the Home Office, the department responsible for overseeing Britain’s immigration policy.
Government policy has changed since the start of the pandemic, in part due to public opinion, says Patrick Diamond, a university lecturer and former policy advisor. Voters who can be tough on immigration “in this case see Ukraine as different because of the historical and geographic circumstances.”
London
When Gavin Price first saw the images of Ukrainians fleeing war, he immediately began the task of rallying Aberfeldy, a Scottish town of just 2,000 people, to offer them assistance.
Within days, the pub landlord and football manager produced his own register of local homeowners offering holiday homes and spare bedrooms. “Our whole community wants to help as best as they can, in whatever small means possible,” says Mr. Price, who is currently working to bring a young Ukrainian mother and her newborn child to Scotland.
But the British government has not been making it easy.
Why We Wrote This
The disconnect between the British public’s desire to help Ukrainian refugees and the British government’s foot-dragging is highlighting a history of dysfunction in the Home Office’s immigration control.
Since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the British public has shown strong sympathy for Ukrainian refugees and called for the United Kingdom to grant them sanctuary. But while European leaders quickly waived visa restrictions for Ukrainians, the British government has dragged its feet on opening the country’s borders to the refugees.
After a series of chaotic responses, the government is finally offering a refugee policy more in line with what the public demands. But the delay in enacting it has many wondering why it took so long. The answer seems to be a combination of anti-immigration sentiments in the current government and a lingering culture of distrust and dysfunction within the Home Office, the department responsible for overseeing Britain’s immigration policy.
Playing catch-up
The U.K.’s current program for Ukrainian refugees is its “Homes For Ukraine” initiative, which grants visas to Ukrainians who have found households in the U.K. willing to board and sponsor them. The households in return are given a monthly £350 ($460) allowance to underwrite the expenses of hosting. More than 100,000 Britons expressed interest within 24 hours of the government announcing the program on March 14.
But “Homes for Ukraine” came after fits and starts. At the onset of war, only Ukrainians with British nationality or permanent residency status in the U.K. could bring immediate relatives via a family visa program. That program was expanded after criticism that it had excluded some family members.
Facing public criticism for not doing enough, the government soon opened a second route at visa processing centers in Belgium and France for those fleeing the war.
Andrew Couldridge/Reuters
But that quickly came under fire as well, with critics saying pop-up visa application centers were nowhere near international train routes offering free rides to fleeing Ukrainians. Amid mounting public pressure to act, the government announced the “Homes For Ukraine” plan.
A recent poll by Savanta ComRes found that 54% of British voters think visa requirements should be dropped entirely for Ukrainian refugees – a marked shift from the country’s closed-door attitude around and after Brexit.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government, accustomed to crafting policy for voters who are hard-liners on immigration, is still trying to catch up with this dramatic shift in public opinion, says Patrick Diamond, a former policy adviser for 10 Downing Street and now a lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London.
Yet the Home Office’s inability to respond quickly goes beyond the current home secretary’s tenure. Dr. Diamond says the immigration department is a “systemic problem that no prime minister has been able to deal with” since at least 2006, when then-Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Labour government declared the department as “not fit for purpose.”
Chronic underfunding and structural issues have caused “persistent problems around the Home Office and how it oversees the immigration system” that persist today, Dr. Diamond says.
The biggest nemesis to a functional Home Office is its deeper cultural problems, says Sam Bright, investigations editor at the Byline Times. “Successive Conservative governments have been renowned for their ‘hostile environment’ policy on immigration,” he says. The approach was in theory meant to target illegal immigration by creating an environment so unpleasant that migrants would voluntarily leave the U.K. to escape it. Deep-seated discrimination from immigration officials, poor questioning techniques, and a lack of sensitivity beset the immigration department to this day, Mr. Bright says.
The “hostile environment” policy of former Prime Minister Theresa May most notoriously came to a head in 2018, when the Home Office wrongly detained and deported legal British nationals who had arrived as children from former Caribbean colonies before 1973. At the time, Black British Labour member of Parliament David Lammy told ministers that the problems “[are] a direct result of systemic incompetence, callousness, and cruelty within our immigration system.”
Doing better for Ukrainians
The government’s new plan for Ukrainians is unfit for purpose and “absolutely chaotic,” says Susan Hubbard, a London-based poet hoping to give up her spare room to Ukrainian refugees. It has yet to match potential sponsors with refugees and has no advice hotline available, she says.
“It’s the wild west out there, so I’ve done my own research to find potential matches,” says Ms. Hubbard.
The Guardian reports that only 1,000 of 25,000 completed “Homes For Ukraine” applications have been approved so far. Another 21,600 visas have been granted to refugees with family members in the U.K.
Former migrant Raul Gonzalez uses his spare time to fix the state’s “cowboy approach.” The Spanish-born scientist gathers and shares information from verified mental health and humanitarian organizations on social media platforms, targeting “well meaning” homeowners in search of a match on social media. He hopes to match refugees and homeowners by “asking the questions not raised by the government: Can you integrate your life with a person, and can you take responsibility for a stranger’s safety?”
Some of the problems of matching hosts with refugees can be bypassed in Scotland, after the Scottish government was approved as a “super sponsor,” which can be selected instead of an individual sponsor on a visa application.
For Mr. Price, the values of Britain’s leadership have not matched that of ordinary citizens.
“The Home Office must ease the visa entry requirements for Ukrainian nationals immediately. There is a strong desire to offer support,” he says. “I realize it’s only a drop in the ocean, but we would like to help in any way we can.”