We are joining with others to call on the Home Secretary to implement policies which make it easier for people to regularise their residence status. People do not choose to become undocumented, and should be supported in finding security once again.
3 September 2024: Migrant Voice: Please find below the letter signed by QARN and Quakers in Britain that was sent to Yvette Cooper
The reasons people become undocumented can be varied, and are often through no fault of their own. People who have lived in the UK for decades, people with families and friends, people just living their lives, stripped of their residence status overnight for the simplest of things.
Together with more than 80 other organisations, and with more than 145 signatories in total, we have written an open letter to the Home Secretary to implement policies which make it easier for people to secure a recognised status.
People do not choose to become undocumented, and, as we explain in the Guardian, being so increases their risks of being exploited.
Detentions and deportations of undocumented individuals are not the answer. They do not address the fundamental issues. Only increasing the routes to regularisation, and making them simpler, can do that.
Read more here: https://www.migrantvoice.org/home/pagenews/migrant-voice-calls-for-regularisation-300824145104
Quakers in Britain: Help undocumented migrants to regularise immigration status, Quakers say
Quakers joined dozens of other charities in urging Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to make it easier for undocumented migrants to regularise their immigration status.
People do not choose to become undocumented, and should be supported in finding security once again, the Quaker Asylum and Refugee Network said.
Instead, government policy focusing on raids, detention and deportation of undocumented migrants forces them underground and increases the risk of exploitation, more than 80 charities told the government.
Being undocumented puts them at increased risk of exploitation, and of mental and physical stress.- signatories
The letter, co-ordinated by Migrant Voice and signed by organisations including Anti-Slavery International, urged the new government to “look at a new way forward.”
Policies of regularisation provide more security and safety not only for the undocumented, but also for the country implementing them, the letter said.
Even now Spain is pushing forward on a plan to regularise the status of 500,000 undocumented migrants.
Most who become undocumented are not to blame, signatories said, with government policies and actions adding to the burden.
Increases in visa costs, lack of information, errors on forms and wrongly addressed letters from the Home Office are all common factors, they said.
“Many undocumented individuals have built lives here over a number of years, some for decades, they have families, friends and are part of our communities,” the letter said.
“Being undocumented puts them at increased risk of exploitation, and of mental and physical stress.”
Paul Parker, recording clerk for Quakers in Britain, said: “Providing undocumented migrants with the opportunity to achieve documented status is both wise and kind.
“It is what our faith and common humanity demand of us.”