What the BBC investigation didn’t tell you, and what you can do about it.

Migrants Organise recently joined 100 organisations calling out harmful reporting by the BBC. The reporting neglected to highlight the systematic injustices that push people into exploitation. 

This type of reporting has harmful consequences for our communities who are already feeling the full force of the far right teamed with racist government policies. Holding the BBC to account is a vital step in building safer communities for everyone. 

Here’s what the BBC investigation didn’t tell you, and how you can speak out and submit a complaint … 

The immigration and asylum system is hostile by design 

Migrants and refugees have long felt the impact of a vicious system; hateful and misleading media discourse combined with hostile government policies. With each new Home Secretary, each Bill, and each Act, the violence intensifies.

 

There have been at least 6000 changes to immigration rules since 2010 – designed to be ‘tougher’ and harsher on people who cross borders to live here. 

For migrant workers a constant shifting of visa thresholds is resulting in the threat of deportation. For people fleeing persecution, conflict and war, their journey to safety is being re-engineered. 

People who are constantly told to integrate will be kept in limbo, never allowed to belong. 

Everyday life is a maze of complex anti-migrant rules and enforcement, with each new “detain and deport” anti-migrant set of rules weaponise and dehumanise to distract from other crises. 

Migrant communities and those supporting them know the harsh reality of navigating this hostile system – the culture of disbelief, the high burden of proof, the unjustified refusals. 

Nowhere to turn 

Legal aid, the lesser-known pillar of the welfare state, was set up to ensure people without the financial resources can still get legal support for issues they face.  It also functioned as a way to ensure that there were regulated immigration lawyers who could advise people as they navigated the system.

But up until the end of last year, the legal aid system had gone without any new funding for 30 years. Now, across the country and even in more resourced areas such as London – there are not enough regulated lawyers to serve the communities around them. Over half of people seeking asylum cannot access a legal aid solicitor. 

    

We know that for our communities this can lead to exploitation as a result of being forced into precarity. For frontline organisations trying to fill in the gaps, things aren’t getting easier, the majority of our members are either homeless or in insecure housing.  

When people are prevented from getting the support they need, they are put at risk of harm and exploitation. Cuts to legal aid create a market for fraudulent advice and put people at risk who may not otherwise know how to navigate the immigration system. We’ve been saying this for years. 

An industry of cruelty 

In the last few years successive governments have spent £22m on the Bibby Barge, £318m on the failed Rwanda deportations and £996m on miserable asylum housing contracts with misery profiteer Clearsprings to act as deterrents. 

What could be spent on the NHS, reducing poverty, building homes, taxing obscene wealth is directed at cruel measures designed to cause pain and trauma. This is a story that is often left out of the narrative. 

Media outlets consistently fail to ask systemic questions and hold the government accountable for these hostile political choices. 

A culture of welcome is good for everyone. 

We know that stripping migrants of rights will not address the challenges we see in our communities. Instead, reducing rights for one set of people, normalises oppressive policies for everyone and keeps us distracted from the possibility of building a brighter future together. 

There are alternatives to this cycle. Cruelty is not inevitable but a deliberate narrowing of political possibility and a lack of imagination. 

Our communities have the answers: welcome not deportation, community not detention, protection not criminalisation, solidarity not surveillance. 

Together we can demand a  world where migrants and refugees live with dignity, not as shadows or statistics, but as equal members of society, free from fear, free from discrimination, free to move, to belong and to thrive. This is not a utopian fantasy. It is the bare minimum that justice demands.

It’s time to demand better from our media- check out the guide on making a complaint to the BBC.

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Migrants Organise joined 100 organisations united against this harmful reporting. You too can speak out by sending a letter of complaint to the BBC to share your concerns—download the guide here.