Humanity should shape Home Office policy on immigration

Zoe Williams is right to highlight that humanity towards refugees is a significant gap in Yvette Cooper’s recent announcement (Theresa May-lite or real humanitarian? Yvette Cooper’s new migrant plan makes me fear the worst, 21 August). As a Care4Calais volunteer in Calais and Dunkirk, I’ve witnessed first-hand how oppressive border security tactics increase the risks and deaths of people who literally have nothing left to lose.

“Smashing the gangs” may be a neat political soundbite, but it will not deter the many men, women and children I’ve met on our border. They are our fellow humans, seeking sanctuary. They flee war, abuse, torture, oppression and even certain death. Putting humanity at the centre of Home Office policy would see investment in safe routes, more immigration case workers to process claims swiftly and community-based accommodation. I believe it would be much cheaper. But, even if it wasn’t, what price would you put on your brother’s, sister’s, mother’s or father’s life?
Jane Basham
Care4Calais volunteer, Ipswich

• Thank you, Zoe Williams, for articulating much of my concern about the most recent version of New Labour. Tony Blair’s response to immigration and law and order empowered 14 years of Tory misrule. If Labour can appear to be ruthless and inhumane, the Tories will feel justified to be more so.

I am an Irish citizen who chooses to accommodate a 22-year-old asylum seeker who is moving, I hope, towards the end of his five-year journey to secure a right to remain. Being tough on immigration requires an equally energetic government position on the causes of immigration. If the home secretary has the humanity to reflect on the circumstances of my friend’s flight from Africa, we will know what side she is on.
Gerard Marshall
Dumbarton

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