Since March 2020 the UK government has called for a united response to the Covid-19 pandemic. This was done with the aim of gaining national trust in the adoption of necessary Covid-19 protection measures. While Covid-19 was once a shared vulnerability, the effects are now being felt more severely by the most marginalised groups.
Among the sector of the population who live on the fringes of society are those who remain undocumented in the UK. This group is now facing a lethal triad of trauma: arriving on new soil that is poisoned by veiled prejudice, a complicit government, and a handicapped battle against Covid-19.
VULNERABILITY PREDATING COVID-19
Long preceding the first steps in response to the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020, the Home Office has come under fire for its treatment of undocumented people in the UK. In 2012 Theresa May, who was Home Secretary at the time, issued the “hostile environment policy”, “with the aim of making life unbearably difficult in the UK for those who cannot show the right paperwork”. The ramifications of this, such as deterring people from accessing healthcare and safe affordable housing, have been felt especially during the Covid-19 pandemic.
On top of an increasingly hard social landscape for undocumented migrants, the policy has instilled a system built on suspicion. The phrase “papers, please”, which is underlined with prejudice, has come to define the continued marginalisation of many living in Britain. This has made the Covid-19 pandemic much worse for those who have been victims of suspicion for years.
A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH
The National Health Service (NHS) administering the world’s first Covid-19 vaccination on 8 December 2020 was a cause for celebration. Apart from a triumph for science, the vaccine was delivered by Matron May Parsons, who migrated from the Philippines seventeen years ago and has worked in the NHS since. The delivery of the vaccine was thus also a celebration of the UK’s migrant workforce.
However, it was a bittersweet celebration. As one Filipino migrant deservedly received celebratory media coverage for signalling a lease of new life for all of us, the tale of another Filipino migrant failed to pull the same heartstrings. A damning report by the group Patients Not Passports uncovered the tragic death from Covid-19 of a man known as “Elvis” in April 2020.
Both Elvis and Matron May Parsons left the Philippines for a life in the UK. Elvis had lived and worked in Britain for more than ten years, but because he was an undocumented migrant, despite suffering symptoms “he had been too afraid to go to hospital for fear of incurring debts he could not repay and being reported to immigration enforcement”. The death of Elvis was avoidable, and the hostile environment immigration policies has blood on its hands.
PROUD TO BE BRITISH, BUT AT WHOSE COST
Albeit unconvincingly, the UK Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, was brought to tears live on air in front of millions of viewers, as he celebrated the first Covid-19 vaccine being administered. Hancock recognised this year as “being terrible for so many people” but promised that a return to normal life was on the horizon.
At a time when national unity is stronger than it has been in recent history, the UK is enforcing policies that should never have been legislated. Such policies, which require nurses, teachers and landlords to act as border guards, have forced people like Elvis to remain marginalised during the pandemic out of fear of being reported. Rejoicing that the vaccine made him “proud to be British”, the hypocrisy of Hancock, and the government, is there for all to see. The government must be held accountable for the perpetuation of fear instilled in undocumented people living in the UK and causing unnecessary deaths.
The hostile environment policy predates Covid-19 and it looks like it will survive it too. The current Home Secretary, Priti Patel, recently committed to the hostile environment until at least 2022. This is an abhorrent commitment and one that will force Elvis’s decision to repeat itself for others who find themselves in similar predicaments. The story of Elvis is representative of the tragic realities for all undocumented people in the UK. Matron May Parsons’ story is representative of the positive potentialities for all migrants in the UK. The disparity in outcome between the two can only be reduced if the government commits to policies underpinned by inclusivity.
While we are rightfully steered by science along an unknown and treacherous road to recovery, it is essential no one is left behind. It is up to those in government who are driving policies, to ensure that a Covid-19 recovery plan is not considered legitimate until we reverse decisions putting the most vulnerable into a further state of precariousness.
Jack holds a BA in English Literature. His research interests are focused on the processes of decolonisation and the politics of migration. He is dedicated to implementing and maintaining the adherence to a universality of human rights in all settings. Jack currently works in the Social Housing sector as a Coordinator.