#ucumigrant: Fighting back under Hostile Environment
By: Dima Chami
Tags: Hostile Environment, Activism, Education, Ucu, Migrants

At this year’s UCU Congress (May 25–27, 2019), we got UCU to officially recognise migrant status as a protected characteristic under its Equality structures, thereby altering the union’s form and shape. This change will enable direct and organised mobilisation for and by migrants: to protect, support and defend whilst we live under Hostile Environment. Those changes will bridge that representational gap within UCU by securing both a Migrants Members Standing Committee, as well as two seats on the NEC for migrants, one of whom shall be non-EU. To see the full details of the changes see here: https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/10089/Democracy-commission-report-and-rule-changes#82. This was a collective effort without a doubt, but this article is specifically about our need to share our experiences as two young Women of Colour, immigrants navigating institutional barriers, pushing from grass root efforts to ultimately being successful in our campaign. Some stories we will keep tight to our hearts but other we will share, with the hope and intention that those who wish to challenge and/or change their institutions might benefit and learn from our story. We write this paper as a cathartic exercise after over a year of activism to change University and College Union (UCU)’s national structures.

We would like to start this post in the same way we did our speeches at UCU congress which led to the historical changes of #ucumigrant: by acknowledging and naming those who have been subject to and victims of the Hostile Environment: Ahmed Sadeeq, Bamidele Agbakuribe, Ernesto Shwartz, the Windrush Generation, the thousands of overseas students who were accused of cheating in their English tests and were deported, to name a few. These are just the stories that are visible, how many don’t we know of? We also start by sending solidarity, again — and everyday — to the Anti-Racist occupation at Goldsmith. This is the longest led POC student occupation in the UK. As we write this, they are now in their 81st day of occupation. They are fighting against institutional racism and Hostile Environment in education (see their manifesto here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1l6Jn-q8TLqnZtEGiEjEt0d_egF70q2ENcOmwJyk5ulM/edit). Our activism means nothing if we do not centre smashing white supremacy, anti-blackness and xenophobia in our universities and in our union. Those who tend to speak out are those who are often in the most vulnerable position either because of their age, race, gender, sexuality, immigration status, disability, religion, or all of these at once. This is why we need to impress upon the history of trade unions, as well as the field of education. We are all in both because we are dedicated to making the world a better place; for everyone. And this is why an academic trade union must be a union for everyone, for those who come from all over the world to be in education, for those who want to make the world a better place, together.

And so to reflect that history, we want to acknowledge the work that UCU has done in the past in support of us, migrants; In 2014, Congress passed the NEC’s motion Num.64, which instructed UCU to carry out surveys to determine the different practices of surveillance of international staff and students and to campaign for the repeal of this legislation. Also in 2014, HE29 proposed by Black Members Standing committee, called on NEC to raise concerns of the use of technology to monitor international students and staff and collate information about misuse of biometric surveillance. While we acknowledge and appreciate these stands and the efforts behind them, the ever changing rules and increasingly volatile Hostile Environment have forced us into a corner: we can no longer enjoy any civil, social or intellectual liberties without having to fight for them, to defend them, and above all, to ensure that we are protected.

Hostile Environment is a group of policies introduced and implemented in 2012 by then Home Secretary Theresa May. These policies have been designed to make life so difficult and unbearable for people without ‘leave to remain’, that they voluntarily leave the country, or indeed find it as difficult to come in at all. Of course, Hostile Environment has become a blanket policy for all those unwanted racialised bodies from the — predominantly — Global South, as evidenced by the ‘Go Home’ vans which roamed the country in 2012. Evidently not simply a policy to deter ‘illegal’ migration, Hostile Environment was extended to existing and incoming international students and staff — and even to Black British citizens as well! These policies are tied to a Point Based Immigration System which determines your value, worth and legibility to enter and remain in the U.K. For example, if you are a Non-EU student and/or staff, you need to apply to this points-based system in order to enter the country, either under Tier 4 (Non-EU student) or Tier 2 (Non-EU staff) visas. For the purpose of this article however, we will be concentrating on Hostile Environment in UK universities, our experiences living under it, and our campaign to fight it by changing UCU’s structures. There are several other organisations and campaigns fighting Hostile Environment in universities such as the Unis Resist Border Controls campaign (https://en-gb.facebook.com/UnisResist.BorderControls) and International and Broke campaign (https://intnlandbroke.co.uk/).

For context, three in every ten staff in UK universities are not British (29 per cent). Half of research-only staff (mostly postdocs) are from overseas (47 per cent) (https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/policy-and-analysis/reports/Pages/international-facts-figures-2017.aspx). As much as 63 per cent of students at a postgraduate level are international and of those 42 per cent are from outside the European Union (https://www.ukcisa.org.uk/Research--Policy/Statistics/International-student-statistics-UK-highereducation). As seen through these numbers, migrants constitute a large demography within British academia (both in Further Education and Higher Education). Universities brand themselves under the slogan “We Are international” and yet, just like border agents, are complicit in the control, subjection and surveillance of Non-EU students and staff. In order to not lose sponsorship rights, universities — and by extension — supervisors, line managers and colleagues, are obligated to monitor attendance, supervision meetings, and work schedules through swipe cards, weekly emails requesting report of attendance, often accompanied with written threats to report staff and students to the Home Office for ‘non’ compliance, among other forms of surveillance. Other differences between us (Non-EU students and staff) and our UK and EU peers include not being able to apply to jobs which are less than 12 months long (noting that in today’s precarious climate of heightened casualisation, most contracts are 9-months only); a minimum salary requirement of £30,000 for a Tier 2 sponsorship; not having access to public funds and as students no right to maternity and/or sick leave. We cannot leave the country for more than 180 days during any 12-month period (this includes research abroad, conferences, workshops and personal travel). Then we have the exuberant visa and NHS surcharge fees which for a postdoc can equal 30% of the first year pay check and are often not covered by universities (https://medium.com/ussbriefs/the-hostile-environment-in-british-universities-c8d2c04da064). Adding to this is the difficulty of speaking up in cases of bullying, harassment and/or inadequate studying and working conditions because of fear of having our sponsorship revoked, meaning you would have to leave the country. See the recent case of Nigerian student Bamidele Chika Agbakuribe (https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/may/13/blind-student-facing-deportation-says-university-reneged-on-promised-support-dundee-university).

We are expected to produce quality work which rivals and equals our EU and UK counterparts who are not subjected to Hostile Environment, without considering the mental, emotional, financial and physical burden and impact that this has in our studying and working conditions. Everyday is a struggle. Everyday is encountering some form of harassment, admin requests, surveillance; en breve, everyday is a reminder that we don’t belong here. From having my ability to speak English questioned (at the level of the sentence) by the module convenor for whom I lectured, tutored and marked, to being passed up for a tutoring post in Postcolonial studies by 4 white students because “you are too close to it.” Hostile Environment is not simply a set of violent policies against migrants, it is also an ingrained, unconscious and pervasive state of mind in everyone who is not subject to it. Because it is not visible, it is not felt, it is not endured by all. For all the visible instances of Hostile Environment in action (deportations, incarcerations, JUST 25 black professors in the UK, a race and ethnicity pay gap that no1 is attuned to…) we bear the invisible brunt of it, everyday, and at every stage of our careers.

As we navigate our daily lives under these conditions, we necessarily look for support in many places, among them our union. UCU represents around 120,000 academics, lectures, academic related and professional staff, postgraduate students in colleges, prisons, adult education and training organisations across the UK. It is the largest further education and higher education union in the world. In February and March 2018, members took strike action for fourteen days as a response to a dispute between Universities UK (UUK) over the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) (see here for more information https://medium.com/ussbriefs/the-drive-to-convert-to-dc-a-short-history-15079dc18182). This was our first encounter with the union and where our paths began to cross.

Unions do not have a good reputation where I am from and so I was hesitant to join. I prepared for the picket line; baking cookies to share with my fellow strikers. I felt excited and happy to be part of a union who defended our pension and who were fighting against the marketisation of FE and HE. As I came back from my first ever strike and picket line, I came across a tweet from another Non-EU colleague warning us that we, as Non-EU, did not have the right to strike. That is, migrant staff who took ‘unlawful’ absence from work for more than 10 days were eligible for having their contracts ended and at risk of deportation. It took individual members across diverse branches to notify UCU of this. For many, the USS strikes represented a change in our union: thousands of new members joined and showed solidarity on the picket lines through singing, dancing and cheering even in horrific weather conditions (let’s not forget the Beast from the East). Some of us decided to strike the full 14 days, others decided to for less and some of us did not strike at all out of fear of deportation. It was this moment that initiated our long journey to change UCU to not only recognise migrant status as a protected characteristic but to also acknowledge that being subjected to Hostile Environment is a fundamental equality issue.

During the strikes, our local branch convened a meeting to hear the concerns of International staff and students. It was during this meeting that Maki Fukuoka (fellow colleague at Leeds) and I drew up a list of short, medium- and long-term goals around migrant issues and UCU. We were the only ones in the room. Our first goal was to be able to have a consultation with an immigration lawyer, not only about striking concerns but also about several other doubts that we had around Hostile Environment policies in universities. We asked our local branch to create “international staff” and “international PGR” representatives on the committee, who would advocate for specific issues affecting us. As our long-term goal, we wrote that we wanted to change national structures in UCU. Without significant and wide spread transformation nothing would change and it would be left again to us, individual members, loudly vocalising the gaps in our union. Our local branch, UCU Leeds, took this matter seriously and supported our goals even though the local committee were under extreme pressure because of the strikes. It was through several local branches, amongst them Leeds, that put pressure on UCU nationally to lobby the UK government for our right to strike. On July of 2018 it was announced that the UK government would be changing policy to exclude striking from unauthorised absences (https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/9575/Home-secretary-changes-rules-to-ensure-migrant-workers-can-take-strike-action?list=1676). While gaining the right to strike was a significant and historical change, for those of us living under Hostile Environment, it represented a very small part of the materiality of Hostile Environment in our lives. It also represented what true, intersectional and radical solidarity can do: it can hold government accountable. Our fight had just started.

The USS strikes showed the significant lack of migrant representation in our union, but they were also a good momentum for a significant change. Thus, our journey to change UCU began. Our activism had begun under difficult circumstances not only fighting for our right to strike but also to have our experiences as migrants heard. We cannot count the number of times we have had to regurgitate our experiences, open wounds of racism and xenophobia to justify why we urgently needed change. For us, Hostile Environment did not end with our right to strike. I was in the middle of uncertainty with having to leave the country, visa renewals, financial burdens in conjunction with the emotions that come under living under these immigration policies such as embarrassment, isolation, sadness, hopelessness and anger. What fired our will to keep going was the hundreds of stories that were shared from loved ones, friends, colleagues and strangers from across the UK.

Amidst all the above, or perhaps because of all the above, I became more active in UCU — it was a lifeline. But I knew that there were limits to what individual/branches could do, just as I knew that there was so much more potential for what the whole union could do. And so the direct action plan crystallised during a UCU rep course, where, in the presence of senior equality officers and past presidents, I questioned UCU’s historical blindness when it came to its migrant members. There was, naturally, some resistance to this perceived accusation: “We already protect members based on race and nationality!” and “This is upsetting to hear! There are posters of migrants as firefighters in our HQ building!”. But these responses had only proved my point: nobody knows what is happening to migrants and nobody knows the extent of it. We all share this sector together, and so we naturally feel that we are in this together. And yet, beyond those shared expressions of idealism and solidarity, motions in support of free movement and against racism, migrants are still forcibly cynical, isolated, not free to move, and racially and legally discriminated against and abused. And even as I explained this, there were a few protestations, questioning, doubting. Because no one could see it, unless they could feel it too. I was isolated in that moment, chokingly trying to explain why posters of firefighters didn’t equate with being seen by the union. But then my voice became two, and the other migrant in the room, Mark Pendleton (E&D officer at Sheffield UCU) shouted with me, and fought for me. The senior equality officer, still taken aback, reflectively claimed that he had seen this before: when the LGBTQ+ had to fight for their rights, and when Black members, and women members, and disabled members had to fight for their own rights too. So coming out of that room was a new fight, one which continued on from the ones previously fought and won. What we were proposing were changes which would recognise migrants, and protect them until their status did not prescribe legal inequality and discrimination.

This felt insurmountable, so we knew that we had to delegate and reach out to other individuals who were also campaigning for migrant rights in other parts of the UK. In January of 2019, we began to coordinate with other local branches such as Sheffield, University of East Anglia, Cambridge and Manchester to strategise the best way to change UCU at a national level. Our initial email read:

Main objective to change UCU National Executive Committee (NEC) and Equality structures but also address the following issues:

a. Visa fees and NHS surcharge for you and dependants.

b. Bullying and being afraid to report it because of your immigration status.

c. Hostile environment and surveillance. There is currently no national guideline, so each line manager applies as they see fit, generating anxiety, depression and fear of reporting again because of immigration status.

d. Sexual harassment towards international students and staff. We have heard numerous cases of students and staff being unable to report for fear of having their sponsorship revoked.

e. Precarious employment and fix term contracts. As we know, many times international students and postdocs are the most exploited, are not paid on time or simply are unable to apply for jobs that are under 12 months or are under the £30,000 threshold.

f. Tackling racism and colonialism implied in these policies.

If you wish to add to the list please feel free to do so. We would also like to point out that the intersection of gender, race, ethnicity, (dis)abled bodies and being part of the LGTBQ+ community exacerbates these situations.

And thus, it began. Our first hurdle was overcoming resistance in highlighting the different treatment between EU and Non-EU students and staff. Despite the fact that many of us have been living under Hostile Environment policies for a number of years, immigration only came to the forefront of the conversation in our universities because of Brexit. While we absolutely deplore the position that many of our friends and colleagues may come under, we often heard statements like “we will now also be subjected to immigration controls” or “we need to worry because Hostile Environment could apply to us as well.” These types of affirmations gaslighted our experiences, our lives, under Hostile Environment, specifically because the underlying message was that this inequality now matters as Brexit could make them just like “the rest of us.” This lead us to our second hurdle: terminology around international versus migrant representation. There was hesitation from colleagues to be called migrants as they found the term alienating. Often than not, being a migrant is associated with being racialised, and or destitute. The “Refugee Crisis” attests to this. We were now reminded of the fact that Hostile Environment policies were specifically designed to keep racialised bodies from the Global South out. Given this political climate, we decided that it was an ideological and political statement to own our migrancy, and set up the committee under UCU’s Equality structures as the Migrants Members Standing committee. The resistance to this move emanated as well from the fact that race and nationality are already covered under Equality structures, so why migrant status? The answer is simple: while race and nationality are intricately linked with migration, they are not exclusive of one another, but rather intersectional. Not all nationalities are currently subject to Hostile Environment and not all who are subject to Hostile Environment are racialised. But let there be not doubt that Hostile Environment is a racist and xenophobic policy which disproportionately affects Black and POC from the Global South.

Our colleagues came through, and over the next four months we had a rule change motion from UEA calling for migrant status to be added to the Equality lists. This was coordinated with Gareth Edwards, co-founder of International and Broke. Cambridge submitted a motion which addressed the financial burdens faced by migrants because of various fees. This was moved by Waseem Yaqoob. Manchester submitted our main motion laying out the principle behind those changes, in solidarity with us. Sheffield were on standby to pass our motion at their own GM, in case ours wasn’t quorate and couldn’t pass. This was a collective effort and we want to thank each and every one of you for getting those motions to congress. We then launched a concerted social media campaign ahead of Congress, with the hashtag #ucumigrant. We needed to raise awareness, we needed to ensure that our motions would get passed. We tweeted, everyday, our realities as migrants. Our community came through, and collectively spread the word.

But our campaign didn’t end once we got to Congress, this was a whole other beast in an of itself. We lobbied. We leafleted in the rain. We regurgitated our positions, our arguments, our reasons, our motions, our emotions, our entire lives. We worried about having to speak, to bare ourselves in front of hundreds. We burned out not just emotionally, but physically too. Neither of us have ever fallen ill as often as we had during this year. It culminated at Congress. We worried that items would fall off the agenda due to lack of time. We worried that there would be resistance. We were overwhelmed. But we were supported, invaluably, by our branch, our friends, our colleagues. And often one single act of kindness can undo you in ways that acts of violence can’t. There was a sit in protest during the last session of Congress — the rule changes — where our motions needed 2/3rd to be carried. And because our motions were there to address representational gaps within the union, we found it highly ironic that had they not been heard, we would potentially not have been able to pass them in future — this is the nature of migrancy, it is precarious, unstable, and pushes us down those gaps. So in an act of extreme solidarity, Mark quickly intervened on our behalf, crucially orchestrating a change in the standing order to move our motions up the agenda so that they wouldn’t fall due to a gap in numbers or time. He did this by asking all members to suspend their strike and support this move in solidarity with us. We were shaking, but we went up to the pulpit and moved our motions, in fear, and in extreme bravery.

As I stood in front of the hundreds of people, finishing my speech, I was suddenly hit by a brick of emotions. I use this term because it felt exactly like that, like we had been banging our heads against a metaphorical wall for months, and it suddenly gave way. A wall built of bricks of racism, xenophobia, lack of understanding and compassion but also bricks of solidarity, alliances, care, collectiveness and happiness. Emotions that regardless of what could come next we had made it this far. We got a standing ovation and our motions passed unanimously. As I looked forward and saw Dima and Mark, their faces also overwhelmed with emotions and tears, those bricks turned into tears. I was unable to say the last words of my speech, so I say them now:

Por los que estuvieron, por los que están y por los que vienen.

لمن كانوا هنا و لمن هم هنا و لمن سيأتون

For those who were here, for those who are and for those to come.

We want to say thank you: Thank you to the many who helped us on this journey. Thank you Leeds UCU branch committee, in particular Vicky Blake, for welcoming us into the union, and supporting us every step of the way. For helping us navigate union structures, for drawing weird but helpful doodles of those structures, also of congress hall and what it looked like (it was much bigger in real life!), and for encouraging us, at all times and places, even at 11pm on Whatsapp. We would not have been able to do this without you. Thank you to Alan Smith for helping with technical, emotional and administrative support. Our fellow Leeds delegates at Congress, who supported us, stood with us, and cried with us when our motions passed, especially Chloe Wallace, whose hugs sustained us. We are grateful and indebted to Mark Pendleton and Robyn Orfitelli, who met with us, skyped with us, strategised with us and support us in our #ucumigrant campaign. They were fundamental in helping us navigate UCU congress, they were always willing to stand by our side to show support and solidarity in times where we felt like we were drowning. To our loved ones, who stood by us, encouraged us, where there with our other loved ones in times when we couldn’t be there. Finally, to all those who feel invisible, not heard or supported: we hear you, we are here for you and will fight alongside you for a university that is no longer driven by neoliberal and market policies, a university that denounces white supremacy, anti-blackness, homo and transphobia, misogyny and ableism.

In solidarity always,

Dima Chami and Laura Loyola-Hernández