The Impact of UK Immigration Law

“In this hugely ambitious undertaking, Sheona York brings together her decades of frontline experience and meticulous scholarship to examine the post-war history of immigration controls in terms of their detrimental impact on standards of public administration, the rule of law and democratic accountability. She exposes the consequences of an imperial, exclusionary ideology and a half-century of under-resourcing and over-legislating. She calls for a debate on citizenship and what it entails, which has never yet been conducted, and the need to build a system based on new forms of political solidarity. This book is an important resource for anyone wanting to understand the profound damage done to our legal, political and cultural infrastructure by an immigration system built on institutional racism.”
—Frances Webber, human rights lawyer; author of Borderline Justice: the fight for refugee and migrant rights (Pluto, 2012); vice-chair, Institute of Race Relations

This book provides an insightful analysis of recent developments in immigration, asylum and citizenship law in the broader social and political context. Written accessibly by an experienced practitioner, it critically examines the development of UK immigration control since the second world war, identifying and focusing on the grievous collateral damage being caused to the rule of law and to society. It examines the decline in standards of public administration, the secular failure to follow the rule of law, and the related issues of social corrosion and lack of democratic accountability. Speaking to academics, practitioners, policy makers and all those concerned about the impact of the hostile environment, it makes proposals for legal changes which prioritise social cohesion: a shared burden of proof, a simple regularisation scheme and clear path to citizenship, and details how these would operate in practice.



Sheona York is Clinic Solicitor and Reader in Law at the University of Kent Law Clinic, UK. She has over 40 years’ practitioner experience in immigration and asylum, with involvement in important reported cases over the years. At the Clinic she supervises students working on immigration and asylum cases for local clients. She also works closely with local NGOs and refugee charities, and contributes widely to academic and public debate on immigration issues.