The Consequences of the United Kingdoms Hostile Environment Policies on the Health & Wellbeing and Integration of Asylum Seekers escaping Violence - A Critique of the Home Office Immigration Policies guided by John Rawls “Justice as Fairness” and Intersectional Theory

Abstract

People migrate for different reasons, one such reason is to escape violence from their home country, however once reaching their country of refuge their hardships often do not come to an end. This essay focuses on the experience of asylum seekers (AS’s) trying to integrate into the United Kingdom (UK) and the effect of the Home Office policies that neg atively impact them, with particular focus on the effect of the policy that restricts their ac cess to formal work.

Individuals who migrate away from violence are recognised by the 1951 UN convention as refugees. However, when they enter the UK and make a claim for political asylum, they are legally classified as AS's; they are only legally recognised as refugees in the UK once their claim has been assessed and accepted with accompanying rights. Currently, AS's have restricted rights and this essay will discuss how the restricted rights to work have cre ated problems for AS's that have a wider effect beyond themselves.

This essay will use Rawls's principles in "Justice as Fairness" with Intersectional principles to examine if the Home Office has failed AS's who have escaped conflict. It will discuss health consequences of these policies. The essay concludes that the asylum policies re garding work do not satisfy Rawls's principles of Social justice, and therefore are unjust and also prevent integration. It also recognises that although the right to work benefits health and well being, those rights by themselves is only one factor to health and well be ing and that policy needs to take a more intersectional and multifaceted approach.