Paper short abstract:

Taking seriously the fact that migrants are being required to demonstrate documentary evidence of their sexuality and/or religious belief, I argue that this unsettling disjuncture highlights the UK's refusal to take seriously the implications of embracing exclusion.

Paper long abstract:

As the UK's "hostile environment policy" approaches its tenth anniversary, migration in the UK remains fraught: the Windrush scandal highlights the precarity of settled migrants, the UK's refusal to take in Ukrainian refugees emphasized how particular migrants are seen as more valuable (or are only valuable for labour), and post-Brexit bordering practices have led to the creation of the Borders Bill. Accepting the commons, I argue, is a challenge to particular understandings of state power; it challenges not just the borders of nation-states, but also the capacities of the state offices to assess "deservingness" of migrants seeking humanitarian status. Drawing on my research on UK migration bureaucracies, I argue that states' assessments of migrants claiming on the basis of sexuality and/or religious belief provide two case studies to show what happens when states refuse to take seriously the implications of the current regimes. Taking seriously the fact that migrants are being required to demonstrate documentary evidence of their sexuality and/or religious belief, I argue that this disjuncture highlights the UK's refusal to take seriously the implications of embracing exclusion. What happens when policies of exclusion are recognized as inhumane, but policies of welcoming are rejected? How do individuals refuse this exclusion of humanitarian migrants, with or without reference to international humanitarian regimes?