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Deportation and the Family

This ESRC-funded project investigates how changing immigration policies and human rights interpretations affect individuals at risk of removal, as well as their British family members.

A view of the back of a family group walking outside consisting of parents and small child

Researchers followed 30 mixed-nationality families between 2014-17. The families consisted of foreign national men with precarious or unlawful immigration status, and their British or European Economic Area partners and children. The research data includes interviews with the couples, and practitioners from legal, private, state and civil society sectors, as well as policy analysis and observation of deportation appeals and other immigration hearings.

The research found that precarious immigration status and the risk of immigration detention and deportation have potentially catastrophic effect on the whole family, including children and British citizens. Living under chronic insecurity, with restricted access to employment or services, and the ongoing threat or reality of separation by detention or removal, lead to extreme harm to people’s private lives, relationships, finances, stability and physical and mental health. This includes British children, who experience detriment to their standard of living, behaviour, school attainment, mental well-being and feelings of Britishness and belonging. The findings also suggested gendered, racialised and classed biases to the recognition, respect and valuing of family life, ones which reinforce longstanding stereotypes of failed ethnic minority fathers.

Project outputs

Publications

Griffiths, M. 2020. "My passport is just my way out of here." Mixed-immigration Status Families, Immigration Enforcement and the Citizenship Implications. Identities, v.28(1), pp.18-36.

Griffiths, M., 2017. Seeking asylum and the politics of family. Families, Relationships and Societies, v.6(1), pp.153-156.

Griffiths, M., 2017. Foreign, criminal: a doubly damned modern British folk-devil. Citizenship Studies, v.21(5), pp.527-546.

Policy outputs

Deportability and the Family - June 2021

This report from the Deportability and the Family project. Examines the intersection of family life and immigration enforcement in the context of a decade of profound immigration policy shifts, including interpretation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) (the right to respect of one’s private and family life).

Immigration enforcement and Article 8 rights: Mixed-immigration status families

A policy report summarises the 'Deportability and the Family' project, including the legal and policy context of the changing political interpretation of Article 8 rights. The report offers policy relevant insights and recommendations

Detention of Fathers in the Immigration System

A policy briefing looking at the splitting of families by the immigration detention and enforced removal of foreign national fathers. 85% of immigration detainees in the UK are men and many have dependants in the country.

Operation Nexus

A Policy briefing on the police-Home Office initiative Operation Nexus. Although framed as targeting ‘High Harm’ foreign national offenders, Operation Nexus draws in low-level, petty and historical offenders, as well as those merely alleged to have ‘criminal character’ on the basis of ‘non-conviction’ evidence.

Blog posts

The freedom to love: Mixed-immigration status couples and the immigration system, by C. Morgan-Glendinning and M.Griffiths (Policy Bristol Hub, July 2021) https://policybristol.blogs.bris.ac.uk/2021/07/20/the-freedom-to-love-mixed-immigration-status-couples-and-the-immigration-system/.

My passport is just my way out of here: the Brits affected by deportation, by M. Griffiths and C. Morgan-Glendinning (Freemovement, June 2021) https://www.freemovement.org.uk/my-passport-is-just-my-way-out-of-here-the-brits-affected-by-deportation/

Fall in love at your own peril’: Forcing British citizens to leave the UK, by M.Griffiths, S.Mehta & C.Morgan-Glendinning (BritCits, June 2021) http://britcits.blogspot.com/

Parenting through ‘modern technology’: learning from the pandemic, by C.Morgan-Glendinning and M.Griffiths (Migration, Mobilities Bristol, June 2021). https://migration.bristol.ac.uk/2021/06/03/parenting-through-modern-technology-learning-from-the-pandemic

Forced worklessness and fatherhood by Candice Morgan-Glendinning & Dr Melanie Griffiths (COMPAS, University of Oxford, May 2021) https://www.compas.ox.ac.uk/2021/forced-worklessness-and-fatherhood

From British Playgrounds to Immigration Removal Centresby Candice Morgan-Glendinning & Dr Melanie Griffiths (COMPAS 2018) https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/centre-criminology/centreborder-criminologies/blog/2018/01/british

New research shows the impact of deportation on mixed-immigration status families (Freemovement, 2018) https://www.freemovement.org.uk/guest-post-new-research-shows-the-impact-of-deportation-on-mixed-immigration-status-families

People like us just shouldn’t fall in love’: how British immigration rules are separating fathers from their families (The Conversation, 2018) https://theconversation.com/people-like-us-just-shouldnt-fall-in-love-how-british-immigration-rules-are-separating-fathers-from-their-families-89950

Love, Legality and Masculinity (Border Crims, 2016) https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/centre-criminology/centreborder-criminologies/blog/2016/01/love-legality-and

Invisible fathers of immigration detention in the UK (Open Democracy, 2016) https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/invisible-fathers-of-immigration-detention/

Gendering Migration (COMPAS, 2015) https://www.compas.ox.ac.uk/2015/gendering-the-irregular/

Detention, Deportation & the Family (Border Criminologies, 2014) https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/centre-criminology/centreborder-criminologies/blog/2014/10/detention

The Course of True Love never did run smooth (COMPAS, 2014) https://www.compas.ox.ac.uk/2014/the-course-of-true-love-never-did-run-smooth/

Contact us

Dr Melanie Griffiths (PI)

Dr Griffiths is a social scientist, working on mobility and immigration enforcement in the UK.

 

Dr Candice Morgan-Glendinning

Dr Morgan-Glendinning is an Independent researcher, previously at the University of Bristol.