A review of Deportation is Freedom, the Orwellian World of Immigration Controls by Steve Cohen (Jessica Kingsley)
This is an extended, angry, rational and forceful polemic against current, past and future immigration control. It is a radical argument against all immigration control. A point worth reiterating as many who are, or say they are, on the left admit to supporting some border restrictions. (George Galloway has in the recent past endorsed a “points system” for immigration. Respect opposes the worse excesses of current policy, yet does not say it opposes all immigration control.). Those on the left who support controls or who fail to oppose controls (a position that is just as bad) have to do so by forgetting and repressing, the reality of immigration controls. That they are racist. That the purpose of controls is to divide and rule the working class. That they corrupt politic life. Cohen says the position of supporting any kind of controls — “fair controls”, a generous “point system” and the like — is illogical, untenable, morally indefensible. I strongly agree.
In this book Cohen explores the parallels between the ideological underpinnings of immigration control and the imagined totalitarian state created by George Orwell in 1984. Cohen is keen to resurrect the ideas in Orwell’s book, he sees them being particularly pertinent in describing the superstructure of enforcement created by successive government’s immigration policy — surveillance, prisons and latterly further anti-terrorism measures.
I’m not convinced that Orwell’s book, as a work of art, has stood the test of time. The politics are something else though… The parallel’s Cohen sees in Orwell’s work must have something to do with his own years of experience, as an immigration rights lawyer, battling with a brutal and bureaucratic system.
The extensive use of Orwell’s ideas means at times losing a focus on particular arguments against the policy of this bourgeoisie, in this world. Nonetheless the case Cohen makes is compelling, the reality he depicts is truly frightening.
Cohen does not say that 1984’s Big Brother state is the same as ours. He is talking about a continuum of totalitarian reality. There is a similarity, not an exact sameness, between participating in, for instance, a forced removal of someone from this country and being a cog in the machine of a totalitarian state.
Because immigration control serves a primary purpose for capitalism that is the basis on which we must oppose them, says Cohen. Any concession to other ways of arguing against control — eg “humanitarian” grounds — means we will fail in the end to convince. We will also, potentially, ally ourselves with reactionaries. For instance there are plenty of Tory MPs who oppose the particular deportations of particular individuals, yet still be forthright supporters of the most draconian controls. All cases of deportation, all refusals of asylum, are unjust on humanitarian grounds. No one is a special case. Therefore we need to argue for solidarity and collective rights for everyone who wishes to make a new home somewhere other than their birthplace, for whatever reason. This is true, and yet… Often a way to convince people of the basic justice of such rights is to focus on individual cases. For instance the school students who want their class mates to stay and then begin to fight to get them to stay. Knowing somebody who is “stateless”, is “illegal” and knowing them to be a person just like ourselves is often the beginning of wisdom and potentially leads to an overall understanding of what immigration control is about.
The labour movement has singularly failed to make either a critique of immigration control or to consistently stick up for asylum seekers and migrant workers. It won’t begin to do that until the left begins to sharpen up its ideas on this issue. Steve Cohen’s book deserves to be widely read.