Open%20borders%20The%20case%20against%20immigration%20controls%20-%20Teresa%20Hayter

150 Open Borders
undermining of democratic principles and the rule of law’ which ‘could open
the way to further abuses’. There is a danger of creeping fascisisation of
society. The morality of frontiers, where human rights are at their lowest, is
threatening to invade the interiors of countries. The extension of internal
controls will mean an increase in random checks, which so far are mainly
checks on people who look foreign, especially blacks, but which affect black
citizens, and potentially other citizens, as well. This has been going on for
some time in some European countries, especially, as a result of the much
hated Pasqua laws, in France, where police raids in public places and
demands for North Africans in particular to show their papers are
commonplace. Although Britain does not yet have compulsory identity
cards, they may be on their way. Meanwhile, black British people find it
prudent to carry around proof of their right to be in Britain. A large amount
of their time has to be spent in making sure their documents are in order.
People have been caught, imprisoned and deported, sometimes after years
of living in Britain with their families, as a result of failure to comply with
some petty immigration procedure. The deprivation of welfare benefits for
some sections of the population is, similarly, a slippery slope. After refugees,
convicted criminals who fail to comply with community orders seem to be
next in line. Since the British have a habit of adopting North American
practices after a time lag, single mothers may soon be subjected to a
maximum two-year limit on benefits. Immigration controls create illegal
workers, who are vulnerable to savage exploitation. If the treatment of
migrants and refugees is not opposed, it could become the norm and spread
to other sectors of society. At the FASTI ‘Europe Behind Barbed Wire’
conference in March 1997, Roland Dyaye, a member of the Sans-Papiers
National Coordinating Committee, said of their movement:
Basically, this is a struggle against illegal working. Illegal working in a capitalist
system in crisis becomes an instrument, a tool of all the neo-liberal forces to make the
world of work more precarious. Yesterday removals to countries of the Third World
were denounced. There is a new kind of removal, that is, the continual spread of this
form of labour, which costs practically nothing. This is a powerful and fundamental
perspective in terms of the capitalist response to the current crisis. In simple terms, it
is to subject an ever growing proportion of workers to Third World conditions, in the
context of what used to be called ‘the consumer society’. Today, these people are the
sans-papiers. After that, it will spread to include people on income support, homeless
people, and so on. Each section of workers will fall under the steam-roller.
It is in such a context in the West that fascist forces develop. ‘Europe Behind Barbed
Wire’ is also a Europe where fascism has been reborn and is growing. In the past, in
the context of an international crisis, of fascism come to power in a strong country
like Germany, labour camps were transformed into death camps. If this goes on, what
will be the future of these detention centres, of these transit zones?
They are dumping people there like cattle, in order to deport them. Beware! It’s
deportation today, but what will it be tomorrow? In this great regression of civilisation
that threatens European countries, notably France, with those who lead the
fascist menace sniffing the air, well, the sans-papiers movement is in many respects