Northern Ireland EU border leading to 'racial profiling' warns human rights group

Published by Professional Social Work magazine, 27 January, 2022

A “hostile environment” caused by Brexit risks creating a Windrush-style scandal in Northern Ireland, human rights campaigners warn.

They claim signs of this are already evident with racial profiling singling black and Asian people out for passport checks, denied housing support and having welfare entitlements questioned.

The Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) said Brexit had given the “greenlight” to racial discrimination in Great Britain which was amplified on the island of Ireland because of the EU border.

“Brexit was pushed along the lines about taking back control of borders,” said Daniel Holder, deputy director of the Belfast-based non-government organisation.

“We have had concerns of high level of in-country immigration checks which are much higher per rata in Belfast than London.

“And also checks in Northern Ireland ports and airports on domestic journeys to Great Britain. These are not blanket passport checks, they are checks that we are told are intelligence-led. However, they are quite often conducted on the basis of blatant racial discrimination.”

Holder highlighted a case of a black man travelling from Belfast to Scotland and back by ferry who was the only person asked to show his passport.

Incidents have also been reported of racial profiling on bus journeys between Belfast and Dublin, where legally, because of the 100-year-old Common Travel Area agreement, only non-EU and non-British people need to show passports.

“Predictably what happens is that these checks are quite often done on the basis of blatant racial discrimination," said Holder.

“The guards or police will board the bus and will single people out for being black and expect the production of passports.

“This has ended up in a situation where British and Irish citizens making that journey who are white don’t feel any need to carry passports whereas British and Irish citizens who are black are expected to carry and show passports or be subject to detention and inquiry until status is verified.”

Holder added: “We know from Windrush where that leads. It leads to mass racial discrimination. That is amplified here, first of all because we have differences of entitlements as a result of Brexit but also because we have the context of the land border and residency and status in relation to that.”

Holder compared the situation to an unofficial version of the pass laws under South Africa’s apartheid regime where only black people were expected to carry passports.

“We find the same pattern happening in public service provision. Some people are just waved through whereas others are expected to evidence their situation.”

The post-Brexit hostile environment was evident in housing, for example, said Holder, with people of colour finding it more difficult to be rehoused if they faced racist threats.

“To be entitled to that and indeed public housing you need not to have those immigration restrictions on you, or you need not to be perceived to have them on you on the basis of your ethnicity.”

Racial profiling and prejudice are leading to assumptions being made about black and Asian people, said Holder.

He blamed “populist anti-migrant racism” messaging around Brexit for allowing such attitudes to surface.

“That essentially gave a greenlight, particularly the way the referendum was carried.

“We said at the time it would lead to an increase in racist crimes and racist incidents. But also an increase in racial profiling and racial discrimination where people’s entitlements to essential public services are queried on the basis of perceived ethnic attributes.

Unfortunately both of these things have happened.”

Holder urged social workers to challenge the hostile environment in Northern Ireland and beyond.

“Social workers should take a human rights-based approach,” he said. “There also needs to be much greater push back from our devolved institutions to take back primacy from the Home Office. The role of social workers in highlighting some of these issues is important.”