The Politics of Deterring Unwanted Immigration in the United Kingdom

My dissertation will investigate the United Kingdom's bid to deter future asylum-seeking and irregular immigration by implementing hostile deterrence policies. Three questions will be addressed. First, are immigration deterrence policies effective at curtailing unwanted immigration? Second, which immigration deterrence policies does the public prefer? Third, why do policymakers implement such policies? This dissertation will bridge previously isolated scholarly debates and contribute empirical findings using novel methods. At a time of continued uncertainty over the United Kingdom's post-Brexit immigration regime and popular backlash over the increase of boat Channel crossings, this dissertation will seek to uncover the rationale underlying immigration deterrence policies. The introductory chapter will offer a theoretical contribution by uniting three areas often mistreated as disparate: immigration attitudes, democratic responsiveness and policy effectiveness. The dissertation will then consist of four empirical chapters. The first two empirical chapters will be dedicated to assessing the effectiveness of British immigration deterrence policies. As outlined by Thielmann (2003), restrictionist immigration policies can only deter potential migrants if migrants are aware of these policies prior to arrival. If prospective migrants are neither informed of these policies nor incorporate them in a cost-benefit analysis, they are ineffective in their aim to dissuade immigration. The first chapter will assess whether accurate information on the United Kingdom's deterrence policies is made available to migrants by potential information-providers: aid workers, smuggling networks and diaspora members. In the second chapter, I will determine whether prospective migrants are informed of the United Kingdom's deterrence policies and whether that knowledge is a causal driver in their choice of destination country. The third chapter will revisit the opinion-policy gap. I will test the existence and extent of a gap between public preferences and immigration policies using a novel method. Through a two-wave conjoint experiment, I will also assess whether Brexit has increased the congruence between public preferences and immigration policies. Finally, the fourth chapter will be dedicated to a qualitative case study of the policymaking process leading up to the 2014 and 2016 Immigration Acts widely known as the 'hostile environment policy'. The aim of this chapter will be to assess why policymakers implement immigration deterrence policies and investigate the role of symbolic and racial politics in the construction of the hostile environment policy.