Worth: $18.00
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Cast:
Farrukh Sair, Priti Patel
Intro:
… a call to action wrapped up in a documentary.
In 2012, under David Cameron, the British Government announced an immigration policy that would be cited as one of the harshest that the UK had ever put in place. Dubbed the Hostile Environment policy, then Home Secretary Theresa May went on record to introduce the policy’s aim of creating ‘a really hostile environment for illegal immigrants’ with a hope to ‘deport first and hear appeals later.’ With vans going around the country carrying billboards telling immigrants to literally ‘Go Home’, the policy was, and still is, seen as an exercise in undiluted dog-whistling and the actions of a government desperately trying to meet the immigration targets they set themselves years before.
Through Hostile, filmmaker Sonita Gale explores the ramifications of the Government’s actions to force immigrants to leave the country. This is done through the lens of four subjects who, in one way or another, have had their visa – and even citizenship – ripped from under them without a moment’s hesitation. Take, for example, one man whose parents moved from the Caribbean to London over 50 years ago at the behest of the Government. Given the legal right to enter the country, they, like many others, were never given official papers once they were here. As such, he is now considered an unlawful non-citizen and faces deportation back to a country he doesn’t even know.
Filmed during the start of the pandemic, Gale’s documentary highlights how even apparently simple laws around overseas students can come apart under closer scrutiny. With no access to public funds, many overseas students supplement their income with money from their parents that they can barely afford to give in the first place and working shifts in bars and restaurants. Once lockdowns put heed to all forms of social gatherings, these students would find themselves with no income and, given travel restraints, could not even get home. Unable to pay tuition fees or even their rent, Gale highlights how the students, some as young as 17, are doggedly pursued by the Government to leave the country.
Gale is clear-eyed in her assessment of the current state of affairs in old Blighty. In the final moments, she touches upon the Government’s plan to send supposed illegal immigrants to detention camps overseas. A project which, as of writing, has begun and is facing such a barrage of legal battles, the Prime Minister is considering leaving the European Courts of Human Rights just so he can save face.
Not that Gale keeps her targets set on Boris Johnson and his ilk. Although there is a sense of schadenfreude to be had from listening to current Home Secretary Priti Patel struggling to discuss new policies that would have seen her own parents shut out from the country, Gale understands this kind of rhetoric has been going on for decades. In a disturbing montage, she highlights how the British Government, including both major parties and the Lib Dems, have been gunning after immigrants since the days of the British Empire.
The Hostile Environment Policy has dehumanised many to the point that there are those who only realised it was a massive issue once Brexit was triggered. At that point, instead of the usual non-white targets, Europeans who moved over decades ago are now seen as a threat to a post-Europe Britain. Hostile is a film that will infuriate you and likely be one of the most uncomfortable viewings you’ll have. And that’s a good thing. This is a call to action wrapped up in a documentary.
