Introduction

At the time of writing, much of the world is acknowledging (again) just what a grip racism (and political populism) have, and so it is also timely to confront a major issue around migration to the UK: are there some people who seem to be welcome and some who are not? Is this based solely on skin colour, or is there more to it? And does this level of welcome fluctuate?

Writers have acknowledged the perception that some people are seen as ‘Good Immigrants’ (i.e. those who seem to fit in) (see, for example: Hirsch, 2018; Shukla, 2017) – what makes some new arrivals ‘good’ and others not? New arrivals from Hong Kong are an example. As journalist Jeevan Vasagar argues, the view of them is partly based on stereotypes:

We have seen this even more clearly with the welcome offered by the UK – albeit haphazardly – to people fleeing Ukraine, yet people seeking sanctuary from other countries are not provided with the same level of support (see for example Sajjad, 2022).

In addition, the perception of refugees is often very limited and/or stereotyped: ‘… everything made about refugees is by someone else and they are represented in offensive ways. Either refugees are criminals or saints. There is no mention of the challenges people go through, things aren't black and white.’ (Mračević, 2020)

Refugees and other new arrivals – seeking sanctuary

Introduction

People have migrated – for a variety of reasons – ever since the development of the earliest societies. However, the concept of ‘asylum’ (helping people to seek refuge and offering them protection) developed more recently, originally as a religious obligation, but later taken on by nation states (Wikipedia, 2021c; Lock, 2020; Asylum Insight, 2016).