Congress slammed the Westminster Government’s
rigid and unfair approach to immigration
and called for a more humane and economically
sensible approach in Scotland, to support
a sustained economic recovery.
It set
out a range of measures to challenge
current immigration policy through Holyrood
and to campaign with other organisations
such as the Scottish Refugee Council,
to allow asylum seekers the right to
work and to end the arbitrary cap on
migration. It also pledged to challenge
the far right at every opportunity.
UNISON
Scotland has long challenged the worst
aspects of the current system and
campaigned for a more humane approach
to asylum seekers and migrant workers.
Seconding the Black Members' motion,
John Stevenson said that we should remember
that about
a million people born in Scotland currently
live elsewhere.
“We like to tell ourselves that those
migrants enrich the communities they
go to, so why would that not be the same
for people who choose – or are
forced – to come to Scotland,” he
asked.
“As someone much wiser than me
once said: ’Immigration
does not swamp, it enriches’, and
in Scotland terms it is also essential
to economic growth.”
He pointed
out that although immigration is a reserved
matter, much of the policy
on how migrants and asylum seekers are
treated in Scotland does come within
the remit of the Scottish Government
and Local Authorities, which gives some
flexibility.
John dismissed far right
arguments that migrants are a drain on
our benefits
system, telling Congress that a single
asylum seeker over 18 gets only £36.62
a week. If their claim fails they end
up with nothing, relying on benefits
and charity.
“But not from choice,” said
John. “It is because they are not
allowed to work, to provide for themselves,
to contribute to society through work
and taxes. They are not spongers, they
are victims of a crass system of forced
destitution.”
He told of the hidden
despair created by immigration legislation
including
the disgrace of forced family separation.
John called for the Scottish Government
to bring forward policies to improve
the quality of life for immigrants such
as actively welcoming and including migrants
and asylum seekers; and improving information
and access to health, social and community
services, as proposed by the Equality
and Human Rights Commission.
“Yes we need a change at UK level but
we also need to push the Scottish Government
to do what it can within its existing
powers,” said John.
18 April 2013
