Abstract
Firewalls are clear divisions between border policing and the provision of basic social rights. They have a dual character: to ensure that no information collected with the purpose of safeguarding basic social rights should be shared for immigration control purposes; and that migrants should not be subject to immigration control when being present at, or in the vicinity, of religious, private and public institutions upholding and providing social rights. This article suggests a normative argument for ‘firewalls’ in the context of social work and develops the concept theoretically as a principle practised and negotiated at different scales.
Highlights
The urgency of firewallsFirewalls prohibit information sharing about undocumented migrants1 between social rights providers and immigration control authorities, and limit the ability of the latter to conduct immigration control inside or within the vicinity of social rights providers’ facilities
We propose firewalls as a way for social work to maintain its role as society’s ultimate safety net, in a world increasingly characterized by cross-border human mobility and an expanding deportation regime, where those who should be excluded from the state are identified and managed (De Genova and Peutz, 2010)
The following expanded definition of the firewall principle that we have developed is possibly a starting point for such a project: No information collected with the purpose of protecting access to human rights should be requested, shared or used for migration law enforcement
Summary
The urgency of firewallsFirewalls prohibit information sharing about undocumented migrants between social rights providers and immigration control authorities, and limit the ability of the latter to conduct immigration control inside or within the vicinity of social rights providers’ facilities. We present (1) a normative argument for firewalls in social work with undocumented migrants based on professional ethics linked to social rights conventions, and (2) a theoretical development of the concept of firewalls through a discussion about how they are practised and negotiated at various scales. Apart from being a safety net, a place of care and responsiveness to rights claims, social work has historically always been involved in contentious practices of control in relation to social issues. Social workers may confuse the scope of their controlling responsibilities with that of the immigration authorities, but in this article, we put forward a number of arguments for why immigration control must never be the responsibility of social workers. We suggest, are a necessary consequence, and a prerequisite, for basic protection of social rights, as well as for maintaining the ethics of the social work profession in contemporary diverse societies
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
