The Hostile Environment and Crimmigration: Blurring the lines between Civil and Criminal Law

Abstract

This article proceeds in three parts. First, it introduces and contextualises the UK's hostile environment policies pertaining to immigration. Second, it discusses the hostile environment as emblematic of the increased interaction of criminal law and immigration law, and the extent to which the distinctions between the two are being eroded through the phenomenon of ‘crimmigration’ - the criminalisation of immigration. In this regard it will argue that the hostile environment represents an arena in which this civil/criminal procedural line-blurring is increasingly and problematically normalised, without adequate justification. Third, it makes the case that such hybridised or blended procedures are employed instrumentally in order to circumvent due process and human rights.