We Are Social Workers Without Borders

Resisting complicity with harmful immigration policies

The WE ARE SOCIAL WORKERS WITHOUT BORDERS campaign raises awareness of, and challenges, social work complicity with harmful immigration policies. 

The hostile environment is a safeguarding risk. It embeds immigration controls into the heart of public services and communities. We firmly believe that:

• Social work must be a place of safety and support
• Our legal and moral obligation as social workers is to meet people’s safety and welfare needs, not to enforce immigration controls or offer differential treatment based on immigration status
• A person’s immigration status should be viewed by social workers through a lens of care, not control and punishment

Hostile immigration policy makes it difficult for social workers to adhere to our duty to safeguard, promote people’s welfare, and uphold human rights.  This creates a deep dissonance between our core social work values and the reality of the role.

As a profession we are pulled in many directions, often by people outside of our field. This campaign is rooted in the direct experiences of social workers. Through engaging in discussion and reflection with social workers across the UK, we are building a campaign and mobilising social workers for migration justice.