Asylum in the UK is a racial justice issue.

Racism plays a powerful role in who receives safety and protection, how you apply for it and how the right to a dignified life is afforded to some and denied to others.

The story of racism in the UK asylum system can be told in seconds, through the unfairness and abuse faced by people treated as outsiders. But look deeper, and there’s a longer story that unfolds from Britain’s imperial past.

It’s a story told in Refugee Action’s new briefing, by researchers with lived experience of seeking safety in the UK. However we tell this story, we need to talk about racism in the asylum system.

This web page gives an overview of the briefing, which you can read in full below.

WATCH: Why we need to talk about racism

Soushian and Jonathan explain why racism in the asylum system must be recognised, called out and eradicated.

What do we mean by racial justice? What do we mean by structural racism? In this briefing, we used definitions from the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Researchers who’ve lived it themselves

With support from Refugee Action, three refugees and one person seeking asylum were trained by the University of Birmingham to become peer researchers in 2023. They were women in their 30s and 40s from Zimbabwe, Trinidad and Tobago, Mauritius and El Salvador.

The interviews they conducted with 18 people seeking asylum and refugees gave new insight into how racism in the asylum system manifests and what it’s like to experience.

WATCH: The role of the past

Soushian and Jonathan explain why you need to consider the history of colonialism to understand racism in the here and now.

Countries don’t randomly emit refugees.

Almost 70 per cent of asylum applications since 2001 were made by people from countries that experienced colonial rule, violence or resource extraction at the hands of Britain.

The volatility and repression that people escape are often the long-term consequences of Britain’s actions in the past.

Facing everyday racism, facing racism every day

Our peer researchers found dozens of examples of everyday racism directed at people in the asylum system, ranging from microaggressions and harassment to spectacles and outright violence. People were made to feel small, out of place, without value, and under attack.

Rubbish was emptied into yards, skin colour was disparaged in shops, and objects were thrown at them from moving vehicles.

Hope and resistance

Refugees have a resilience most people can never imagine.

As important as it is to emphasise the fact that racism is a defining feature of the abuse that the asylum system delivers, it’s equally important to emphasise that people seeking asylum and refugees resist this racism every day.

Defiance can be armour when necessary. So can pride. There’s one thing our interviewees made perfectly clear. At the end of the day, they still believe in themselves.

This hope and resistance in the face of systemic racism is the driving force that makes racial justice possible.

WATCH: Racial justice means justice for refugees

The movements for racial justice and for refugee rights are really one and the same. As Jonathan says, ‘there’s plenty of work to do, let’s do it together.’

What we’re demanding

These are our recommendations to address racism in the UK asylum system.