The Cambridge Migration Society Graduate Migration Research Series: Electronic Tagging of Asylum Seekers in the UK

While the electronic tagging of asylum-seekers is often considered a humane alternative to detention, it is actually a tactic of Theresa May’s ‘hostile environment’ that deeply constricts an individual’s physical, psychological, and social freedom. This talk discusses the experiences of asylum-seekers who have been electronically tagged— their struggles and their methods of resistance. The apparatus neglects asylum-seekers and their cases through bureaucratic loopholes, lack of accountability, enforced paranoia, and dehumanization. Within the community, asylum-seekers are unable to work, volunteer, or participate in civil society because of the tag. Yet despite the psychological trauma and physical restrictions, electronically tagged asylum-seekers fight against this socio-political oppression through everyday and extraordinary acts.