Immigration Law Practitioners Association (ILPA)
Understanding discrimination in the UK’s immigration practice
The Backbone Fund provides core funding to organisations that strengthen collaboration, champion voice and agency, and play key infrastructure roles in the sectors we support. Part of Paul Hamlyn Foundation’s commitment to civil society and its leaders, the Backbone Fund enables organisations to plan strategically for the long term, helping to build resilience in the voluntary sector.
We made a five-year grant to the Immigration Law Practitioners Association (ILPA) to develop organisational capacity and resources, providing expertise and influencing policy on migration law in the UK.
This grant contributed to a body of work to better understand how discrimination plays out in the immigration system and to improve the diversity of the sector’s workforce, which could lead to positive impact for immigrants in the future. As part of this, ILPA is exploring the Home Office’s decision-making and practices, with a focus on identifying patterns and trends that could reveal conscious or subconscious discriminatory decision-making. More specifically, they are examining any potential correlations between refusal rates and ethnicity, gender, nationality, and/or sexuality, which could indicate potential bias and prejudice in decision-making.
ILPA also set up a Racial Justice and Equality Working Group to improve access to the sector to counter the limited diversity among immigration practitioners particularly in senior roles, to address the systemic racism prevalent in the sector within immigration systems and workplaces, and to help foster a more welcoming environment for racialised practitioners.
Furthermore, ILPA organised a series of Black Lives Matter Webinars with topics including: Racism in the Immigration Sector; Challenging Racism: power, insult and microaggressions in the workplace; Black Minds Matter: Mental Health and Well-Being resources for Black Practitioners and POC; and Race, BLM and the legal sector – where next?
This body of work is linked to the results of a survey distributed to ILPA’s members entitled ‘ILPA explores Racism in the Immigration Sector’. ILPA’s work is supported by Paul Hamlyn Foundation and other funders.
