Migration is a central part of human life, shaping communities, families, workplaces, and relationships in ways that are often overlooked. However, across the global north, public and political discourse frequently frame migration as a crisis to be controlled, a threat to national security, or a burden on services. These narratives simplify complex human experiences into stories of risk, disruption or emergency, obscuring the psychological realities of movement and the contributions migrants make to society. By focusing on fear, control and deterrence, such rhetoric legitimises harm and sidelines the voices of those whose lives are most affected.
Migration and political narratives
In the United Kingdom, the rise of Reform UK and the re-emergence of inflammatory migration rhetoric have brought renewed calls for stricter border controls and tighter regulation. Even for migrants who are legally resident, this political climate contributes to pervasive uncertainty, stress, and fear, as communities become acutely aware of the hostile narratives circulating in media and policy debates. Reports from organisations such as the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, alongside community‑led research by Migrant Voice and Open Rights Group, highlight how such rhetoric and systems exacerbate psychological pressures, including anxiety, social withdrawal, and a heightened sense of vulnerability. Yet these effects are often overlooked in public discussion, which tends to favour soundbites about deterrence and enforcement rather than acknowledging the everyday realities of diasporic communities navigating these dynamics.
A tangible climate of growing hostility
This climate of hostility does not remain abstract. It translates into concrete decisions and behaviours shaped by fear and uncertainty. Home Office data show that grants of British citizenship have risen sharply in recent years, reaching a record high in 2024, as many people with settled status seek the perceived security of citizenship in an unpredictable political climate. For many, this decision is driven less by aspiration than by fear, of shifting rules, hostile rhetoric and the possibility of rights being eroded.
Yet the cost of applying, now close to £1,750 for most adults, places a significant financial burden on those already navigating uncertainty. In practice, this risks turning legal security into something that must be purchased, reinforcing inequality and leaving those with fewer resources particularly vulnerable.
In the United States, highly visible operations led by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have resulted in documented deaths in custody and widespread fear within migrant communities, prompting growing calls from activists and scholars to reform or abolish the agency. Organisations such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) argue that these deaths highlight systemic failures in healthcare, inadequate oversight, and harmful detention practices. Human Rights Watch has condemned prolonged solitary confinement and punitive treatment in immigration detention as cruel and dehumanising, noting that such practices severely worsen psychological harm, including anxiety, depression, and risk of suicide.
Psychological harm and political responsibility
Globally, hostile political rhetoric, restrictive migration policies and enforcement practices shape the everyday experiences of millions of migrants. These conditions can produce chronic fear, prolonged uncertainty and cumulative trauma, with lasting effects on wellbeing, family stability and children’s development. Both the British Psychological Society and the American Psychological Association highlight the importance of recognising how these social and political environments affect mental health, and call for policies and practices that mitigate psychological harm.
The rhetoric surrounding migration also raises uncomfortable questions about contradiction and hypocrisy in settler-colonial states such as the US and UK. Both countries are shaped by, and continue to benefit from, imperial expansion, conquest and the violent displacement of Indigenous peoples. Contemporary migration narratives obscure responsibility and accountability while reinforcing stereotypes that cast migration as a problem to be managed rather than a human experience to be understood. Scholars including Gurminder Bhambra and Frantz Fanon have long argued that migration cannot be separated from empire, yet political discourse continues to treat it as an external disruption rather than a legacy of global inequality.
Lived experience and research
Building on these insights, social scientists at Leeds Trinity University, Dr. Laura De Pretto and Saira Mirza, have edited a two-volume collection on Migration Psychology that seeks to unpack the diverse lived experiences of migrants around the world. The first volume focuses on identity dynamics in the UK, while the second explores global migration contexts. This work engages directly with the contradictions of migration discourse, linking intimate psychological experiences of migrants to the longer histories of empire, border violence and displacement that continue to shape contemporary politics.
At the same time, the volumes highlight stories of endurance, creativity, and contribution, recognising not only those harmed or lost through migration, but also those who have built new communities, sustained families across borders and enriched social, cultural, and economic life in the places they now call home. By centring lived experience, this work challenges dehumanising stereotypes and reveals how migration is embedded in systems that often strip people of their dignity, safety and voice, while also showing how migrants continue to assert agency and meaning in the face of constraint.
Beyond one-size-fits-all policies
Research from the Migration Observatory shows that migrants are deeply embedded in the social and economic fabric of the UK. Yet policies and services frequently fail to reflect this complexity, instead applying one-size-fits-all approaches that hinder rather than support integration and wellbeing. To understand migration meaningfully, lived experience must be central to research and practice. When we listen to migrants’ own accounts, a very different picture emerges. First-hand narratives, such as those collected by the UN Refugee Agency and community-led organisations, make visible the emotional and psychological labour involved in rebuilding life under conditions of uncertainty and scrutiny.
Everyday realities
In UK contexts, this requires careful attention to how migration shapes everyday life within communities. It includes experiences of belonging and exclusion, encounters with racism and discrimination, negotiations of cultural expectations, and the ways resilience is fostered through familial, religious, and communal networks.
It also demands serious examination of how these dynamics intersect with local institutions, from schools and healthcare services to housing and employment systems. These systems are not neutral: they can either mitigate or intensify harm.
Reframing the conversation
At a time when migration is increasingly politicised, psychology has a critical role to play in reframing public conversation. Rather than reinforcing deficit-based narratives, psychological research can illuminate how hostile environments damage mental health, fracture trust, and undermine social cohesion.
By foregrounding lived experience, this body of work sheds light on the complex and often invisible realities of migration. It recognises the resilience, care, and creativity through which migrants sustain families, communities, and social life across borders, while challenging the dehumanising narratives that continue to dominate public debate.
Migration is not a threat. It is, and always has been, a fundamental human experience. It carries loss and hardship, but also connection, renewal and the possibility of richer, more inclusive societies when people are able to live with dignity, humanity and security.
Bylines Network Gazette is out!
The latest Bylines Network Gazette is out now. Become a Friend of Bylines Network or upgrade to a paid Substack subscription, and you will get access to a vital collection of citizen articles and stories.
Journalism by the people, for the people.
