Controlling care or caring control? Violent entanglements within UK immigration and counter-terrorism policies

This article explores contemporary tensions between care and control dynamics within social work practice through the analysis of UK immigration and counter-terrorism policies. Drawing from qualitative research conducted to examine the impact of ‘no recourse to public funds’ (NRPF), a legal condition for those subject to immigration control, alongside the PREVENT agenda, designed to identify those at risk of radicalisation, this article explores the violent consequences created in this context. Understanding social work as biopolitical, we utilise the concept of entanglement to interrogate how these policies are enacted within UK social work and the effect this has on the individuals and communities subject to them. By exploring the interplay of care and control within NRPF and PREVENT policies, we conclude that the ability of social workers to act in an anti-racist manner is detrimentally impacted by the entanglement of neo-colonial violence, the criminalisation of safeguarding and a politics of confusion.