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 study focuses on the experiences of asylum-seekers who have been electronically tagged— their struggles and their methods of resistance.

The electronic tag administers a mandatory curfew on asylum-seekers, administered by a ‘crimmigration apparatus’ that is made up of the Home Office and its (in)security contractors. 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.

As the Home Office continues to expand the detention estate and issue new contracts to corporations, asylum-seekers are increasingly endangered by the propensity of further surveillance, privatized abuse, and restricted civil liberties.