ABSTRACT
In this brief paper I argue that migration policy in the United Kingdom is often inequitable and irrational and, as such, provokes non-compliance by the migrants it adversely and irrationally seeks to control. I further argue that such inequitable policy brings the whole system of migration control into disrepute, in that it is not evidence-based but is a contrived application, i.e. a socially constructed device that is intended not to manage migration rationally, but to quell moral panic (Victor 1998) about migrants as dangerous threats to social order and national security. If migration policy is constructed according to such criteria, there is a place for improving such policy by imagining more equitable policy that can be used as effectively for the same purpose. More equitable although irrational policymaking could rebuild a social contract with migrants, in which the migrants could acquire benefits by acquiescing to comply with irrational policy, thus reinforcing the policy as an effective means to control the migrants.
