A recognised expert on immigration, asylum and international human rights law, Sangeetha is often asked to provide comment and expert insight on television, radio and in the print media. The below provides a flavour of her media experience.
Media
Media
A recognised expert on immigration, asylum and international human rights law, Sangeetha is often asked to provide comment and expert insight on television, radio and in the print media. The below provides a flavour of her media experience.
IGTV Interview with TEDxLondon
in discussion with TEDxLondon curator Maryam Pasha, Sangeetha takes a deep dive into why language matters when we’re talking about migration. She discusses how we can all make changes to flip the script on toxic inaccurate narratives around migration and what speaking truth to power means in practice.
21 April 2021
Watch online here.
Television Interview with Niall Paterson, Sky News
Speaking to Niall Paterson on Sunrise, Sangeetha admonishes the legal errors underlying the New Immigration Plan revealed by the Home Secretary today. In a live interview given directly after the Home Secretary’s addresss to Sky News, Sangeetha deplores the Home Office’s abuse of the term ‘illegal’ to malign asylum seekers with criminals. She explains why it is a dangerous lie that should not be spun and perpetuated from those in the corridors of power.
24 March 2021
Television Interview with Joanna Gosling, BBC News
Sangeetha looks at the Home Secretary’s New Immigration Plan, revealed today, through a legal lens. In a live interview Sangeetha explains why the proposals are shocking on several legal levels and rely on political myths that are not only incorrect but dangerous. She highlights that judges should not be seen as enemies of the State for scrutinising government decisions, and the Home Office should not be advocating for a system in which it will be unchallengeable.
24 March 2021
Watch online here (low res).
Radio Interview with BBC World Service
The UK Home Secretary unveiled a New Immigration Plan today which boasts to be the toughest set of proposals yet for migrants. Sangeetha questions the bedrock of the Plan which misrepresents and maligns ‘illegality’ with asylum. Debunking the myths upon which this Plan is built, Sangeetha provides a legal analysis of what is being proposed.
24 March 2021
Television Interview with Channel 5 News
Sangeetha expresses concern on several legal levels about the New Immigration Plan which she explains is seeking to criminalise refuge, shirk the UK’s international legal obligations and incorrectly malign asylum with criminality.
24 March 2021
Watch online here.
Radio Interview with Lisa Aziz, LBC News
Offshore processing fails to succeed at deterring asylum seekers, so why would the UK turn to tried and failed ideas? Sangeetha examines why the UK’s latest migration policy proposal won’t achieve its ends.
22 March 2021
Radio Interview with Patrick Christys, Talk Radio [extract]
Sangeetha responds to the UK Home Secretary’s leaked proposal to send asylum seekers to offshore processing centres in Gibraltar and the Isle of Man. Sangeetha puts the proposal through the tests of legality, legitimacy and lawfulness, explaining why it fails on all grounds.
20 March 2021.
Listen online here
Radio Interview with Ian Dale, LBC News
In a leaked media report Priti Patel, the UK’s Home Secretary, proposes to send asylum seekers to offshore processing centres. Sangeetha, in discussion with Ian Dale, examines the human rights implications of these proposals.
18 March 2021
TEDx Talk, TEDxLondon Women 2020
‘Why Stripping Rights from Migrants Strips Rights from Everyone’
Sangeetha’s first TEDx Talk debunks the migrant myth. Entitled ‘Why Stripping Rights from Migrants Strips Rights from Everyone’, the talk is designed to be an accessible and shareable tool to powerfully illustrate why we all need to remain vigilant to the way migrants are treated. Using the medium of human stories, Sangeetha reveals how our own liberty is threatened under the guise of immigration control.
6 February 2021
Watch online here.
Expert Comment on Matteo Salvini’s Trial, Al Jazeera Online
Sangeetha provides expert legal comment on former Italian Minister of the Interior, Matteo Salvii’s criminal trial where he is accused of abduction and dereliction of duty. She discusses the importance of this case in setting positive legal precedent given Italy’s central role in the Mediterranean.
11 December 2020
Read full text article online here.
Keynote Address, Forum for Expatriate Management‘s Online Summit 2020
Sangeetha gave the keynote address to kick off FEM’s five-day online summit. She first paints a picture of the global displacement crisis as it stands today and the unnecessary human rights abuses that it has created. She continues to explain that Displaced Talent Mobility could offer a pragmatic solution to businesses, restore human rights and offer a pathway out of displacement.
16 November 2020
Watch online here.
Radio Interview with Shelagh Fogarty, LBC Radio
Sangeetha, in discussion with Shelagh Fogarty, discusses the avoidable migrant deaths in the Channel and questions whether the UK’s migration policy is fit for purpose.
28 October 2020
Radio Interview with Rachel Johnson, LBC
Priti Patel, the UK’s Home Secretary, proposes an entire overhaul of the British asylum system at the Conservative Party’s virtual annual conference. Sangeetha, in discussion with Rachel Johnson, examines whether the proposals are indeed ‘firm and fair’, or belie a total misunderstanding of basic concepts of asylum law. Sangeetha questions whether this is yet another attack this Government is waging on the rule of law.
4 October 2020
Radio Discussion with John Nicholson at Talk Radio
Sangeetha discusses the Home Secretary’s recent proposal to offshore asylum processing to ‘remote’ islands such as Ascension, St Helena and the Shetlands. Sangeetha questions why the Home Office is proposing logistically impossible, wildly expensive border policies that we know from the Australian model do not work as a deterrent. Sangeetha finds that at a time of unprecedented national recession, it seems all the more incomprehensible for the Home Office be embarking on billionaire’s follies for political point-scoring.
4 October 2020
Radio Interview with Shelagh Fogarty, LBC
Sangeetha discusses the Home Office’s proposal to offshore asylum processing to the South Atlantic. Clearly inspired by the Australian model, Sangeetha examines the logistics, legality and legitimacy of a potential UK model, explaining why ‘out of sight, out of mind’ policies are not only inhumane, but unlawful.
30 September 2020
Radio Interview with LBC News [extract]
Sangeetha speaks out against the Home Office’s recent infographic. She explains why this is an attack on the rule of law which is the cornerstone of our society and is there to protect all of us from an abuse of powers. Sangeetha is concerned that the Home Office, a public body, does not want to be challenged when it acts unlawfully. Is the Home Office saying it is above the law?
27th August 2020
Radio Interview with Jim Davies on BBC Radio London
Speaking to Jim Davies, Sangeetha explains why the UK Home Office’s recent infographic is both inaccurate and inflammatory and amounts to an attack on the integrity of the legal profession. Sangeetha questions why public funds are being used to produce propaganda that celebrates the Home Office’s unlawful removals.
27th August 2020
Radio Interview with Clive Bull, LBC News
Presenter Clive Bull and Sangeetha discuss the UK’s legal and moral obligations when it comes to deporting asylum seekers.
23rd August 2020
Radio Interview with BBC Radio Stoke
Presenter Ajmal Hussain and Sangeetha discuss the UK government’s political hyperbole around asylum seekers and why this amounts to dangerous anti-migrant propaganda.
23rd August 2020
Radio Interview with BBC Radio West Midlands
Sangeetha explains to Presenter Gagan Grewal why the death of the death of a young Sudanese child in the Channel was entirely avoidable and why the Home Office’s branding of boat arrivals as a ‘crisis’ is nothing more than political hyperbole.
23rd August 2020
Radio Interview with BBC Radio Sheffield
Speaking to presenter Gul Nawaz, Sangeetha explains why the UK’s barbaric border policy, stoked by the ‘hostile environment’ is causing the death of asylum seekers with the legal right to claim asylum. She continues to highlight why this anti-migrant sentiment has implications of British people of colour.
23rd August 2020
Radio Interview with BBC Radio Derby
Sangeetha spoke to Satvinder Rana about how the UK’s border policy can be easily changed to prevent asylum seekers from taking fatal journeys across the world’s busiest waterway.
23rd August 2020
Radio Interview with BBC Radio Essex
Following the death of a Sudanese boy in the Channel, Sangeetha dispels myths surrounding the so-called ”illegality’ of asylum seekers’ entry into the UK.
20th August 2020
Radio Discussion with Ian Payne, LBC Radio
Speaking to Ian Payne, Sangeetha explains why the death of a young Sudanese boy in the Channel was entirely avoidable. It is the embodiment of our failing border policy and it must stop.
19th August 2020
Radio Discussion on LBC Radio with presenter Shelagh Fogarty
Sangeetha appeared on a panel with Lord Alf Dubs to discuss how to prevent channel crossings by boat into the UK in a lawful and humane way that maintains our legal obligations
18th August 2020
Radio Interview with Matt Chorley, Times Radio
Sangeetha explains why the arrival and ‘management’ of unaccompanied asylum seeking children is not a problem of county council finance, but down to chaotic and illogical border policy. The solution is simple, to resuscitate tried and tested legal pathways to claim asylum.
18th August 2020
Radio Interview on BBC Radio London
Sangeetha explains that asylum seekers have a legal right to claim asylum and the Refugee Convention protects all asylum seekers from being prosecuted or persecuted from their mode of entry into a country for the purposes of seeking refuge. She reminds listeners that the actions of these asylum seekers are entirely lawful and the numbers entering do not indicate a ‘surge’ as the Home Secretary suggests.
13th August 2020
Radio Discussion on LBC Radio with presenter Nick Ferrari
Sangeetha urged that a dispassionate and objective perspective is taken when considering channel crossing. Sangeetha dispelled myths surrounding asylum seekers and highlighted that their journeys of refuge and hardship do not end at the UK border.
11th August 2020
Television interview with Vanessa Baffoe on Sky News Live
Sangeetha explains why securitising the border is not a lawful or proportionate response to desperate asylum seekers attempting to cross the Channel. She asks why the UK is raising a call to Naval Arms and further securitising the border when it should be creating safe and legal pathways to the UK to save lives and quash demand for the thriving smuggling industry.
8th August 2020
Radio interview with Lisa Aziz, LBC News
Sangeetha joined Lisa Aziz to discuss the recent media attention channel crossings have been given. Describing that in the absence of any safe and legal pathways to the UK, asylum seekers are left with no choice but to take to unsafe dinghies to exercise their right to asylum.
7 August 2020
TEDxLondon – Conversations Beyond Borders
Sangeetha joined Maryam Pasha, Director of TEDx London and Jude Habib, Director of Sound Delivery for a rich discussion on the human rights implications of the new Coronavirus Bill in the UK and the impact anti-Covid measures are having on vulnerable communities. The crucial take away is that Covid-19 knows no borders. The only real border is between humanity and the viral world.
27 March 2020
Watch full panel discussion and Q&A online here.
Television interview with CGTN Europe
Sangeetha was interviewed by CGTN Europe to demystify issues surrounding migration and the Greek islands. She explains what the Greek island policy is, why this has administratively marooned tens of thousands of asylum seekers and refugees for months on end an she casts a light on this systematic dispossession of the most recognised refugees in Athens.
17 October 2019
Watch full interview here.
Radio interview with Nick Ferrari, LBC News
There are two very different portraits of Shamima Begum that have dominated the media: the sympathetic portrait of a British teenager, born in Britain, educated in Britain, radicalised in Britain and having sustained the deep trauma of losing three children by the age of 19 and the second is the young outspoken supporter of ISIS, who knowingly and remorselessly abandoned Britain and its values to adopt ISIS values and its terror. Sangeetha explains that what is legally interesting is the Home Secretary’s decision to immediately deprive Ms Begum of her citizenship, rather than apply to court for a ‘TEO” (Temporary Exclusion Order). This means a court will be concerned with whether she is stateless rather than which of the two portraits is correct.
2 April 2019