The Gambia’s Immigration Bill Must Protect Both Security and Freedom

A modern immigration law can keep the country safe without giving unchecked power over liberty. Gambians should read the Bill, question its gaps, and speak before it becomes law.

By Sarjo Barrow, Esq.  

In today’s geopolitics, few subjects are as controversial or as combustible as immigration. From the xenophobic violence in South Africa, to the rise of nationalists in France, to the European Union’s hardening line on migration and the bitter fights in the United States, politicians have perfected the fear of the outsider to explain almost everything. The Gambia is no exception. With a string of high-profile cases—including murders in which the suspect was foreign-born or undocumented—what was a television story for many of us has become a kitchen-table conversation, charged enough that pundits now caution against rhetoric that would make us sound like a xenophobic nation.

Into this moment, the National Assembly has introduced the Gambia Immigration Bill, 2026—the first of its kind since independence. It would replace the statute we inherited in 1965 with a modern framework for who may enter, who may remain, how our borders are managed, and how we confront migrant smuggling. It is also an opportunity: a chance for citizens, civil society, advocates, policymakers, and all of us to tell our representatives how we welcome newcomers while adhering to our international treaties and obligations, yet remaining faithful to security, public safety, and a constitutional republic.

It is against this backdrop that I write in my personal capacity as a lawyer to offer my own observations on the gazetted bill. I spent more than a decade working at the intersection of immigration, human rights, and national security. That experience has left me with one firm conviction: protecting a nation and protecting rights are not opposing goals. A well-written immigration law does both. A poorly written one does neither.

Indeed, immigration law is where national security and personal liberty meet most directly. The same provisions that determine whether a dangerous person can be detained or removed also determine whether an innocent person can be held without charge or sent to a place where they may be tortured. If we get the balance right, the State is both safe and just. If we get it wrong, we risk the worst of both worlds: real threats slipping through the cracks, and ordinary people—sometimes even citizens—swept up by mistake with no clear way to put it right.

The Bill is, in important respects, a genuine step forward, and its drafters deserve credit. But as written, it leaves gaps that will create problems for officers, applicants, and courts. It promises protection for people fleeing persecution, yet gives immigration officers no clear process to follow when someone says, “I will be killed if you send me back.” It uses overlapping labels for people who may be excluded, without clear rules connecting them. It permits detention without firm time limits or a guaranteed hearing before a judge. It does not clearly protect a person’s right to ask a court to review a detention or removal decision. And it does not expressly bar from refugee protection those who have committed atrocities or financed terrorism.

Every one of these gaps can be closed without going soft on danger. We can detain people convicted of grave crimes—murder, rape, kidnapping, terrorism—while still setting a firm ceiling on detention and requiring a hearing if proceedings drag on. We can give officers a fast, lawful way to remove serious offenders, and to turn back travelers who arrive with no genuine papers and no claim to stay, while still screening for anyone who fears return and absolutely forbidding return to torture. We can bar human-rights abusers from asylum while honoring our Constitution and the treaties we have signed. Firmness and fairness are not a trade-off; each makes the other stronger.

This is what too often gets lost: unchecked power is not strength. A system that allows an official to detain or expel a person with no fixed limit, and no meaningful chance for a judge to review the decision, is not strong—it is brittle. It invites error, corrodes public trust, and gives critics an easy target. Real security comes from authority that is clear, bounded, and reviewable. That does not weaken the State; it gives the State’s decisions legitimacy.

Unchecked power is not strength. Genuine security comes from authority that is clear, bounded, and reviewable.

I have prepared a detailed, clause-by-clause amendment to the Bill and will submit them to the National Assembly for members’ consideration. But one lawyer’s submission is not enough—and it should not be. A law this consequential, one we may live under for a generation, deserves broad public scrutiny before it is passed.

So, this is my appeal: the Gambia Bar Association, civil-society organizations, refugee and migrant advocates, employers who hire across borders, faith leaders, journalists, and ordinary citizens should read the Bill and send their views to their representatives. You do not need to be a lawyer. You need only care how power over liberty is exercised in your name. Ask the questions that matter: Where is the asylum process? What are the limits on detention? Can a person go to court? Who is protected, and who is left out?

That is how a constitutional democracy is meant to work. Laws are stronger, not weaker, when they are tested in the open before they take effect. The National Assembly cannot weigh views it never hears. We will all live under this law—so we should all help shape it, and make it one that keeps The Gambia both safe and free.