Well, how did you get here?
I spent 10 months in Calais trying to get to Britain. It was before small boat crossings become the main method of getting here, but the smugglers were there. We all hated them because they made it more difficult for us to cross the Channel without them. I tried every way I could: lorries, cargo trains, sneaking into the port to try to conceal myself on a ferry.
There you go then. You're a criminal. Just as if, had you climbed in through a window or jemmied a back door, no-one would call you a guest, but a burglar.
Although I had been granted leave to remain by then, I was really scared that the government would come after me too and deport me. That fear has grown even more since the Home Office changed its policy this February: people like me who entered irregularly will now “normally be refused citizenship”.
Good! Let's hope they catch up with you, then, since you've devoted your time here, not to repaying us for our generosity, but ensuring that you assist more of your kind to evade checks and balances on who enters the country:
I work as a cinematographer and also volunteer with a charity as an Arabic interpreter. I speak to a lot of age-disputed young people who the Home Office insists are adults and have been placed in adult hotels. It is so obvious when I listen to them speak that they are children. They cry down the phone to me. They hate being in hotels, forced to share rooms with adults they don’t know.
It's really puzzling. There must, simply by the law of averages, be genuine asylum seekers out there, who have sought that status lawfully and are grateful to the country, yet the 'Guardian' never seems to be able to find any for these pieces...
I wonder how many Grauniad readers, highly educated beyond all reason, come to the same conclusion that you do Julia. Not many I suspect.
ReplyDeleteVery few, and since they never allow comments on these articles, we’ll never really know.
DeleteThe issue is that middle-class Guardian readers have not been inconvenienced by the influx of illegal invaders thus far, so they can keep their illusory ideas intact.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the government policy is to now empty the hotels and place illegals in HMOs. These HMOs are large houses where several separate rooms can be used to house the occupants.
Where are these large houses? In predominantly middle-class areas. I will relish watching the middle classes start to change their tune when they are directly affected. Sad they can't see the truth without the reality check they're about to get.
Me too, I’m laying in extra popcorn!
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