Home Immigration News Britain must not let Brexit distract us from being horrible to two boys who escaped the Taliban

Britain must not let Brexit distract us from being horrible to two boys who escaped the Taliban

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Author: Mark Steel

While the Brexit chaos continues, and many of us look forward to taking back control of our borders from wily Poles and Romanians, it’s important we don’t forget our traditional bigotry, and moan about immigrants from Asia and everywhere else as well. Because if we only yell ill-informed shite about European immigrants and ignore the black ones, that’s quite racist.

Luckily the Home Office is putting in the effort, with stories such as the tale of Jawad and his younger brother Ahmed, who was aged seven when they fled their area of Afghanistan as it was ruled by the Taliban.

They were smuggled into Iran, walked across it into Turkey, boarded a flimsy boat that at one point capsized, got to Calais where they were teargassed, and were placed in a lorry that made it to a service station in Leicester, where they were suffocating. So one of them sent a text on his mobile phone to a charity worker, and she alerted the police, who heroically rescued them from the truck, and now they’re in a hostel claiming asylum.

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One common response to this will be the natural emotional reaction, “That’s OUTRAGEOUS. How are they asylum seekers when they’ve got a mobile phone? And it must be a good one if you can get a signal in the back of a lorry, we’re being taken for MUGS.”

Politicians from most parties have repeated that immigrants come here to “take advantage” of our system. And this is a typical example. I expect they have shared use of a kettle in that hostel. If I want a kettle I have to go to Lidl, I wish I could wangle a free shared one with a bit of suffocating.

So the Home Office disputed their claim for asylum, in particular insisting the boys had psychiatric tests, to verify the boys had suffered “trauma”.

It’s reassuring to know the Home Office is careful. Because all kids play up from time to time, pretending they’re upset to get their way.

Any parent knows that trick, when you fall for those false tears, saying “oh darling, are you sad about the teargas, and the moments when you thought you were dying because you were gasping for breath in an airless lorry”. Before you know it you’ve been taken in and bought them a Magnum ice cream.

Luckily the Home Office is smarter than that.

I expect the officials watched The Man with the Golden Gun, and reassured each other that James Bond has several brushes with death and doesn’t seem too bothered, so there’s no reason why a couple of Afghan lads shouldn’t feel the same.

Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/ahmed-jawad-taliban-brexit-asylum-home-office-lorry-suffocate-a8757231.html

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