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| Gregg and Kathryn Brain, with their son Lachlan at their home in Dingwall in Scotland. ‘Debates about being ‘swamped’ by immigrants never seem to centre on antipodeans with Anglo-Saxon origins.’ |
Bureaucracy. It’s a word laden with dark memories. We’ve all been caught up in it. Each will have a story of how once they were enmeshed in a paper-chain farce requiring merely a dash of common sense. But, as is typical of such scenarios, it’s usually missing. It would all be laughable if it weren’t threatening to engulf you in rage, or worse.
By worse I mean the threat of being deported from the country in which you have chosen to make a life. This is where, until this week, Gregg and Kathryn Brain, found themselves. Having moved to Scotland in 2011 on Kathryn Brain’s student visa, the family had hoped to remain in the country by moving on to a post-study visa, but the government scrapped this scheme in 2012, potentially affecting tens of thousands. Deportation was imminent.
An outpouring of support, not least from Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, and 20 job offers saved the day. Mrs Brain is now employed by Macdonald Hotels and Resorts Group as a curator for their Aviemore visitors’ centre.
This is a feel-good immigration story. Lord knows we need one. And yet it’s hard not to look at this smiling family, relieved at what has been salvaged by the goodwill of others, and think of those we seem unwilling to welcome. No one wishes misfortune on any family. In fact, I’d like to think I share in this family’s happiness. They have overcome a system that otherwise would have treated them as merely numbers. Their story has moved a community to action. It’s been accepted that these are people with much to offer. In short, they have been acknowledged as deserving and thus belonging. Does the fact that they are white and from Australia have anything to do with it? Yes, they hail from the other side of the planet but really, they might as well, pardon the pun, be neighbours.
If this post-Brexit referendum story tells us anything, it is that there is room for foreigners in this country, but only if they are people like “us”. Debates about being “swamped” by immigrants never, funnily, seem to centre on antipodeans with Anglo-Saxon origins. In notes for how to be a good immigrant we might as well write: be a) white; and b) from a rich country of origin.
We should view the story as instructive because, here, people have clearly seen how traumatic a return to a “home” country, embarked upon under duress, might be for the Brains. But we can be in no way confused; Australia hasn’t remained a penal outpost. A return there is perhaps stressful and inconvenient but it is not the end of the world. It is another matter, however, if you are Eritrean. Or if you are escaping South Sudan or north-eastern Nigeria or any number of sorry places on our planet. Yet I can’t remember the last time families being deported to such countries have been adopted in the manner the Brains have.
That Syrians are fleeing starvation, torture and death isn’t a secret. But still our government, despite promising sanctuary to a paltry 20,000 has in fact only allowed a shameful 1,602 to resettle here. What does it mean when, in our national consciousness, inconvenience should trump need? It’s hard not to surmise that it tells us who we think we can integrate into our culture and society and who we consider threatening to our way of life.
Often, when I write about issues related to asylum, I can guarantee that below the line, not so much lurking as dominating the comments sections, will be the idea that “they” are all mainly bogus. The term “economic migrant” will be thrown as though fleeing poverty the likes of which the writer most likely hasn’t experienced is a slur. It’s the thinking that is similar in vein to watching the UK Border Force documentary series (thankfully no longer) and believing that watching hopes and dreams trammelled makes for good TV. Sort of like X Factor but with way more kick.
This summer journalist Philip Kleinfeld uncovered that, between 2010 and 2015, there were 19,853 immigration raids, almost 11 a day. Those are the figures for London alone. On any given day, up and down the country, there are families like the Brains. The shame is that they aren’t being recognised as such.
guardian
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