Strangers into Citizens

Liam

Liam is a 26-year-old South African who grew up in Johannesburg in a family that is third or fourth generation English. He went to a posh private school but never went on to university. He always dreamed of going to England as a teenager; he was in love with English culture. In 2001 he came here on a working holiday visa, which he extended for two years. During this time he worked in bars and hotels, tending the reception in a major hotel chain. Towards the end of his visa he got a job in a start-up IT company, and thrived. He has been working there ever since.

In 2003 he (foolishly, he says) paid £1,200 for a dodgy visa that would allow him to stay until the end of 2007. A friend of his who also paid for one left the UK to go back to South Africa but when she tried to come back immigration told her the visa was fake and refused to let her in. He knows the visa won’t stand up to scrutiny, and the pressure and stress now are intense.

He works in IT support. His boss has trained him and taught him everything he knows.

“ My boss knows what I’ve been through and is incredibly supportive. He can’t afford to take on someone else. I do a good job, and the business has done well.”

Why not just go back?

“ I love England and I love being here,” he says, passionately. “South Africa holds no appeal for me anymore. I never made anything of myself there, whereas here my life has moved in the right direction. I belong here now. Maybe if I had gone to university in South Africa and started work there I would have a sense of belonging there. But I just can’t imagine going back there now. Here is where my friends are, where my life is, where my job and my home are.”

Liam was given an NI number when he worked legally, and still has it. He has continued to pay NI contributions and taxes. He works hard and cannot understand people who are able to work yet who claim benefit.

The hardest thing about being irregular is being cut off from his family. He is “incredibly close” to his mother and sister, whom he has only seen once since he came here, when they came over to see him in 2003 and 2004.

“ One thing that plays on my mind every night is, ‘what if something happens to my mum or my sister? If I get a call tomorrow saying my mum is in hospital, what do I do? If I go back, then I terminate my life here and it would feel like a terrible failure. But of course, if she was seriously ill then I would – I would just go back. But my mum knows that I can’t come back unless it is serious. If I were regular, I would take a month to go back and be with her, and then come back, knowing I could fly back out if her situation deterioriated. But in my situation, you have to weigh the consequences. I have to think about what’s best for all of us.”

Liam sends his mother money, which enables her to have a better life. “There’s no way I could support her in the same way if I went back.”

Liam gets emotional when he says, “It’s horrible, but I would have to know that she was terminally ill or had died for me to go back.”

I ask him if his mum and sister are supportive of him remaining in the UK.

“ My mum and my sister realise that England has been good for me, that I’ve done well here. My mum has said many times that if the stress and the panic get too much then I should come back. But they know that to me would seem like failure.”

Like other irregulars, Liam has become paranoid. “I feel nervous travelling on the tube, walking down the street, being involved in a situation where I would be asked for my papers.” He knows that immigration officials come early in the morning. “If the postman comes too early, I panic,” he says.

He was once in Boots when he saw a man hitting a woman. “I was well brought up. I didn’t hesitate. I got straight on the phone to the police, and they took my number. But afterwards, I thought, ‘ohmigod.’”

He tells a hair-raising story about some drug peddlars running away from the police who took refuge in his garden one night. “The police came and I gave them statements. I wanted to help. The next morning we found they had dropped bags of cannabis in the garden. I went with my boss to drop them off at the police station. Afterwards I panicked.”

He has become more fearful with the passing of time. “I tend to stay away from people. My close friends know of my situation but I get scared that it will just come out in public. And then someone who has a grievance will call immigration. If I get into an argument, I quickly avoid that person. You think: ‘if someone has a grievance against you, they can just denounce you.’ You feel incredibly vulnerable.”

Liam says he has started to think and act furtively, like a criminal. “And I suppose I am a criminal, because I’m on the wrong side of the law. But I haven’t done anything wrong - - unless making a new life in another country is a crime.”

Another hard thing is being unable to travel even to France. “I’ve never been to France, and it’s so close. I just can’t go anywhere abroad without losing everything I’ve built up here – my job, my home, my friends.”

Liam says he would love to tell a judge in a court about his situation. What would you tell him? I ask.

“ If I could talk to a judge I would apologise, and admit that it was wrong for me to overstay my visa. But I’d say to the judge that I feel like I’ve served a three-year sentence. I haven’t seen my family in years, I can’t go abroad, I’ve reduced my social life to a minimum. Then I’d say that I don’t think I deserve to stay, but that I’d like a chance to prove myself, to show that this is my country now, that this is my life now. I’ve chosen living in the UK above my family because I know it’s right for me. I’ve got three years’ worth of training and skills. My boss needs me. And I love England. I love this country. It’s been good to me.”

But the stress and uncertainty get to him these days.

“ You sort of stick it out in the hope that at the end of it there’s relief. I keep thinking there’ll be a solution to all this, that I won’t have to keep choosing between my new home and my family. But sometimes I despair. There are times when I think maybe I won’t make it, that I’ll be deported. It’s just too terrible to think about.”

Liam has read the Strangers into Citizens proposal and he thinks it’s fair.

“ I don’t think anybody should just be allowed to come here. But I think people who have been here for a long time, who work hard, and who have made England their home – I think they should have a chance to prove themselves.”

He says the idea of a two-year “pathway to citizenship” is the right solution. “It would give me a chance to prove myself, to prove my case. At the end of it, if I hadn’t been able to prove that I was worthy to be an Englishman, then of course I would go home. But I think people should be given that chance.”