Our immigration policy creates only misery for the vulnerable | Giles Fraser | Comment is free | The Guardian
▻http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2015/feb/27/immigration-policy-misery-vulnerable-lawyers
It was a dull-looking room in a dull-looking office block. Fitted out with few anonymous-looking desks and chairs and a dirty beige carpet, it was marked out as special only by the shield of the royal coat of arms set above one of the chairs where the judge was to sit. “Dieu et mon droit,” it read – God and my right. And given that this was a court of law, one could be forgiven for thinking that “my right” referred the rights of individual citizens before the law rather than Henry V’s claim on France, which is understandably of little interest to the immigrants and asylum seekers whose destiny is decided in places like this.
My parishioners had come with God – or at least with me, which was admittedly a poor substitute – and a good lawyer. The Home Office made its case for “removal”, as it had done at previous hearings. My lovely church family was advised not to look at the government lawyer. Look at the table. Look at the floor. He would say horrible things. Pick over their lives, accuse them, call them cheats and liars. That was his job. He was under pressure from Mrs May who was under pressure from Mr Cameron who is embarrassed that he has been unable to deliver on his promise to cut immigration figures to the tens of thousands.
