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UK treating immigrants like terrorists

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THE UK is closing bank accounts, confiscating money and treating Zimbabweans with expired visas as terrorists and non-human.
The situation of foreigners in England is pathetic.
While Britain is a free democratic country on paper, its treatment of human beings of different nationalities tells a different story.
US President Donald Trump is a better devil; he does not hide his racism while the UK is hiding it under immigration control.
The UK has introduced laws which, in modern times, can best be described as archaic.
These laws have resulted in the wanton freezing of immigrants’ bank accounts and revoking their drivers’ licenses.
As if this was not enough, the UK has instructed landlords to kick out foreigners without the right papers from their houses.
Apparently, human rights have become a luxury for foreigners; they are not entitled to them.
One now has to pay up to 3 000 pounds for an indefinite leave to remain in the UK.
A family of five pays up to
12 000 pounds for indefinite leave to remain in the country.
The price goes up every quarter.
The so-called champions of human rights have become abusers of the same. 
Zimbabweans without ‘right to stay’ are finding their bank accounts frozen and they now rely on hand-outs for survival.
The Government’s decision to force banks and building societies to freeze the accounts of failed asylum seekers, foreign national offenders and visa over-stayers has a ring of a punitive and vindictive attitude.
It appears Prime Minister Theresa May really wants Zimbabweans to leave the UK.
As home secretary, she oversaw the creation of ‘hostile environment’ for illegal immigrants, including requiring landlords to check their tenant’s immigration status, and a ‘deport first, appeal later’ policy.
Now, as Prime Minister, she is enforcing those policies ruthlessly.
There are four problems with these measures.
First, there is the question of whether the punishment fits the crime. Around half of asylum claims are rejected while the legal battles are complex.
The Home Office mostly disobeyed court orders by deporting people to Zimbabwe.
Second, there is the risk of over-enforcement, combined with a lack of accountability.
Half of landlords interviewed about the immigration checks said they were less likely to rent out to a foreigner, according to Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants research.
Given private renters already struggle to receive basic rights, to whom should the foreign renter appeal?
Then there’s the banks’ record of blacklisted accounts with some erroneously blacklisted.
HSBC closed the bank accounts of Zimbabweans in the UK en masse based on a ‘risk assessment’.
Most legally settled Zimbabweans woke up to closed accounts.
The inconvenience was terrible.  
Third, one of May’s few insights on immigration has been the widespread existence of exploitation and slavery in the UK. Employers who exploit workers already prefer to pay (very little) cash in hand.
Traffickers demand free labour to pay back debts and accommodation costs. If vulnerable immigrants with an uncertain status are forced out of the visible economy, they are recruited by unscrupulous bosses.
Already many Zimbabweans have not received their salaries because the employer believed them to be illegal immigrants.
The situation is pathetic and more so because it is sanctioned by the Government. 
The British Government measures seem designed to target a group of people without a voice, winning approval in the right-wing press.
Britain is not an economic island and the economy still relies on the work of immigrants.
If you are a highly educated taxpayer, living in the UK holds the prospect of spending your evenings pleading with letting agents and banks, justifying your existence because you are an immigrant; why on earth would you want to stay?
Thus, many Zimbabweans are in a ‘no bank account’, ‘cannot drive’, ‘cannot rent a house’, ‘cannot buy or sell’ and ‘cannot work’ situation.
They are totally discriminated against and have no recourse to justice. Immigration laws in the UK have become draconian, oppressive and a total breach of human rights. 
Vazet2000@yahoo.co.uk

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