Once again, my passport failed at the electric gates so I was directed to gates 36 and the one next door where troublemakers are sent. I heard at once a white guy from Border Force saying very loudly “We just do not believe you.” His female Asian colleague nodded. The man trying to get into Britain was not impressed.
His story was that he could not remember where he had come from and did not know which country he had landed in. He did not have a passport, Passenger Locator Form and details of a covid test.
Of course he would have needed all three to get on a plane to land at Heathrow as well as some money to pay for his test and for his flight. He clearly chucked those documents down the plane loo so that his origins could not be traced. Once he was among the folks from dozens of planes at passport control he could have come from anywhere.
The woman managed to communicate with him in a language that was not English so they must know where this attempted illegal immigrant came from.
The bloke next to me in the line said “he’ll be on a plane soon.” I said that I bet he’d be eating Domino’s Pizzas at the taxpayers expense before I made it home. I wonder how such migrants who clearly are economic migrants could be stopped. Could airlines be forced to scan all those without a British passport flying to Britain and facial recognition technology then be used to arrange where such folks should be returned to? I do not know the answer.
Surely even Guardian readers must accept that only relatively rich folks from poor countries can afford to arrive in the UK In this way, so there is no obvious need for compassion, and also that allowing deliberately undocumented migrants into the UK is not a terribly good idea. So if we can all agree that such folks should be returned home the only question is how?