We are Economic Migrants and Asylum Seekers too

On the morning of 19th June, I turned on the television before going to work and heard the BBC report 58 bodies of far eastern appearance had been found in the back of a lorry in Dover. The Home Secretary, Jack Straw, was interviewed and immediately called the 58 dead 'illegal immigrants'. Later that day, the Prime Minister talked about tough action against those who trade in such human misery.

I was deeply shocked by the tragedy, and more shocked and disappointed by the comments of Straw and Blair. I did not hear a word of condolence to the families or sympathy for the dead. I heard sympathy such as 'our thought go to the families of those who died' in the aftermath of the death of Princess Diana and Dode Fayed, the Paddington train crash, and a few days after the Dover 58, in the Queensland fire where many young backpackers died. The lack of this basic human decency in their comments sent alarm bell ringing in my head.

What happened in the days that followed confirmed my worst fears. The Kent Police made an appeal on the BBC and the Chinese television channels asking the Chinese community to help them identify the bodies. However, when families approached Kent Police for identification, they were not allowed to identify the bodies unless they give information about their own immigration status, and the travelling route of the victims. This approach, in merging the criminal investigation with the identification process criminalised the whole Chinese community treating the victims' families as suspects. This approach sent the bereaved families into despair, and too frightened to come forward to identify their loved ones.

As the Kent Police was taking such a stance, Barbara Roche, the Immigration Minister, praised the Kent Police saying they handled the situation brilliantly. A member of the Home Affairs Race Equality Forum commented on the TV interviews that 'illegal immigrants' should be arrested and deported; the Police Chinese Liaison Unit commented regrettably they do not have the power to arrest and deport 'illegal immigrants'. The Chinese Liaison Unit observed that in the weeks immediately after the 58 bodies was found, there had been an exodus of Chinese from the street of London Chinatown, Cambridge and Hampshire. The media coverage painted a picture of Chinese driven by greed coming to England to make money.

What have these young people done to deserve such reaction from those in authority and power? Apparently the crime they have committed is to try to seek asylum in this country when they are really 'economic migrants'. Who are the economic migrants or asylum seekers? The Chinese community in the UK has also been a community of economic migrants and asylum seekers.

The early Chinese in this country were sailors who escaped war, starvation, poverty and political turmoil in China in the mid eighteen centuries when countries like Britain enforced their 'right' to trade opium with China using gunboats. Chinese people came to this country in large number in the mid-1950s and again in the early 1960s when the British Hong Kong colonial government deliberately ran down the agricultural economy to make room for urban expansion. Male members of these villages were forced to desert their land and came to this country to make a living to support their families at home; we witnessed the arrival of Chinese traders and students from Malaysia fleeing the Race riots in 1968; we witnessed Chinese students from Singapore fleeing persecution in the 1970s who sought asylum in this country; we witnessed students from Hong Kong coming to this country to study because the British colonial government failed to provide adequate higher education places in Hong Kong, many later settled here; in 1979, we witnessed 20,000 Chinese from Vietnam coming to this country to escape turmoil and persecution following the end of the Vietnam war; we witnessed thousands of students from China seeking asylum following the Tienanmen massacre; we witnessed, just before 1997, the arrival of 50,000 households (200,000 people) because of their fear of the uncertainty surrounding the return of Hong Kong to China. The arrival of Fujianese Chinese in recent years is the same as those Chinese from the Caribbean, New Territories, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnamese, Beijing and other parts of China and Hong Kong. They are as much economic migrants and asylum seekers as those Chinese who arrived in this country earlier.

The reason these recent arrivals have been received so differently lies with the racist card played by politicians in recent months, echoed by the media whipping up racial hatred and using asylum seekers to score political points. The racist card is one of the campaigning issues used by the Tory Party in the European elections and local elections last year; in response the Labour government played the same racist card to become more racist than the Tories to score political points. Both parties have targeted asylum seekers in their competition to be more racist.

The reason why people pay the so-called Snakeheads, the human smugglers, over £20,000 to take such a risky route to come to the UK is first and foremost, because British immigration laws have created a lucrative market for the criminals to exploit. The Evening Standard reported recently that the human smuggling trade is worth £50 billion in this country alone. Human cargoes are coming from all over the world where there is war, political oppression, political turmoil, hunger or poverty. There will always be people seeking to leave their home country when these situations exist.

If these people are economic migrants, they must be very bad in business, because, if they can afford to pay over £20,000 for the cost of the journey, why didn't they apply for a tourist visa or a student visa to enter this country and then work illegally. The alternative is cheaper, safer and less risky. If British immigration law is such that even if people prepared to pay £20,000 are not allowed to enter the UK as tourists, then it must be an unworkable system. When the market is such that one cannot get entry visas, even if they have £20,000 to spend. These are people who are being persecuted by the authorities in their own country. They cannot go by normal routes for the risks of being found out by the authority they escape from. The only service on offer in the market is the routes run by the criminals. What else can they turn to?

Finally, I want to ask why young people from this country, when travelling to places like the far East to work and earn money to support themselves through their journey, are seen as adventurous young backpackers and we admire their courage and encourage them to explore the world, even though they may end up working illegally in the countries they are visiting; but when people from the third world come here to work, they are classified as illegal immigrants?

The 58 young Chinese men and women found dead in Dover on 18th June were victims of Britain’s racist immigration and asylum laws. We cannot allow the authorities to persecute them and their families even after their death. Let us pay our respect to these young men and women who had the courage to try to change their lives, but unfortunately were met by death, their hopes, dignity and future suffocated in the back of a lorry.