Letter to 7 year old asking him to leave the country

Does anybody else find this rather sick and disturbing?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-24918727

In a letter addressed to Jamie, immigration officials wrote: "As you appear to have no alternative basis of stay in the United Kingdom you should now make arrangements to leave.
"If you fail to do so voluntarily your departure may be enforced."

And I thought Britain was a compassionate, level-headed nation of the 21st century...

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Original post by james1211

Does anybody else find this rather sick and disturbing?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-24918727

And I thought Britain was a compassionate, level-headed nation of the 21st century...

Britain, compassionate? Hahahahahaha! Never in my life have I heard someone regard Britain as compassionate.

Reply 3

455409

Original post by Moosferatu

Britain, compassionate? Hahahahahaha! Never in my life have I heard someone regard Britain as compassionate.

Compared to many nations we are. We grant asylum where it is appropriate, we give much in the way of foreign aid.

These are the actions of a militant Home Office more likely to be found in a nation from the Soviet bloc than a sensible western nation.

Reply 4

Moosferatu

Original post by james1211

A good point, now I see what you mean. That idea of Britain being regarded as a 'soft' nation by a certain proportion of the electorate, mainly due to mass immigration attributed, rightly or wrongly, to New Labour.

Reply 5

KanKan

Original post by james1211

Completely agree. It would be difficult to name countries more 'compassionate' than us IMHO.

Reply 6

455409

Original post by Algorithm69

lol it just sounds like a mistake to me. Way to make a mountain out of a molehill. If anyone actually believes there is a chance he'd be deported you're an idiot.

This is my favourite part of the article:

"I'm completely horrified that my son could be forcibly removed from me and taken out of the country in handcuffs, it makes me pretty sick."

I literally laughed out loud at that. When did the BBC become sensationalist trash?

I agree the article is sensasionalist *******s for the most part but the fact remains that somebody at the Home Office deliberately and consciously made the effort to address the letter to the boy himself, either through a lack of research into his age (which shows how messed up the Home Office is at organisation) or simply intended to write it to the boy himself and has no regard for how scared the boy and his parent would be because of that. It would scare the crap out of me if i was a parent.

Reply 7

tsnake23

Original post by james1211

I agree the article is sensasionalist *******s for the most part

So why are you posting such sensationalist rubbish and using it to make a sweeping statement suggesting Britain is not a compassionate country?

Original post by james1211

but the fact remains that somebody at the Home Office deliberately and consciously made the effort to address the letter to the boy himself, either through a lack of research into his age (which shows how messed up the Home Office is at organisation) but the fact remains that somebody at the Home Office deliberately and consciously made the effort to address the letter to the boy himself

Wtf? How do you know? Why have you presumed the Home Office has made the balls up? The article clearly states that the Home Office did not receive the right evidence to support his application to stay. The fact that the mother has dual British citizenship makes it obvious that the child should be allowed to stay anyway. Its more likely that the mother just didn't give the Home Office the right information and rather than correct her own error, she went to the media to cry about it because it would generate a great headline.

Original post by james1211

It would scare the crap out of me if i was a parent.

It scares the crap out of me that people like you are even able to post on TSR. You've managed to suck sensationalist rubbish in like a hoover and yet use it to make sweeping statements about how a whole government/country.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 8

techno-thriller

Just another day in the immigration office

Reply 9

Octohedral

Original post by james1211

...the fact remains that somebody at the Home Office deliberately and consciously made the effort to address the letter to the boy himself, either through a lack of research into his age (which shows how messed up the Home Office is at organisation) or simply intended to write it to the boy himself ...

More likely it was an automated letter based on forms his parents had filled in. The Home Office deal with too many people to write individual letters.

Sad mistake, but a system without a single error like this is impossible.

Reply 10

InnerTemple

Jesus! Whatever next... sending vans into mostly Asian areas with the words "GO HOME" written on the sides.

Oh wait...

Home Office. You so silly.

Reply 11

inspire2aspire

It's just disgusting. It really is saddening.

Reply 12

~ Aquamarine ~

That's just ridiculous, surely it must be a mistake. I doubt he will actually be forced to leave once the situation has been looked into properly

Reply 13

Origami Bullets

I saw this on the regional news tonight. The mother has a British passport, so the son should be eligible for one too. Sounds, as much as anything, like a lack of proper paperwork handling by the mother rather than something unavoidable and brutally harsh on the part of the government.

Reply 14

CEKTOP

Original post by james1211

She is a British national who didn't bother herself with getting her son a British passport. Why is everyone horrified? Take the damn birth certificate and go get the boy a UK passport, there is no issue here.

Reply 15

KimKallstrom

Better sending these sorts of letters to 7 year olds than to marry them like in some places....

Reply 16

CEKTOP

I've just read another deportation story from the Independent. An Australian NHS worker who spent 9 years working with children in Britain.

This is a smear campaign by the liberal press.

Reply 17

xsindy

Like most people have said, I'm pretty sure this was a mistake, not necessarily on the part of the Home Office (but it's a bit strange how they addressed the letter to the 7 year old boy and not his legal guardian... what were they expecting, really? O.o) but perhaps the mother just needs to be more active in maintaining her son's citizenship status by maybe getting him a passport? LOL

Common sense? No? :P

Reply 18

L i b

Oh look, a stupid administrative error from an organisation that sends out probably hundreds of thousands of pieces of mail every year.

****'s sake, if you think that's something worth making political points over, then you need to get out more.

Reply 19

DorianGrayism

Ok. Well, the 7 year old did not actually receive the letter.

I am sure the Home Office write hundreds of thousands of letters a day and few will be inappropriately written unfortunately.