The Anglican Bishop of Southwell & Nottingham, the Rt Rev George Cassidy, is appealing to the Home Secretary to reconsider the case of a Pakistani family who are due to be sent back to the country they fled from two years ago, at the end of this week.
Mr Julian Singh, his wife Aima and 11-year-old son Jonathan were taken to Yarleswood Detention Centre for deportation to Pakistan last week, after their plea for asylum was rejected. They are due to be sent back to Pakistan on Thursday morning (October 30) when they will be put on a plane from Heathrow Airport.
I am afraid, and ashamed, that this kind of thing is only too typical of Britain today. The one question which, I believe, the immigration authorities cannnot ask is: Would this family be more or less likely to integrate? And so we admit all kinds of dubious people, some of them enemies of democracy, and we turn away others who could contribute greatly to our country. Christians under persecution in Iraq are among those who are under threat of being forced to leave and return to a ghastly situation – and we, the people who have helped make the ghastly situation possible, admit as few of them as possible. Shameful.