Indian immigrants complain of harassment at British airports

H S Rao

London, Jun 23 (PTI) Indian immigrants, with permanent
residency rights in the UK, have complained of being harassed
and "treated like criminals" by British immigration officers
on returning to the country from trips abroad, a forum
representing highly skilled workers has claimed.

"Migrants from India and other Non-European Economic
Area countries are being treated like criminals by immigration
officers at airports, when re-entering Britain," Highly
Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP) Forum, said in a statement
here.

Citing an instance, it said a doctor working in
National Health Service for the past nine years, Dr Sujit
Nair, reported on his experience when he recently returned
from holiday in India.

Dr Nair said, "the immigration officer at Glasgow
Airport bombarded me with questions which was subsequently
followed up by a police officer, despite having an Indefinite
Leave to Remain (permanent residency) in the UK. On both the
occasions I felt very intimidated and unwelcome."

The Forum said similar complaints had come from non-EU
immigrants, but a majority were from Asians.

"The interrogation usually consists of questions
irrelevant to legitimate skilled migrants such as why did you
book your holidays for 40 days? How did your employer allow
it? Why are you working in this job? Why can't you find a job
in some other field? Are you married? Where was your child
born? Who paid for your child's delivery?" the Forum said.

If the Immigration officer is not convinced that what
the migrant and his family said is true then they are detained
at the airport, their passports are taken away and they are
issued with a temporary admission letter which supersedes
their original valid long term visa.

"We are very concerned and have raised the matter with
the UK Border Agency. However, the explanation given was not
satisfactory," Amit Kapadia, Executive Director of the Forum,
said.

"Immigration officers are being issued with absolute
power to detain legitimate, hard-working immigrants based on
grounds of suspicion alone and without any reasonable doubt,"
he said.

Dr Amaresh Swaro, Executive Committee member of the
Forum, said: "As much as it is important for the immigration
officers to carry out checks properly, it is also important to
make sure that legal migrants are not harassed unnecessarily."
PTI