Countless Barber shops in Portswood
My barber—a Kurdish refugee,—told me he’d arrived in Britain only a few years earlier after seeking asylum. Yet somehow he now drove a Mercedes, opened a mini mart with his mates who is open till 2 am and had no hesitation about flying back to his hometown for holidays, and even proudly showed me photographs from his latest trip.
I couldn’t help wondering: if the place you supposedly fled is safe enough for summer holidays, was it ever unsafe in the first place?
A system that isn’t seen to distinguish between genuine refugees and opportunists ultimately fails everyone—including those who truly need asylum.