UK people shouldn’t be worried that Trump’s fascist ICE thugs will be coming to the UK – because ICE is already here. That’s the message from TikTok user JanBelinda, who told the horrifying story of her family’s experience. Not just of the UK’s version of ICE, but of the appalling reality the racist UK system was trying to send them back to and the suffering it put them through.
For those who would rather read than watch, or want a transcript of JanBelinda’s account, text is provided below the embedded video:
@janbelinda My parents and siblings are still terrified of all law enforcement. Again I want to make it clear that nothing was wrong in our application and along with our treatment whilst detained they were also sued because we were wrongfully detained #storytime #minnesota #immigration #USA
The UK is no better under Keir Starmer. In fact he’s making it worse, pushing us farther into a racist police state.
JanBelinda shared:
People in the UK seeing what’s happening in America with ICE thinking that’s not going to happen in the UK, that is already happening in the UK.
This has been happening in the UK for decades, and I’m going to tell you about my family and our immigration story and how we went on to sue the Home Office.
Back when I was, I think maybe two, possibly three years old, my mum woke up one morning hearing an aggressive knocking on the door. And keep in mind she’s wearing nothing but her robe.
And when she went to go open the door, she was attacked by multiple people. They had pinned her to the ground. They were trying to restrain her, not telling them, not telling her who they were and what they were doing.
Someone went upstairs, they woke up my sister, they woke up my brother, and someone grabbed me. They told us, get dressed and follow them. So that’s what we did. And they put us in a van.
And again, my mum’s still confused. You’ve not told us who you are. You’ve not let her know what’s happening. And now you have her children in the back of a van. They dragged her out onto the street in front of neighbors and friends, naked. At this point, her robe was completely off.
They did not try to cover her or anything. They were punching her, kicking her, doing anything but explain what it is that they’re doing there and the fact that she needs to be here.
No, just straight into aggression. No prior warning.
Okay, your application for asylum has been rejected and so on this day people are going to come room. Nothing.
They just showed up and attacked.Where they ended up taking us was called Yarlswood. If you look up Yarlswood and the history of Yarlswood, that place is inhumane.
I could go on and on and on about stories that I’ve been told from my siblings and my mum about how that place was, but even then it doesn’t do it justice to just how horrible that place was. Keep in mind there’s multiple families there, multiple people, from babies to old people living in that facility.
My mum had to ask family members, aunties, uncles, you know, friends, to bring me food because the food that they had there, when I would eat it, it would make me unwell. It was not suitable for anyone to eat. It would make other people unwell.
I can’t remember how long we were there, but what I do know is that my siblings and my mum are still terrified and traumatised from what happened there and what they experienced, what they witnessed there.
And I just want to say a big thank you to Ashbrown Primary School because that school and the local community and the churches around did so much to campaign and try and get us out of there. And honestly, I don’t think it would have been possible or we would still be here if it wasn’t for their help and support.
At the end, my mum was told, sorry, your application is just not going to get approved. We are sending you back to Congo.
If you see the news recently about what’s happening with Congo and the civil war and all that stuff, just know this is nothing new.
This has been happening for decades. The whole reason why my parents fled Congo was because of the civil war that was happening. I’ll try not to get upset. Mum, if you’re watching this, please stop because I’m going to talk about Divine.
So I had an older sister, the firstborn called Divine. She was about, I think, maybe four or five at the time. Um she lost her life or I should say was killed, that’s what happened and my parents were told how the you know the bad guys I don’t know I don’t know what really you call them, um but the people who were trying to overtake and over like run the country um they were in her city.
So what she did was she sent my older sister with her younger sister, she was probably around my age, her little sister, and they were going to go to my grandparents house on my mum’s side and my mum and dad were going to go somewhere else because there just wasn’t enough room for everybody over there.
Unfortunately, my auntie ended up losing sight of my sister and when she did find her, she had a singular gunshot wound to her head and she had been thrown into a bush.
At that time, multiple family friends had been killed. My grandparents on my dad’s side also lost their lives, so they had to leave. And so when my mum was told that we were being sent back, she took extreme measures to ensure that no one was going to be sent back.
She would drink cleaning chemicals in order to try and take her life. She still has scars on her hands due to the depression where she had got an iron and would just, just kept it on there. No matter how much pain she was feeling, she just kept it on there.
As an attempt, any attempt to keep her children here so that they would not go backto go through the experiences that she had been through, to go to possibly lose our lives.
She had witnessed so much death, so much hurt, so much torture of her friends, of her family. And she was just told that her and her children, one only being, what, two, three are being sent back to that place.
And when the day arrived for us to go to the airport, to be flown back to Congo, I honestly just can’t imagine what my mum was feeling knowing that she’s being sent back there, that her children are being sent back there. The fact that she may possibly lose her life, her children may possibly lose their lives. So the taxi drops us at the airport and before we are going to board the plane, my mum gets a phone call.
I don’t know if it was her directly or if someone called the airport to find my mum. Anyways, she got a call saying that they have accepted her application. So imagine the mental trauma of being told you’re being sent back to a place.
You’ve just been beaten, bruised. You’ve tried to take your life. You are now physically scarred for life. Just for them at the very last minute to be like, yeah, well, yeah, yeah, actually, I’m a mistake. Yeah, no, it’s all good now. It’s all fine.
Yeah, better believe, better believe a lot of us went on to sue them. The treatment that we had isn’t even the worst of it. There’s other families who went through so much worse.
So for people saying that, you know, it’s America, it’s not going to happen here. The UK government wouldn’t allow that. They have been allowing that for decades.
And I know I’m going to get a lot of racists or people making comments saying like, oh, well, ah immigrants that’s immigrants that. My mum has went on to work jobs that you guys don’t want to work. She did night shifts looking after vulnerable, disabled people. She would come home with bruises, bite marks. So many, sometimes they’d cut her. That’s a job. I don’t see you guys going up for it.
I work in a maternity unit. I’ve gone through my education. I used the education system. I am now providing in society. So are my siblings. So is my dad. We all provide for this community, for this country. And so for all the people who are going to say comments like, what are you doing? Are you contributing? Because if you think it’s acceptable for the government to treat people the way they are because they are simply fleeing from danger after you’ve colonised so many countries and taken so many resources from so many countries, which is why they’re in the state they are now – I don’t know what to do for you.
But when you go abroad to go on your holidays, to use up their resources there, just remember that.
Featured image via the Canary
By Skwawkbox
This post was originally published on Canary.