Thread: something really scary & dangerous happened to my parents recently, & they've asked me to tell all my immigrant friends & their families about it in case it happens to them. 1/11
My family are British-nationalised Indian immigrants who came over in the 80s. My mum got a call from someone claiming to be immigration enforcement at the Home Office. They said that my dad had been arrested & if my mum didn't pay £3000 bail, he'd be deported immediately. 2/11
Mum obviously panicked & says look I don't have that kind of money to hand. Caller says, well, take it out of the bank right now and bring it to this address. So she went to the bank, withdrew the money (small town; they know her, they trusted it was legit) 3/11
& went to the address, on the metro (in Liverpool; they live ~10 miles out). All the time, she's on the phone to this unknown caller, who's aggressively telling her, if you don't bring this money, if you even hang up this call, your husband will be immediately deported. 4/11
Mum got to Liverpool but couldn't find the address straight off & the caller said they'd email her directions (& told her how to look at her email while on still on the call). Mum did it, but saw a text from a friend who's one of my parents' colleagues. 5/11
She says she was terrified but texted back to ask, where's [my dad]. in the meantime the place they'd sent her to was a shop in a sidestreet & as she went in, the friend texted back to say, he's right here with me. Mum told the people at the counter she'd got lost. 6/11
And hung up the call & fled back to the station. She ran into a couple of police officers on the platform, & they listened to the story & said it wasn't the first time they'd heard it. & (I was pleased to hear this) they took her all the way home to her door. 7/11
& of course my dad came home & all was ok, but in total this was a 3-hour ordeal & she's still shaken up. She said she didn't tell anyone- not the bank, or the gas man (who knocked just as she left the house) because she was scared & ashamed her husband was being deported. 8/11
Which btw is what the hostile environment policy & the deliberate obfuscating immigration bureaucracy does: it makes people scared, and open to being scammed, because they are so scared. & they don't tell their friends & family, and it happens all over again. 9/11
(e.g. we later learned it happened to a cousin, who never told anyone at the time- she's in Dublin & they told her *she* was going to be deported, but she was able to hang up & call the Garda.) 10/11
That's the story. Immigration enforcement in this country is its own hellscape but email addresses end with .gov.uk; immigration officers should have warrant cards; citizens can't be deported; bail doesn't relate to deportation; if someone calls you like this, it's a scam. 11/11
