So the American Inquisition, known formally as Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has called off the dogs. For now. The jackboots have been temporarily shelved, the paddy wagons sent back to the garage, and the weeping families of Minnesota are told to breathe again. But breathe they do not. They pant, shallow and panicked, like a man who has just seen the hangman sharpen his noose and then decide to have a cup of tea instead.
Meanwhile, across the pond, Her Majesty's Government is having a good hard look at its own asylum cooperation with the rest of Europe. The Home Office, that Kafkaesque labyrinth of forms and despair, is reviewing its policies. Which in practice means some junior minister will shuffle papers, have a gin and tonic, and then forget about it until the next scandal.
Let us examine the Minnesota situation first. The raids were supposed to instil fear, and they did. They tore apart communities, separated families, and left children wondering if Daddy would be there for breakfast. Now the raids are gone, but the fear remains. It is like a ghost that haunts the breakfast table, a phantom of handcuffs and deportation vans. The trauma is embedded, a splinter under the skin that cannot be removed.
The government claims this is a shift in policy, a softer approach. But let us be honest: it is simply a change of tactic. The hunt for the undocumented continues, only now with less public footfall. They will use databases, phone records, and the silent betrayal of neighbours. The result is the same: a population living in shadows, checking over their shoulders, never quite sure if today is the day the world ends.
And on this side of the Atlantic, the Home Office is reviewing its cooperation on asylum. This is code for trying to offshore refugees, to push the problem onto someone else. They want to outsource humanity, to contract out compassion. The plan is to pay other countries to take our moral burdens, like a rich man paying a servant to attend a funeral.
The asylum seekers, those desperate souls fleeing war and poverty, are reduced to statistics. They are processed, fingerprinted, and categorised. They are not people; they are cases. And the review will likely conclude that we need to be tougher, stricter, more efficient. Because the British way is to make misery into a bureaucractic procedure.
But the families of Minnesota and the asylum seekers here share something: they are pawns in a game they did not choose. They are the ball in a political tennis match, swatted back and forth by soundbite-hungry politicians. The raids may have ended, the review might be underway, but the fundamental madness remains. We treat human beings as problems to be managed, not people to be helped.
This is the grand absurdity: a world where a child in Minneapolis fears the knock on the door, and a child in Aleppo dreams of a knock that never comes. We build walls, create policies, and hold reviews. But we forget the simple truth: we are all migrants, all refugees from something. Whether it is war, poverty, or the sheer tedium of modern life, we all seek a better place.
Until we remember this, the fear will persist. The raids may be over, the review may produce a glossy report, but the underlying sickness remains. We have traded humanity for efficiency, empathy for order. And we wonder why the headlines are filled with sorrow.
So raise your glass, dear reader, to the great immigration farce. To the families living in fear, to the officials shuffling papers, and to the gin that makes it all bearable. For now, the show goes on.
