Zarith, an asylum seeker, has spent at least 150 days in a hotel as he awaits his claim (Picture: Laura Martinez)
Zarith, 25, doesn’t get out much. He doesn’t much of a choice, though.
After applying for asylum when he arrived in the UK by plane last year, Zarith was placed in a small hotel five months ago. He thinks at least.
‘It’s felt like a lifetime,’ he says. ‘I’m literally in the middle of nowhere. It’s a glorified prison. How do you cultivate friendships and relationships? I’m sort of like an alien – they call us aliens in America.’
He spent Christmas alone in his cramped room, taking a walk to see the cows that graze the fields around his accommodation.
‘I don’t understand why they put me in the middle of nowhere,’ he says of the Home Office. ‘It’s as if they’re trying to crush me. My soul is destroyed. I need civilisation.’
Zarith is one of the 37,000 asylum seekers currently living – or, as Zarith feels, stranded – in hostels, hotels and other temporary housing as they wait for the result of their claim.
Considering he fled his home to embrace who he is – a gay man – his life in the UK isn’t quite what he imagined.
Zarith is a member of Micro Rainbow, Rainbow Migration and London LGBTQ+ homeless shelter the Outside Project (Picture: Zarith)
Applying for asylum in the UK was somewhat eye-opening for Zarith, he says: ‘It was degrading and quite horrendous.’
He now lives on about £8 a day, a cash allowance that the Home Office gives asylum seekers waiting for the outcome of their claim as they legally can’t work.
‘That’s quite generous,’ he jokes. ‘You can really go to town on that.’
At least, if Zarith can actually get to town. The closest pharmacy to him is in a town a two-hour walk away from him.
He once walked six hours to get to Manchester just to get a drink, have a dance and meet other queer people at an LGBTQ+ nightclub.
This was a nice change of pace from the homophobic comments he gets from security at the hotel the Home Office placed him in.
‘Birds and fish migrate as well to better places, to feed and live,’ Zarith says. ‘UK residents migrate as well for economic reasons – but we don’t hear about that because they’re “expats”.
‘The tabloids, the right-wing, they try to instil fear – that we are being “invaded”. It’s all political mileage that we are subjected to.
The rising number of people crossing the English Channel has become a fixation for the Tory government (Picture: AP)
The result of this kind of talk can turn deadly, Zarith says. Many of the safe routes people used to enter the UK have been closed tight by the government.
With few options, an increasing number of people are braving the choppy seas of the English Channel.
The total number of people arriving by small boat across the Channel this year is more than 40,000, according to the Ministry of Defence.
Earlier this month, four people died after a jerry-built dinghy capsized. Nearly 40 people were rescued from the sinking vessel.
‘I was saddened, you know? For them to consider that, I’m shocked,’ Zarith says. ‘They are people who try to come here to be themselves but perish on the way. Many.’
Only days later, the High Court ruled in favour of the government’s contentious plan to forcibly fly some asylum seekers who brave the Channel to Rwanda.
Home secretary Suella Braverman has said she ‘dreams’ of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda (Picture: EPA)
‘It is inhumane,’ Zarith says, ‘it’s shocking to hear it might be happening.’
Rainbow Migration, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group Zarith is a member of, says the policy has brought concern, confusion and anger to many migrants.
‘This catastrophic scheme plans to banish people thousands of miles away to process their asylum claims presents a real danger to anyone seeking asylum in the UK and especially LGBTQ+ people,’ the group says.
Many migrants like Zarith have fled war zones, threats of imprisonment or worse before undergoing dangerous, sometimes fatal journeys to get to the UK.
For LGBTQ+ people not offshored to the central African nation, their troubles won’t end there as they face up to the Home Office.
‘They are required to “prove” their sexual orientation and/or gender identity to the satisfaction of the Home Office and to judges,’ Rainbow Migration says, adding that the Nationality and Borders Bill passed in Apil only made the standard of ‘proof’ for LGBTQ+ migrants even higher.
Reports have revealed how Home Office decision-makers often rely on derogatory stereotypes to judge whether someone is who they say they are.
‘There are so many fingers we can point to about who’s to blame,’ Zarith continues.
‘But if the UK is this beacon for humanity and human rights and freedom, then they need to change the way they look at refugees and asylum seekers.’
Zarith never thought things would get this bad for asylum seekers.
Zarith fears the worst for LGBTQ+ people being offshored to Rwanda (Picture: Laura Martinez)
When Sunak became the first person to colour to become prime minister, Zarith thought things might change.
‘I felt this was a great achievement,’ he says, adding: ‘But the person at the helm – even if they’re a person of colour – can be even further right.
‘It doesn’t equate to inclusivity just because they are of that background. That’s the thing that people need to understand.’
Zarith feels he saw this in action when Sunak, amid growing anger within his party, vowed to clear the country’s backlog of asylum claims.
At the end of June, there were almost 100,000 asylum claims waiting for an initial decision from the Home Office.
Outlining a heavy-handed package of measures, Sunak said some asylum seekers who make the treacherous Channel crossing would not be housed in hotels but rather disused vacation parks, student dorms and military sites.
Sunak has planned to tackle the UK’s growing backlog in asylum claims (Picture: PA)
And for those who enter the UK through so-called ‘unofficial’ routes, Sunak promised to propose a law banning them from remaining in the country at all.
‘It is hard to be themselves in the first place and to navigate the world, which is a lot more hateful than it is loving. It’s hard. It’s not easy,’ Zarith says.
For now, as he passes the time in his hotel room and thinks about all the things he’s missing now in his life is on pause, Zarith has time to think.
He thinks about what being granted asylum in the UK would mean to him and the things he could finally do.
‘I’d pop the champagne,’ he says, ‘and keep working on the people who need a voice.’
‘We want to contribute,’ he adds, ‘we want to create change, create a kind and compassionate community.’
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‘If the UK is this beacon for humanity, then they need to change the way they look at refugees.’
