An asylum seeker has begged to be sent back to his native Somalia because it is ‘not safe’ for him to remain in a Midlands town.
Nuneaton in Warwickshire has become a hotbed of tension after a wave of anti-migrant protests sparked by reports two Afghan asylum seekers had been arrested for sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl.
There were just a handful of asylum seekers in the town a few years ago, but their numbers have now grown to 247.
This has led to tension, with disturbing footage that emerged this week showing a local businessman being racially abused as he gave a TV interview.
Nuneaton does not have migrant hotels and all the asylum seekers there live in HMOs (houses of multiple occupancy), but this itself has prompted fury from locals struggling with a housing crisis.
Yusuf came to the UK from Somalia two decades ago, but recently had his right to work stripped following a ‘serious’ assault. The 50-year-old said he’s been begging the Home Office to deport him for the last five months.
‘This country is not safe, but my country (Somalia) is now safe – I want to go back,’ he told Sky News.
Somalia remains in the grip of a vicious civil war that has been going on since 1991, yet Yusuf was adamant he will be safer there instead of Nuneaton.
Home Office figures show Nuneaton has 19 asylum seekers per 10,000 residents – putting it at 87th in the country in terms of the number per capita.
While many residents are reluctant to share their views for fear of being labelled racist, some came forward to explain their frustrations.
One, Alan, 77, said: ‘It’s the ones that are trying to get here illegally I don’t like.
‘I’m not too happy about that, because we’ve got young, 20-year-olds getting married… that are struggling to get on the property ladder.’
The leader of Warwickshire County Council, George Finch, is Reform’s youngest councillor and has spoken out to defend local protesters against accusations of racism.
He said it was wrong to put asylum seekers in houses and they should be kept in disused army bases instead.
The tense situation in Nuneaton was illustrated by a recent TV interview with local business owner Zahin,.
The 32-year-old had only just started to speak when he was interrupted by two women walking along the street with a group of children.
The woman with the beer moved in front of the camera while shouting a string of racially-charged obsenities.
A second woman then began a rant about religion, before adding: ‘That’s the issue we’re having with youse in our country, you’re raping our kids.’
The first woman shouted the racist phrase ‘dirty monkeys’ followed by ‘save our kids’.
A shocked Zahin, who moved to the UK from Malawi aged six, could be heard asking the woman: ‘What you teaching them kids?’
Following the confrontation, Zahin said he ‘loves’ Nuneaton, but thought he was being targeted because people assumed he was Muslim.
‘For them to accuse us of a crime, that’s unfair, that is unjust,’ he said.
Nuneaton has seen a number of anti-immigration protests in recent weeks.
Asked about how he feels about the demonstrations, Zahin said he supported people’s right to protest in general.
‘We have a right to protest for whatever cause we want to: that’s the beauty of living in England,’ he said.
Speaking about the fault lines running through Nuneaton, Zahin said there was a need to build community and open dialogue.
‘Right now, I don’t think we’re a part of a community, it’s more like sides,’ he added.
‘But there has to be a solution. And I think that solution comes through dialogue, not ranting off, swearing at each other. I mean we are in 2025 now.’
Labour has sought to respond by growing public anger over immigration by unveiling an asylum ‘crackdown’ after the end of the parliamentary recess.
Ms Cooper has suspended the ability of refugees to bring their partners and children to the UK, while Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to speed up the closure of taxpayer-funded hotels.
Yet the policy blitz was overshadowed by Ms Cooper admitting last night that no Channel migrants have been returned to France yet under its much-vaunted ‘one in, one out’ deal.
The Government claimed in July that a handful of migrants would be sent back to France within weeks – but it’s now September and not a single person has been sent back.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: ‘Under Labour, a small boat to the UK is a one-way ticket to one of Keir Starmer’s cushy hotels – paid for by hard-pressed taxpayers.
‘Labour has flung open the doors to the UK and this year they have let in the highest number of illegal immigrants across the Channel ever. This weak Government has lost control of our borders.
‘They are too weak to do what’s needed to fix this – which is to make sure that every single illegal immigrant is removed immediately upon arrival. Then, no one would bother crossing in the first place.’
The one in, one out deal was announced by the Prime Minister and president Emmanuel Macron on July 10 at the end of the Anglo-French summit.
Sir Keir said at the time that the ‘ground-breaking’ pilot project – under which some migrants arriving in small boats would be detained and returned to France while the same number of genuine asylum-seekers would be allowed to come to the UK – would begin ‘in the coming weeks’.
The Home Secretary also told MPs on July 14 that the expectation was that ‘that pilot will be operationalised in the coming weeks’.
It was announced on August 4 that the treaty had been ratified, then the Home Office revealed that ‘detentions began for those who arrived in the UK on a small boat’ on August 6, stating: ‘The UK will make referrals to France within three days, and the French authorities will be expected to respond within 14 days.’
But almost four weeks on, the cases are still being processed although sources insisted that those detained are still being held. Ms Cooper told the Commons yesterday: ‘In August I signed the new treaty with France allowing us for the first time to directly return those who arrive on small boats.
‘The first detentions took place the next day – of people immediately on arrival at Dover. And we expect the first returns to begin later this month.
‘Applications have also been opened for the reciprocal legal route, with the first cases under consideration, subject to the strict security checks.’
But asked how many people would be returned over the coming year, amid reports that it could be fewer than 50 a week, she replied: ‘We have set out that this is a pilot, and that we want to build and grow it.
‘There is no cap on the overall numbers to go as part of the pilot, and we need to build it as we go.’
She said that the National Crime Agency, Britain’s equivalent of the FBI, had led a record ‘347 disruptions of immigration crime networks’ in the past year.
But Mr Philp said that 84 per cent were ‘classified as not being high impact’ and the NCA had only made 26 arrests for organisation of immigration crime.
Warwickshire Police have been contacted for comment.
A Home Office spokesman said: ‘This government inherited an asylum system in chaos, with tens of thousands of asylum seekers stuck in taxpayer-funded hotels waiting for their claims to be processed.
‘At their peak, less than two years ago, there were 400 asylum hotels in use at a cost of almost £9m a day.’We have taken urgent action to fix the system – more than doubling asylum decisions and cutting the backlog by 41%. The cost of asylum hotels was reduced by almost a billion pounds in 2024/25 compared to the previous year, and we have put in place the major reforms which will allow us to end the use of asylum hotels entirely by the end of this parliament.
‘In our first year in government, we also ensured the removal of 35,000 people with no right to be in the UK, including almost 5,200 foreign national offenders, a 14 per cent increase on the same period twelve months earlier.’
