UK outrage: Pay £3000 for visa and prepare for racial profiling

As if the United Kingdom’s stringent immigration system and £3000 pound visa bond wasn’t enough, the UK Border Agency (UKBA) has now crossed the limit by engaging in alleged racial profiling on London’s tube stations. According to a report on Vice.com, UKBA officials were randomly picking out anyone who was non-white near the Kensal Green station  asking them questions and jotting down information in their notebooks. And these were no ordinary officers — they were burly and intimidating. Passers-by interviewed by journalist  Zing Tsjeng said that only non-whites were being subjected to such scrutiny, or, in other words, anyone who didn’t look or sound British. [caption id=“attachment_1005719” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Reuters[/caption] Among the people going to work that day was Neil Roberts, who was stopped from taking photos of the questioning by being told that he was “loitering on private property” and giving officers “reason to suspect he was involved in terrorism”. He added, “If Mo Farah (Olympic champion) was walking along trying to get to the stadium, he’d have been told to produce his papers, too.” A report in the Kilburn Times quotes a local resident as saying, “They appeared to be stopping and questioning every non-white person. When I queried what was going on I was threatened with arrest for obstruction and was told to ‘crack on’. I thought the behaviour of the immigration officers was heavy-handed and frightening.” Racial profiling is illegal under the 2010 Equality Act in the UK, plus Kensal Greens is an area with hardly any white population. A Home Office spokesperson was quoted in the report as saying: “We routinely work with police forces all the time and carry out operations like this every year in London. We take inappropriate behaviour by officers very seriously and have a comprehensive complaints process.” Click here for the detailed Vice.com report and here for the Kilburn Times report.