‘We need foreign aid, not divisive policies’

AS the head of Omagh’s only dedicated asylum seeker and refugee charity, Mary Lafferty is ‘appalled’ by the current political policy and dialogue around immigration.

Empowering Refugees and Newcomers’ Organisation (ERANO), a non-profit group with a name as self-explanatory as it is clunky, was set up in 2021 to help arriving immigrants reconstruct their lives and fulfil their potential.

Initially established amid the Syrian refugee crisis, ERANO has expanded to support war-fleeing Ukrainian families and other ethnic minority groups within Fermanagh and Omagh.

Under Mary’s leadership, ERANO now helps over 100 families living in the local area.

“Refugees and asylum seekers are caught in the middle of what is essentially a big game of political football at the minute.

“You see it in the news almost everyday, both in the UK and Ireland. Immigrants are being booted back-and-forth between political parties, as everybody tries to turn the lives of real, displaced, often very damaged, people, into political currency.

“They are cynically sensationalising, demonising and fear-mongering, all to create a worried electorate that they can then try to appeal to for votes.

“It is predatory politics at its most shameless,” said Mary.

Election cycles are often a time when controversial issues are churned up.

However, Mary believes that upcoming ballots both North and South of the island have brought the issue of immigration to the fore in an ‘extremely unhelpful’ way.

“Omagh has always been a place that has been sympathetic to the plight of displaced people, but we should not be so naïve to assume that such an attitude is permanent.

Look at what happened in Cookstown last week, for example.

“It was disgusting, and we cannot say that the people who did it were not influenced by all the negative anti-immigration rhetoric that has been in our headlines. Unless that kind of poison is challenged and called out for what it is, chances are that it will encourage people to be suspicious and hostile towards asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants generally.”

Mary said that it is important for people to recognise the difference between refugees and asylum seekers.

“Refugees are people fleeing armed conflicts or persecution who have been given legal protection by international law.

“This affords them certain rights.

“An asylum seeker, on the other hand, is someone who claims to be a refugee, but whose claim hasn’t been evaluated yet. So not every asylum seeker will be recognised as a refugee, but every refugee is initially an asylum seeker.”

Concluding, Mary said that the British Government’s so-called Rwanda Bill offers no real, workable, humane solution to the country’s immigration crises.

“What the world needs is humanitarian aid and geopolitics that helps bring about stability in the most volatile areas.

“The Prime Minister’s Rwanda Bill certainly does not do that.

“Furthermore, it is not even clear whether it will do what it purports to do, which is deter people (asylum seekers) from trying to travel to the UK in the first place.”