My Immigration Story

Five years ago I visited Belfast for the first time and I fell in love. The history, the humour, and yes even the weather had a sharpness and character that inspired me. The next year I moved here for graduate studies at Queen's University and within a few months I fell in love again, this time with a local man. After graduation I was able to live and work here for two more years with a post-study work visa, affording me the opportunity to keep exploring every inch of the city while pursuing my career in conflict work, which has since consisted of a number of voluntary placements supported by flexible jobs in the service industry. Despite the long hours and at times challenging lifestyle, I feel certain when I'm old and grey I'll look back on these as some of the best years of my life – travelling around this beautiful island, enjoying the vibrant and dynamic cultural scene of Belfast, and building a family and home.


Today is the last day my visa to live in the UK is valid, so as this could be one of my last days in Belfast for some time I feel the need to reflect. My partner and I have been waiting for 4 months, 2 weeks and 5 days for a decision on my application to remain in the UK. Every day I enter our home with eyes half closed feeling both anxious and excited to find a large envelop containing our passports, letters from family and friends, photographs and official documents used to prove our residency, employment and legitimacy of our 'durable relationship akin to marriage'. When mail that falsely fits the bill arrives we stand in the doorway, eyes locked while sharing the weight of the envelop in our shaky hands, only to then curse the random company who unknowingly interrupted our day. Intimate moments have become a treasure and a curse – made both preciously delicate and heartbreakingly tragic by the uncertainty of our fate. 

As an American citizen I am required to have a visa to live in Northern Ireland to study, work, volunteer and live for longer than a few months. In assessing our options we found limitations in the lack of necessity for my type of work, high financial requirements and confusion around newly imposed legislation changing the criterion for different visa types. Saving the specific difficulties and technicalities of this process for another time, I'd like to share a different thought today.

I have seen the pain forced emigration and deportation have on families and couples; I have sat beside asylum seekers waiting to find if their status has been accepted or rejected; I have watched close friends fight for their right to live as an equal member of society after a decade of living with unstable immigration status; and I have spoken with so called 'illegals' about their struggles to find new opportunities in a foreign place. I do not claim that these stories are mine any more than I claim that my own story is unique. I do, however, feel there is something shared in this human experience of immigration that can be and must be central to the debate on border legislation, which ultimately has great power over the course of people's lives and indeed over the course of my own life. 

Today just like many days I will wake up with my partner, volunteer in the day, work into the night, and then go out into this beautiful and buzzing city to celebrate my love and my life in Belfast. As for tomorrow... I'll have to get back to you on that.

East, East, East Belfast

Living in East Belfast for the past few years has meant living through the Titanic Centennary just as it has meant living through the Covenant Centenary; enjoying events of the first annual East Belfast Arts Festival and over two months of riots and protests over the removal of the union flag from City Hall; getting leaflets through the door to 'Smash Alliance' and 'Keep Immigrants Out'; alongside free magazines, community newspapers, charity appeals, and invitations to community functions. 

While many places have this broad range of potentiality, there is something particularly dichotomous about the nature of East Belfast.

The tensions that have erupted during the flag protests do not lie too deeply under the surface, but they do remain hidden enough for Belfast to be named the second safesty city in the world for tourists, the top 10 places to see in 2013 by National Georgraphic, and the home to MTV Music Awards, Cultural Olympiad events and a year long festival of Our Time Our Place.

The past two months of protests and riots have led to a great deal of embarassment, anger and confusion throughout the city, which is gradually returning to apathy as road closures are more rare and the general public's lives are less affected.  I myself grew somewhat immune to taking alternative routes, passing through crowds of young people standing around beside recently burnt out cars, and going to sleep to the hum of helicopters overhead.

I have noticed that while the protests are growing smaller and the bus journeys are becoming more regular, an important element of these protests have been under-considered, and that is the social environment that lay the backdrop for the scenes of protest the past many weeks. Waiting for the bus I noticed a new Union flag flying above a derelict building. On the wall there was grafitti 'child snatchers out' and a public announcement about domestic violence. Just as I was starting to lose sight of these important issues, somewhat hidden behind the bright colours of red, white and blue, the words of Kahlil Gibran's spoke wisdom.

''Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world. But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you, So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also. And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree, So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all.'' - Kahlil Gibran in The Prophet

The society of Northern Ireland is only as secure and sustainable as its most contentious and deprived communities. As for the world, it is only as prepared for peace as its most conflicted regions. We are all inter-related and inter-connected and because of this we cannot stand by and ignore experiences of discontent as arising from a group of few, for in the few are the many and in essence the 'anti-social' elements of this society is a reflection on our society as a whole.