My parents fled communism in Hungary and were welcomed by Britain, where I was born and raised. And now here I am in America, making a new home for our family since we moved here in 2012. It’s impossible for me to be anything other than pro-immigration.
Let me add a few more elements of personal context. Soon after moving to the U.S., I came back from a short foreign trip and was detained at one of America’s busiest airports. There was a technical problem with my passport. This arose from the fact that the last time I had crossed the border, I had been part of the group traveling with my former boss, the United Kingdom’s then-Prime Minister David Cameron.
I was held without my passport in a room alongside all the others who had been detained, yelled at and treated with rudeness and contempt by border officials. I remember thinking: if this is terrifying for me, with all my advantages, imagine how frightening it must be for the other people here.
And then another, much more frightening occasion: returning from a family trip, it turned out that my young son’s new passport didn’t include his visa – it was inside his old passport. Again: we were detained at the border by aggressive and needlessly rude border officials. While I looked after my other son, the one whose documents were at issue was separated from my wife while she dealt with the situation. His terrified cries were simply unbearable.
Our ordeal lasted roughly 45 minutes. It must have been four or five years ago. And yet we still remember it as one of the most traumatic experiences we have been through. And again: that was us, with all our advantages, our confidence and ability to confront and reason with bureaucrats.
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