John Fitzgerald disputes the Home Office’s claim that the country has a proud history of granting asylum, and Mike Pender on use of the words ‘migrant’ and ‘refugee’

Your account of the removal of Otis Bolamu from Home Office accommodation in Swansea in order to be sent back to the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Christmas Day is heartbreaking (Report, 24 December). Otis fled to this country having been imprisoned and tortured in the DRC for opposing the corrupt government’s policies, and the decision to return him to that country was callous and cruel.

After the Windrush scandal you would have thought the immigration authorities would have learned from that experience and recognised that asylum seekers and immigrants need compassion and care from this country, not the appallingly cruel and hostile approach that is still the priority of these organisations.

As for the Home Office’s quoted claim that the UK has a proud history of granting asylum to those who need protection, these are weasel words. If the words reflected reality, Otis would not be languishing in a detention centre and neither would hundreds of others. By the time readers see this letter, Otis will have been deported or reprieved. Either way, the actions of the Home Office and other agencies over the last year make me feel ashamed to be British.

John Fitzgerald

Glasbury-on-Wye, Powys

• I was disappointed by your report about the incident on Christmas Day (Children among dozens of migrants rescued crossing Channel, guardian.com, 25 December). These are desperate people seeking refuge from their countries of origin. Is it accurate to describe them as migrants rather than refugees? “Refugees v migrants? The word choice matters”, says the UNHCR.

The reporting of this incident (not just by the Guardian) reminded me of Woody Guthrie’s song Deportee from the 1940s. Guthrie was incensed by radio reports of a plane crash in California that described the dozens who had died as “just deportees”. It seems not much has changed since then.

Mike Pender

Cardiff

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