'You have no right to be in the UK and you should leave': Extraordinary moment immigration minister tells five-time failed asylum seeker to go home on live TV



Tory Mark Harper says Iraqi Esam Amin has no right to stay in Britain

Highly charged confrontation organised by BBC television producers



Mr Amin has lost legal bids for asylum in the UK five times since 2008

Mr Harper said claims were ‘ridiculous’ and he ‘should leave’ the country

An immigration minister rounded on a five-times failed asylum seeker on live television and told him to go home.



Mark Harper said that Iraqi-Kurd Esam Amin’s request for asylum was ‘not credible and ridiculous’.



British courts have denied him asylum on five occasions. Mr Harper said: ‘We don’t believe you and neither did the judge.’



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Leave: Tory minister Mark Harper (left) said Iraqi Esam Amin had no right to stay in Britain after repeatedly losing claims for asylum in the courts

The senior Tory minister was responsible for the controversial ‘go home’ ads displayed on vans in London that told illegal migrants to leave the UK. Critics attacked the campaign as racist and offensive. But Mr Harper still wants to roll out the scheme across the country.



On the BBC’s Sunday Politics West, Mr Amin, a refugees’ rights campaigner, said he fled Iraq in November 2007 because his life was in danger.

He has tried to claim asylum in Bristol since 2008, and says he has been left with only £5 a day to live on after his most recent appeal.



A riled Mr Harper said: ‘With the greatest respect, when you were here claiming asylum, taxpayers supported you. You now have no right to be in the United Kingdom and you should return.



Hardworking families will be sat there finding it incredible someone has had the chance to go through a system, have had a decision, have appealed it to a judge and they have been found not to have the need for our protection.



‘They would think it is incredible that the taxpayer should continue supporting them.’



He added: ‘If people abuse our system, it will damage the British public’s tolerance for people genuinely fleeing persecution. We have a fair system where he is able to go through a legal process and the judge didn’t find his claim credible, in fact he said parts of his claim were “not credible and ridiculous”. I’m afraid he has no right to be in the United Kingdom.’



Mr Amin said: ‘I am not an illegal person, I am an asylum seeker. I am a human being like you. My life in my country is in danger.



‘That’s why I decided, and I left my family and everything, to come here. I came to find a safe place.



‘I know my story is true and your system doesn’t believe me.’

Confrontation: The stand-off came on live television, with Mr Harmer making clear that Mr Amin has no right to stay in Britain

Tough: Mr Harper was the minister who signed off the controversial 'Go Home' ad vans which toured London this summer

Mr Amin said he was ‘lucky’ to have friends who housed him while other asylum seekers sleep rough.



He has made a short film about asylum seekers’ fears when they have to report to police stations.



A trained chef, he has been named one of Bristol’s ‘happiness champions’ by a local paper. He says he cannot work, or pay for English lessons because he has not been granted leave to stay in the UK.



A Home Office spokesman declined to say if action was being taken against Mr Amin.



But the official added: ‘We firmly believe those who do not need our protection should return home at the earliest opportunity.

