A black EU citizen with settled status was temporarily refused entry to the UK when she tried to board a Eurostar train in Paris on Saturday.
Dahaba Ali Hussen, a Dutch citizen of Somali origin who has lived in London for 19 years, was on a solo holiday in France when she arrived at Gare du Nord railway station two hours before her train left for London St Pancras.
Unable to overcome the barriers to the EU queue, Hussen assumed there was a technological problem. She claims that a UK Border Force officer she approached later confiscated her passport after he notified her that she would be subject to “further checks” because she had been refused settled status in the past.
Hussen claims she was given a form that had already been filled out, with a box marked that she was refused re-entry to the UK, and another box marked that she was detained under the Immigration Act of 1971.
“I was mortified,” Hussen said. “I was standing in the middle of the train station, while everyone was checking in, crying. It felt like a horror movie.”
Hussen, 29, a journalist who has written extensively about the EU liquidation scheme, has previously campaigned with organizations such as The3million, which gives a voice to EU citizens in the UK.
In the past, he has been more concerned about the status of his mother, a former refugee who fled to the Netherlands during Somalia’s civil war in the early 1990s.
But Hussen herself has had numerous problems with her settled status in the UK. He was previously refused settlement status to live in Britain on three separate occasions, including last year.
On Saturday, not knowing what would happen, he made frantic calls to British MPs and former colleagues with whom he had campaigned.
“I’m more versed in this than your average citizen, and even I didn’t know what was going on,” he said.
When a video Hussen posted on her Twitter account from Paris began to gain attention, Hussen claims the Border Force officer “completely changed her tune,” returned her passport and listen to the platform to catch your train.
“I know the only one [the Home Office] it’s responding to media pressure,” he said. “I’d really like to get to the point where someone can explain to me why, despite my full EU settled status, they took away my passport.”
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I’ve been told I’ve ‘failed immigration checks’ and my passport has been confiscated by @UKBorder @ukhomeoffice, this is totally unacceptable! I went to Paris for a short trip and now I can’t go back to my home in London despite my EU settlement status pic.twitter.com/IgQ2c2LKTU
— Dahaba Ali Hussen (@Dahabaalihussen) December 10, 2022
Hussen also described hearing a white woman before asking a UK Border Force officer for permission to pass by using a scan of her passport, because she had left the original in Bordeaux.
“I literally remember looking at her thinking, ‘Good luck.’ Are you trying to get into a club?” Hussen said, adding that the officer, however, let the woman through.
“This is not an isolated incident,” Hussen said of his ordeal. “They do it more to people of color.”
In response to Hussen’s tweet, the In Limbo Project, which collects testimonies on the impact of Brexit from EU citizens in the UK and British citizens in the EU, said: “This is not an isolated incident. Fortunately, @Dahabaalihussen has now been able to travel back home to the UK, but this ordeal wouldn’t have happened if the British government had given us all physical proof of our immigration status.”
A Home Office spokesman said: “As part of routine security checks Ms Hussen was delayed for a short time but at no time was she told she could not travel to the UK or that she missed the train
“We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused Ms. Hussen, but we will always prioritize the safety of the country.”