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I read a source that she was a refugee so I'm assuming that means she's an illegal immigrant
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No. It means she is likely a 'failed asylum seeker'. Someone who gets nto the country under the radar, so to speak, is an illegal immigrant. Someone who attempts to seek asylum and is refused is a failed asylum seeker. Once an asylum seeker has been given asylum they are then considered to have 'refugee status'.
Truth is the system is fucked up. The officers involved have refusal as their assumption. They don't have to prove you aren't a refugee, you have to prove that you are. Difficult to do when one considers the problems faced by people in such regimes getting the correct paperwork.
I have known (personally) people who have arrived in this country covered in the scars of outrageous torture and them be told they don't qualify. I have known these same people take doctors' assessments showing that they are suffering the afermath of torture and yet still they are told there isn't enough evidence. I knew a woman, who having lost her only child to congolese militia and suffered appalling gang rape, was then told by our asylum officials that they did not believe she'd ever had a child...despite medical reports to show that she had.
It's fucked up big style. Just because someone has been refused asylum in the UK, doesn't in any way mean that they haven't faced torture, rape, fear and oppression.