Former asylum seeker seeks deportation to Somalia, says it’s safer than Nuneaton

‘If I can’t work, why am I here?’ A Somali man’s plea in an anxious English town

On a gray afternoon in Nuneaton’s market square, shoppers ferried plastic bags past a man who says he wants to go home — not to his hostel, and not to the Britain he’s lived in for two decades, but to Somalia. It’s a jarring sentiment in a town on edge about migration, but for 50-year-old Yusuf Ali Hamud, the calculation is simple: “I don’t feel safe here,” he told Sky News in an interview. “Back home, now, I’m safe. I want to go back.”

Hamud arrived in the United Kingdom roughly twenty years ago and sought asylum. Somewhere along the difficult path of paperwork and waiting, a serious assault conviction changed the trajectory of his life here. He lost the right to work and, he says, any sense of belonging. Over the last five months, he claims to have repeatedly asked the Home Office to return him to Somalia. So far, he says, no reply. “If I don’t have the right to work or refugee status,” he asked, “why am I here?”

A man in limbo

In Britain, long immigration queues and patchy returns policies have become as familiar as the rain. Hamud’s story contains both: time, punishment, and then the grind of inactivity. “I didn’t come here to eat and sleep like a baby,” he said. He wants closure — even if that means a one-way flight.

What happens when “safety” stops meaning the same thing it once did? Somalia has been scarred by conflict since 1991, yet Hamud says it now feels safer to him than the daily suspicion he senses in his adopted town. The paradox is uncomfortable, and it speaks to a deeper mood: that security is not only about the absence of war, but the presence of dignity, work, and a place that doesn’t look at you as a problem to be managed.

A town on edge

Nuneaton, a market town in Warwickshire, has quietly become a flashpoint. The number of asylum seekers there was once in single digits; by June this year, local figures show it had climbed to 247. That translates to 19 asylum seekers for every 10,000 residents — placing the town 87th in England by concentration. Not a crisis, by the numbers, but these days migration is often felt before it is counted.

That tension spilled into view during a Sky News interview with a local businessman, Zahin, 32, who arrived in Britain from Malawi when he was six. As cameras rolled, a group of women interrupted — some with children, one with a pint of lager — shouting accusations tied to a recent case in which two men reported to be Afghan asylum seekers were accused of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl. The investigation is ongoing. “You’re trying to rape our kids,” one of the women shouted. Zahin, calm but wounded, asked: “What are you teaching those kids?” Later, he told Sky News he believed he was targeted because the women assumed he was Muslim. “For them to accuse us of a crime, that’s unfair, that is unjust,” he said. “I love this town.”

In that brief exchange, you could hear the country talking to itself: fear, anger, stereotypes, pride, and a plea for fairness.

The numbers behind the standoff

The UK has been detaining and deporting people for decades. But in practice, removals often lag. Data published earlier this year show 19,244 foreign offenders were awaiting deportation at the end of 2024 — up from 17,907 when the Conservatives left office in July, and from 14,640 at the end of 2022. In response to questions about Hamud’s case, the Home Office said it does not comment on individual cases but added that it seeks to remove those who commit serious crimes, either through enforced deportation or voluntary return. Ministers have also trailed plans — not yet in force — to deport foreign criminals immediately after sentencing.

Anyone who has followed this beat knows the obstacles are rarely simple. Identity documents can be hard to obtain; political instability in a person’s home country can complicate returns; legal appeals take time; and airlines are frequently wary of controversy. In the meantime, people like Hamud linger in hostels, their days shrinking as the bureaucracy stretches out.

Britain’s new migration mood

Nuneaton is not unique. Across Europe and beyond, small towns are absorbing big arguments about immigration. Smartphones now turn local incidents into national referendums in hours. Misinformation, fear, and genuine concern about services and safety can blur into a single narrative. Politicians respond with tougher talk and new schemes, promising faster removals and sharper borders. Yet the slow, procedural reality of migration management — interviews, case files, flights negotiated, courts appealed — trudges on.

For communities, that dissonance can be exhausting. The town’s asylum numbers are modest by national standards, but they arrive at a time when public services feel stretched, wages stagnant, and trust brittle. When a crime is alleged, it lands in a crowded emotional house.

What “safe” means, and to whom

In the end, this is a story about safety, and who gets to claim it. Hamud insists he would be safer in Somalia — a country millions have fled. He is likely thinking as much about social acceptance as physical security. He wants to work; he wants a life that is more than waiting. Nuneaton, by contrast, currently feels like a place of accusation and side-eyes. “The Home Office is ignoring me,” he said. Whether they are or not, the silence is its own answer.

For Zahin, safety was shattered not by war or poverty, but by a public accusation hurled in broad daylight, in front of children. He responded with a question and a declaration of love for his town — a reminder that belonging is not only about where you came from, but what you invest in a place over time.

Where this leaves Britain

There are no easy endings here. The Home Office promises to remove serious offenders; the queue to do so keeps lengthening. Towns like Nuneaton call for control and calm; social media delivers heat and spectacle. Asylum seekers want a decision; many wait months or years. And some, like Hamud, ask to leave — a request that cuts against the politics of deterrence and the mythology of migration as a one-way ticket to a better life.

So what would a fair system look like? Perhaps it starts with pace: decisions made quickly, either way, so people can get on with their lives — here or elsewhere. It continues with language: a refusal to collapse individuals into headlines. And it ends, oddly, where Hamud began: with the right to work. Across studies and borders, meaningful work is one of the strongest predictors of integration and well-being. Deny it, and you create not just poverty, but a vacuum where resentment grows — on all sides.

On the market square, the day closes and the town goes back to itself. Somewhere in Nuneaton, a man waits for a letter that will tell him whether his wish to go home will be granted. He is not a symbol; he’s a person in a system. But the way Britain treats him, and others like him, will say something about what kind of country this is trying to be — and who, in the end, gets to feel safe.

By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.