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Fergal Keane

John O'Kane

Sam Collyns

Welcome to Our World

Factual

05/04/2014 GMT

BBC News - Welcome to Our World

Fergal Keane finds out what life is really like for a group of illegal immigrants.

Fergal Keane finds out what life is really like for a group of illegal immigrants struggling to survive on British streets and asks what drew them here.

Illegal migrants, believed to number over 600,000, more than the population of Manchester, are at the sharp end of the debate about immigration in Britain - yet are frequently hidden from public view.

In this powerful film, Fergal Keane, who has reported for BBC News from all over the world, finds out what life is really like for a group of illegal immigrants struggling to survive on British streets. He asks what drew them here, follows their battles to beat the system and shows how ineffective the authorities can be in dealing with them.

In Ilford in east London, he meets Shanki from India's Punjab, who came on a tourist visa eight years ago but overstayed to work illegally. Keane uncovers the stark truth of his life now, addicted to drugs, living rough and at the centre of a criminal gang. Even though he has been imprisoned several times he hasn't been deported because he destroyed his passport and the Border Agency can't prove where he comes from.

Keane investigates the cost to local businesses targeted by this gang and hears how previous generations of Sikh migrants are worried that illegals from India are harming their position as an established community in Ilford.

As government billboard vans toured London in summer 2013 telling illegal immigrants they'd be arrested if they didn't go home, Keane discovers that even for those willing to return it can be an uphill struggle. He follows Satpal, illegally here for eight years and now stranded despite being willing to go home. He also meets a Lithuanian couple, recovering heroin addicts, who are in the UK legally

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