Let and hindrance

When people talk about migrants’ rights, they're not typically talking about people like me, nor should they be. I'm extraordinarily lucky in life. But it seems the sorts of surmountable, administrative issues I face stack up into a major sense of otherness, an elseness, wherever one goes. People like to believe that if you have enough money or connections, you don't experience the difficulties of being a foreigner, but even coming in on, like, an investor's visa is difficult, costly and time-consuming. This sort of thing is largely impossible for people with executive dysfunction or low energy. Coming to the US from an 'easy' country like Britain is unbelievable annoying. I never intended to marry. The US government made that decision for me. The easiest way to move in with my long-distance boyfriend was to plan a wedding!

I've been detained three times for having the wrong paperwork, or saying the wrong thing. I'm a diminutive blue-eyed young person.

No doubt my autism plays a part in how I'm treated. I seem shifty even when I'm telling the truth. I look uncomfortable because I am uncomfortable. Such processes, even for people who 'belong' to a place, are intentionally uncomfortable. It’s a test and I fail. The neurodivergence simply heightens the discomfort.

I truly see freedom of movement as a right. Completely unhindered by the degrading practices you find at airports and embassies. The real victims of these restrictive and unimaginative policies are the poor of the world, who stand to benefit the most from the economic productivity that would be unleashed if the problematic policies were abandoned.