Mail and Sunday Telegraph: cat-alysts for more anti-immigration feeling

Yesterday's Sunday Telegraph story Immigrant allowed to stay because of pet cat, has turned up in the Mail today as Migrant facing deportation wins right to stay in Britain... because he's got a cat.

Both articles make clear the cat was

one detail among many.

So how come the 'many' other details are not the focus of these articles?

Because both papers have an agenda to make the immigration system seem ridiculous and worthless, and to make immigrants appear engaged in any trick they can dream up in order to be allowed to stay.

It wouldn't take a genius to work out that those headlines may not be the whole story, and a look at the forty-plus comments left on the Mail website at time of writing rather proves the point.

One, claiming to be from the 'EUSSR' (see what he did there?) says:

Is it any wonder the UK is currently the laughing stock of the entire world?

You could not make it up.

Oh. Littlejohn quotes? Really?

However, it must be added that the Mail have only told half the facts, so it is perhaps small wonder the readers who are always ready to jump on any anti-immigration story pile in. The paper stops copy-and-pasting from the Sunday Telegraph article just around the point where the truth of the case comes out. Why would they do that?

Disgracefully, the Sunday Telegraph pushes in this paragraph:

The case comes a week after The Sunday Telegraph disclosed how the same court had given permission for more than 50 foreign criminals, including killers and sex offenders, to avoid deportation because of human rights concerns.

It has nothing to do with the case at hand, but serves to link immigrants with criminals, again.

But back to the 'cat' and the Mail states categorically:

An illegal immigrant was allowed to stay in Britain because he had a cat

The Mail has gone from 'migrant' in the headline to 'illegal immigrant' in the second line of the story. The Sunday Telegraph doesn't use 'illegal immigrant' at all, referring to him as 'immigrant' throughout.

But the Mail have made it clear - it's all because of that cat:

The unnamed Bolivian was spared deportation after he told a court that he and his girlfriend had bought the animal as a pet.

The Mail goes on to quote the disgust of Damien Green and Migrationwatch's Andrew Green. Hold on, what was that about Littlejohn quotes? Here's Andrew Green:

Drawing pets into the consideration of issues of such importance is so utterly absurd that you could not make it up.

Oh dear. (Incidentally, this is just the type of story Littlejohn is likely to cover in his column tomorrow...)

The Mail also quotes from the Bolivian man's lawyer, but not these crucial statements, included in the Sunday Telegraph:

Mr O'Leary [the couple's lawyer] added that his client originally brought the case because he should have benefited from a Home Office policy on unmarried partners which gives credit to couples who have been together more than two years. The Bolivian had been with his partner for four years, he said.

How convenient the Mail forgot to include that bit. And this bit:

"It was made clear by the initial judge and then by Senior Immigration Judge Gleeson that the appellant should benefit from that policy and be granted the right to remain," he said.

"Furthermore, it was accepted by the Home Office representative at the hearing before Judge Gleeson that the policy should apply and any other errors in the initial decision by the judge, including too much detail on the cat, were immaterial."

And this bit:

He added: "This case was won because the Home Office had a policy which they did not initially apply but later, through their representative, they accepted should have been applied."

A spokesman from the Judicial Communications Office said: "This was a case in which the Home Office conceded that they had mistakenly failed to apply their own policy for dealing with unmarried partners of people settled in the UK."

So the actual story is the Home Office had a policy which it didn't adhere too.

Moreover, the 'too much detail' on that cat was 'immaterial' and accepted as much by the Home Office.

So how does that become 'immigrant stays because of cat'?