#iamillegal

T: Hey, tell us a few words of how you ended up in being illegal for years?

V: I didn't choose to be an illegal. I was a student in Poland and then arrested in Germany for smugling LSD, so when I went out of prison I was already illegal and kicked out of University. They were supposed to deport me, but by some mistake they didn't. Now it's like 8 years since then.

T: I believe no one really chooses to be undocumented unless there's no other options. As it's not such a pleasant thing to experience. Or maybe you think of it in a different way, do you?

V: yeah sure a lot of people choose it. it's better to be illegal immigrant in europe than to work for 200 euros per month in Eastern Europe. Everyone has other option. Europe is small and the world is quit big, you know. Most of the illegals have chosen it, i would say.

T: What are the specifics of being illegal?

V: Being illegal is like being african american in USA of 1950's. You can have a nice time, but from time to time your surrounding is showing to you your place. The place of the 3rd grade semi-human. You have to dress good to not have attention of the pigs, you have to behave quite, you can not effort any risc, especially for your health. If you are siriously sick - then you just dying. If legal citezen insult you - you can not punch him in the face, police will be on his side. Even if he punch you in the face you can not do nothing. If police got you they can violate all your rights and there is nothing you can do. You are the the shadow, not a person.

T: How does this all make you feel?

V: It's very comlicated question. In the first years of being illegal i had this typical "illegal immigrant dreams", when i somehow appearing on the other side of EU border and trying to get back, they look to my passport and say: "no you can't enter", then waking up shaking. With the years I learned to take it easier but i learned a little trick also. I can not speak about my feelings. The illegals that all the time speaking truth about their life and how they are feeling loosing all the friends very fast. No one wants to hang out with the person that complaining all the time. I saw few examples of how people like this were loosing all the friends and going completely menthal, finishing with living alone in the forest, afraiding of sounds. In fact i'm also living in the village with another illegal imigrant now. But I still have a bunch of friends (i hope so), I learned to be this guy that is "ok". How are you ? All good... Of course it's bringing a lot of menthal problems and suicidal thoughts.

T: It sounds like I'm on my way to the forest. I find it working two ways with talking about life. Sometimes the only thing you can do - to tell sad stories, to say how horrible you feel, because it's somehow not obvious what does a life of an illegal looks like, why its totally doomed. Some people love seeing tears, only then they would help, maybe. And then you are trapped.

Trapped because if you cry and beg, if you answer stupid questions you don't feel that any friend connections are possible with the person on the other side, so to say. And the tears lovers, let's call them like this, really tend to be Antifa or anarchist or smth like this.

What do you think about slogans like ´no one is illegal´ and other things connected to borders and illegals?

V: they pretending that the problem does not existing. Imagine if someone would go with the slogans like "xtc is legal".

T: Its a funny parallel if to think of illegals being objects in the common rhetorics.

V: in fact we are not even objects. people are using the term for the refugies generally. No one care about the illegals that are next door

T: Yeh, now i kinda start comparing my experience to what people say and its trully about refugees. But its so ridiculously fucked as the most of the europeans i talked to , i had to explain to them how visa system works, they didnt know that in order to stay i would need insane amounts of proofs and docs and mindfuck and that it´s not that you just go to the immigrational service and tell them you want to atay and thats it. so then if you dont know about these problems at all there are no illegals. there are either expats (прости господи) or refugess with papers or refugees denied and mb some poor immigrants but there s noone in between. and then we, as a group, are so tremendously underepresented that we do not exist

V: Here you are getting to the most popular dogma. When you call the citizens of EU "europeans" you are confirming the mith that Europe and EU is the same when in fact half of the Europe is not in the EU. I'm also european. I just was born in the wrong side of the border.  As for your question - yes a lot of citizens of EU are having very naive ideas about visa politics. I heard a lot: "why don't you just go to make a visa?". A lot of people think that i am illegal because i'm just too lazy to organize myself a documents. But that's i going together with extremely bad education for the poor people in European Union countries. Many Spaniards doesn't know that Poland is the part of European Union or believe that gluten is bad for your health.

T: Mmm when I say europeans I mean citizens of EU, just don´t know how to call them in short. I´ve seen dozens of people with different eu passports. They were from different backgrounds but almost no one knew what is visa and where is border or how to marry unless they went through it somehow. So i think its pretty much about living in a bubble when these kinda problems are not yours which is ridiculous since they so much claim that they care

V:

I didn't met no one who claimed that my problems is theirs.

T:

Nono I mean all this ´refugees welcome´ that is supposed to mean something but it of course doesnt

V:

Ok. Let's generalize :) . Usually all this activism is just a hobby. Nothing more.  They can help, but just a bit when they have a free time from the univiersity or their high-paid job (of course they see it is a miserabale precariat life. lol). Like I was trying to get marry few times (just for the sake of the papers), but it's always were finishing the same - after visiting few bureaucratic ofices they gave up. Too hard you know - you have to wake up early and ask other people to make you a papers. Boring.  Let's just go to sit on the terrace, smoke weed and talk about freedom.

T:

Yeah I had the same story with marriage. People are not ready to commit and they think it´s a joke. What you think we could do to become more visible as a group?

V:

first of all to say about illegal status openly.  Yes it's dangerous, but this way you are showing your existence. There is a wonderful example in Barcelona: a group of African illegal immigrants that are selling fake Gucci bags and fake nike shoes are started a movement for their legality and they are making quit massive demos. of course some of them were arested and some deported but they made society to speak about the problem of illegal people

http://www.equaltimes.org/surviving-is-not-a-crime-barcelona?lang=en#.V1glOSHd560

T:Cool guyz. As far as I know there´re no ways of becoming legal except of ,arriage and asylm. I heard some fairy taies of getting papers after living in the country for 10 years but it seems to be just fairy tales

V:there are more ways, but depends on where you are. in many EU countries they have a little expceptions.

T: Sounds interesting, an immigrational lawyer should know more for sure. Ok, and for the end, can you give some advice to illegals-beginners?

V: If you managed to get in without showing your fingerprints just never say your real data to anyone. If they can not find where you are from than they will never deport you ;)