3rd February 2001|Channel 4
‘Bloody Foreigners’ is Andrew Smith’s investigation into the British attitude towards asylum seekers and immigrants who live and work in the UK. It exposes the culture of hypocrisy under which xenophobia proliferates to such an extreme that asylum seekers are physically and verbally abused on a daily basis. It underlines the fact that these very people are working illegally for well under minimum wage, to line the pockets of seemingly legitimate British businesses.
Part one reveals the scam behind a government-funded housing project in Liverpool. The owner receives millions from the council for ostensibly offering accommodation to asylum seekers. Yet the blocks of flats are in a shocking state of disrepair, conditions are freezing – not to mention the treatment the occupants receive from the locals. Secret camera footage shows the assault and harassment of inhabitants, regularly inflicted by neighbouring youths.
Part two deals with illegal workers who are employed by apparently respectable companies as waitresses, cleaners, and builders, to name but a few, without any legal documents or insurance, and paid as little as £20 for a long day. The final section uses hidden cameras to show the trade in forged passports which is rife in Finsbury Park Mosque, north London.
Directed & Produced by Andrew Smith
Executive Producer: David Henshaw