The Price We Pay to Call a Place Home

Some stories don’t make the headlines — because they complicate the narrative. This is one of them. A visa isn’t just paperwork. It’s money wired before you’ve earned a penny, uncertainty folded into a suitcase, and goodbyes that never really stop hurting — however many times you stand at the airport.

Some stories NEVER make the news ... not because they don’t matter but because they expose the parts of immigration the headlines would rather not touch.

They sit behind the visas and the fees, the waiting rooms and the countless sacrifices, the (MANY, MANY!!) airport goodbyes that break you a little each time.

They’re the stories of people who start contributing long before anyone realises they’re here at all.

Here are two of them.

Different women, different paths, and one truth that unsettles every argument about who ‘deserves’ a place.

Story #1 > A Teacher Who Built a Life Twice

She arrived in the UK from South Africa with her husband and young son — a woman with decades of experience, quiet resolve, and a determination to give more than she ever takes. 

Nothing about her journey was easy or accidental.

The visa fees, NHS surcharges, and every required cost — a full year’s worth for all three of them — were paid upfront, long before their feet ever touched British soil.

The school offered her a temporary contract — a chance with no guarantees and on one condition: that she could cover every cost herself.

When the contract was renewed, she paid again — this time, four years’ worth, in full.

It’s the sort of money you expect to spend on a house deposit ... not on permission to start a new life, and yet that detail barely comes up in politics or the news.

They didn’t come to lean on the system. In fact, they’d already been funding it long before they even landed!

They settled in a small English village as the only minority family — and she made it home anyway. Kids adore her, neighbours rely on her, and she simply belongs.

Within the first few months, her own students voted her 'Best Teacher' — and 'Most Caring Teacher'

.

She went on to be named 'Geography Teacher of the Year', selected from more than 3,000 nominations across 57 schools.

She was also honoured with the Community and Family award — given to people who show up, again and again, for others ... and she did all of this in just one year?!

“She went in with no promises, having already sacrificed so much — and it turned out she didn’t need them. Her trial year showed just how much she gives to her students, colleagues, and community.

BUT ... all of it comes with a cost she can’t escape!

Her adult daughter still can’t live or work here. Six months together, then torn apart again. Every goodbye rips open the same wound. All they have are hope, patience, and video calls that stretch across the distance — it will never feel close enough, never replace a hug, and never ever be enough.

Still, they carry on ... building a life between borders that don’t always open for them.

P.S. There’s also my friend’s boy — living proof of what happens when a child is given space, stability, and support. He just won a Jack Petchey Award, nominated by his teacher and chosen from students across the country. ‘Hard-working, respectful, a natural leader,’ in his teacher’s words.

He shows up, puts in the effort, and earns the respect of everyone around him. He arrived in the UK as a kid, just trying to find his way, learning the ropes — and now he’s finding his feet, building a life that’s already unfolding into something remarkable.

Story #2 > A South African Woman Who Never Took a Shortcut

Then there’s my story.

I came to Britain hoping to build a bigger, better life for myself and for my family back home.

I travelled thousands of miles with a suitcase and a stubborn sense of ambition. My first entry into the UK wasn’t free or subsidised; it was a working holiday visa that I paid for myself.

There was no help, a safety net, or certainly no reliance on the State - just me, relying on myself.

Fast forward seven years, I qualified for my Highly Skilled Migrant Visa (HSMP) — thousands in fees, legal costs, endless forms, NHS surcharges, and renewal after renewal, all paid upfront, unquestioned and accepted as part of the deal.

More than twenty years later, I’ve used the NHS only when I genuinely ( and desperately!) needed to, yet I’ve funded it for decades. I’ve worked consistently, paid my taxes, poured time and energy into the communities I’ve lived in, and built a life here that didn’t happen by accident nor entitlement.

I earned my place through contribution, hard work, and a deliberate choice to make this country home, long before anyone even questioned whether I belonged.

I qualified for a British passport fifteen years ago but chose not to apply at the time — mainly because the cost was enormous and, if I’m being totally honest, the English history test (which I have no choice but to take whether I like it or not) has always struck me as absurd — bloody ridiculous, if you ask me — and not remotely reflective of the life I was already living here.

My South African identity matters more than anything to me, and I wasn’t ready to dilute it for the sake of convenience — even though I knew that meant continuing with Schengen visa appointments, restricted travel, and yet more visa costs.

The dual-citizenship process was painfully long-winded, the admin horrendously excessive, and I simply didn’t have the appetite for it. Quite frankly, I had other priorities — like family, life, and actually surviving adulthood.

And for anyone who has ever assumed that it must have been “easy” for me because I married a British man — or who has whispered the nonsense that I conveniently married him for a purple passport  — let me set the record straight. I met my husband ten years ago, and I qualified for that passport five years before I even knew he existed. Utter bollocks, the lot of it.

He does, however, come with one undeniable advantage > I no longer have to stand in the painfully long “foreigners” queue at airports, a line I used to genuinely dread. These days, I stroll through the family line like it’s the most normal thing in the world — and I won’t lie, it’s bloody brilliant!

What I’m still working through is the mental block — and the frustration of handing over yet more money to the government — while listening to the same tired narratives about how people like us supposedly “use free services” or “live off universal credit.”

The Bigger Truth

Immigrants aren’t draining the system — we are helping to hold it up. We pay into services we may never need, strengthen communities that don’t always know how to welcome us, and build careers, families, and futures in countries that demand everything of us and guarantee very little in return!

And as immigrants (have you ever noticed we’re never referred to as “expats”?) we don’t arrive empty-handed. We show up having already paid the price — in pounds spent, miles travelled, and moments we can never reclaim — simply for the chance of a better life and the right to belong.

And, of course - every visa has a family attached to it.

A policy is never just legislation. It lands on someone’s mother, daughter, partner or child, and it shapes lives long before it ever reaches a headline or a debate.

An immigrant arrives having already invested in ways most people will never see — financially, emotionally, and personally — paying not just with money, but with distance, disruption, and time that can never be given back.

A Closing Truth

Strip away the politics, slogans, and constant commentary, and you’re left with stories like ours — families who followed every (darn!) rule, paid countless fees, and gave more than they ever got back. People who held their lives together across continents and kept going, even when the system made it harder than it needed to be.

Immigration crosses more than borders. It’s about rebuilding a life from scratch, piece by piece, sacrifice by sacrifice, often without applause or certainty.

Some of us have carried that weight for decades, holding the bridge steady and refusing to be reduced to someone else’s version of who we should be.