In June 2022, the U.K. Home Office rolled out a new pilot policy — to track migrants and asylum seekers arriving in Britain with GPS-powered ankle tags. The government argues that ankle tags could be necessary to stop people from absconding or disappearing into the country. Only 1% of asylum seekers absconded in 2020. But that hasn’t stopped the Home Office from expanding the pilot. Sam, whose name we’ve changed to protect his safety, came to the U.K. as a refugee when he was a small child and has lived in Britain ever since. Now in his thirties, he was recently threatened with deportation and was made to wear a GPS ankle tag while his case was in progress. Here is Sam’s story, as told to Coda’s Isobel Cockerell.

I came to the U.K. with my family when I was a young kid, fleeing a civil war. I went to preschool, high school and college here. I’m in my thirties now and have a kid of my own. I don’t know anything about the country I was born in — England is all I know. 

I got my permanent residency when I was little. I remember my dad also started applying for our British citizenship when I was younger but never quite got his head around the bureaucracy. 

When I got older, I got into a lifestyle I shouldn’t have and was arrested and given a criminal sentence and jail time. The funny thing is, just before I was arrested, I had finally saved up enough to start the process of applying for citizenship myself but never got around to it in time.