BY Daniel Harkins | May 19 | 
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Glasgow parish’s xenophobia fears after 22-year-old Cameroonian woman was detained
A parish priest at a multicultural church in Glasgow has said his parishioners are feeling vulnerable in light of growing xenophobia and the near deportation of a young Cameroonian woman in the parish.
22-year-old Raissa Mkoh (above), a parishioner at the Immaculate Conception parish in Maryhill for the last three years, was detained and taken to Dungavel Immigration Removal Centre after reporting to sign routine Home Office documents. She phoned parish priest Fr Jim Lawlor last week in a panic, and said she was told she would be deported the week of May 15.
On Tuesday May 16, her lawyer lodged a successful emergency appeal against deportation and she is now back in the parish.
Immaculate Conception sits in an area of high immigration, and 22 separate nationalities celebrate Mass in the church each week.
Fr Lawlor said his parishioners have become concerned at ‘massive shifts in our culture politically’ following the Brexit decision.
He said parishioners have expressed concerns about government policy towards immigrants. “But she’s just a quiet, young, vulnerable woman,” he said about Ms Mkoh (above). “Another woman came to see me this week because her right to remain has been refused. A lot of these folk are feeling vulnerable. You can imagine if you have folk from the Congo and Malawi and you are talking about one person who has been grabbed by the system, then it makes all of them feel vulnerable.
“We had three kids who made their First Communion on Saturday and they are in that position as well.”
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