Fast-forward to this summer, where anti-immigrant rallies have become a reality here, with far-right groups harassing asylum seekers and migrant communities in Falkirk, Edinburgh and Glasgow. I have started to hear the everyday Scottish person echoing the same unfounded arguments about migrants – blaming us for the financial pressures in their households. Alarmingly, many justify their way of thinking on a couple of videos played on social media. These actions have left behind a feeling that we are not wanted here.

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But migrants have always been part of this country. And we have had to jump huge hoops to remain. When the UK Government celebrates a new anti-immigration policy and calls for “net zero migration”, there is a real-life impact on our lives, and on Scotland as a community.

I have seen friends who had already made a life here having to leave because their jobs didn’t pay the £41,700 salary required to obtain a visa. I have also met couples facing huge financial pressures to afford the more than £10,000 in visa fees when all they wanted was to build a loving life together. I know of people who struggle to get through unemployment or a crisis because immigration rules say they cannot access benefits like everyone else. And of people who fled conflicts inflicted by the UK abroad, whose families are forced to stay in that same violence and persecution because of political decisions made by our governments.

Despite the adversity, we migrants have made every effort to make this our home. It is here that many of us have found peace, safety, love, connections, nature, work, family and belonging. I came to Scotland because I fell in love with my partner who, in turn, years earlier had come to study and fell in love with the country. Here I have found my second family. And my story is not unique – I could tell you of countless others who also unexpectedly fell in love with someone here and made Scotland their home for the same reason.

Indeed, as migrants we are far from strangers. We are your family members and partners, we are your colleagues and part of your friendship circles, we might be caring for your grandparents in hospital, teaching your children, quietly cleaning away the places you walk through every day or driving your taxi to the airport.

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We have helped to build Scottish cities and grown the tourist economy, we sustained the NHS through Covid and have given our ideas and creativity to help cement Scotland’s reputation for innovation and knowledge. We are an intrinsic part of this country, and we shouldn’t have to prove our worth to be safe and respected.

When in 2020 the Home Office tried to take away two migrant men from a flat in Kenmure Street, I remember the heartfelt protest that followed. People from all walks of life gathered to oppose this injustice. Parents with children, families from different faiths and ethnicities, people from different neighbourhoods, business owners, teachers. Those who couldn’t be there in person watched attentively from their screens.

The news went around the world, even reaching my parents in Mexico. I remember hearing many Scots feeling proud of the way we showed the UK Government that we are different, that we are a society that puts people first. And the one thing that will never leave me is when the crowd started chanting: “These are our neighbours, let them go!”

To me, these words extended to all of us who have come here from abroad. Because ultimately, we are not merely migrants, we are your neighbours, we are your community. And in a time when some are sowing hatred, I ask that you never forget this.

Natalia Equihua is a Glasgow-based writer and community organiser working on women’s and migrant’s rights, with a focus on the Latin American community in Scotland.