THE NHS has become the new frontier for border control that is putting migrants’ lives at risk, an activist warned during a debate at the weekend’s Glastonbury festival.

Aliya Yule, of Migrants Organise campaign group, told the festival’s Left Field stage on Saturday that the Home Office is using medical information to detain and deport asylum-seekers.

She said: “We are seeing those with foreign-sounding names targeted, and the erosion of trust between health workers and the communities they are supposed to serve.

“The last decade we have seen a hostile environment, with the NHS becoming the new frontier for border control.

“But it won’t be long before the rest of us get charged for our healthcare too.”

She highlighted the story of Simba Mujakachi, an asylum-seeker who could not afford the £6,000 demanded from him to treat a blood-clotting condition. He later suffered a stroke and was in a coma for two weeks before being slapped with a £93,000 for the life-saving treatment he received.

The NHS debt was later wiped after he won his 11-year fight for refugee status, but is still left paralysed on his left side due to the stroke.