Protest At WH Tours Over Involvement In Deportations

PRESS RELEASE, 25/03/2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


This Saturday, 27th March, anti-deportation activists will holding a peaceful protest from 11.30am-12.30pm outside the WH Tours office in Crawley about the company's involvement in the deportation of immigration detainees.(1)

WH Tours are regularly involved in transporting migrants from detention centres, such as Brook House and Tinsley House at nearby Gatwick, to airports to be forcibly deported.Deportees are regularly harmed by guards during deportations and once they have been returned to their "home" country they are regularly at risk of persecution, imprisonment, torture and even death. (2) The vast majority of deportations are to countries ravaged by wars and armed conflicts such as Afghanistan, Iraq, DR Congo, Nigeria, Jamaica and Sri Lanka.

Rosie Young, who will be at the protest on Saturday, says that by providing coaches to transport deportees to the airport, WH Tours are "complicit in human misery". Therefore, she continues, "we must protest until they cease all contracts with the UK Border Agency and G4S".

Campaigners are also calling for all schools, companies and individuals that use WH Tours to boycott them until they end their involvement in deportations.

More info: noborderslondon@riseup.net, 07535 319119.

Notes:

(1) WH Tours is based at The Kelvin Centre, Kelvin Way, Crawley RH10 9SF. See http://www.wandhgroup.co.uk/

(2) See for example: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/feb/03/gay-iraqi-asylum-seeker. Also see this report about the abuse of migrants during deportation: http://www.medicaljustice.org.uk/content/view/411/88/

Activists Disrupt 'Policing The Borders' Conference

Press Release:

A high-profile conference about 'policing' the UK borders on Tuesday was disrupted by campaigners protesting against a 'fortress Europe'. Activists from No Borders London [1] stormed the Cavendish conference centre in central London with banners, leaflets and cameras. They then started to shout 'No borders, no nations, stop deportations' until the 20 or so attendees left and the event was cancelled.

The event, organised by Capita, is the second annual 'Policing the Borders Conference'. Described by the organisers as a "learning and networking opportunity," the event gathered representatives of the European border agency Frontex, the Identity and Passport Service and senior officers from the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Metropolitan Police and various other police forces. It was also attended by representatives of private security companies, such as Serco, and featured an exhibition about border security and surveillance technology. [2]

Video footage of the protest posted on activist news site Indymedia shows protesters walking in, unfurling a banner that reads 'No to Fortress Europe', and lecturing their shocked audience about freedom of movement and state repression. The highly esteemed delegates are then seen leaving the hall one by one, some covering their faces to avoid being filmed. [3]

Commenting on the reasons behind the action, one of the protesters said: "Under the pretexts of 'security', 'terrorism' and 'illegal immigration', hundreds of migrants are everyday denied their freedom of movement, dignity and basic rights. On top of that, the increasingly racist immigration policies create an atmosphere of suspicion, where everyone is under surveillance for unnamed 'crimes'. And to achieve that, European government are outsourcing immigration control to shadowy organisations like Frontex, who do the dirty work for them. From sinking migrants' boats to forcibly deporting people on specially chartered flights, Frontext can be best described as a mercenary army charged with protecting the artificial borders of Fortress Europe." [4]


Notes:

[1] No Borders London is http://london.noborders.org.uk

[2] Speakers at the Policing the Borders conference on 23rd March, 2010, included Edgar Beugels, head of the Research and Development Unit at Frontex; Tony McCarthy, detective chief inspector, Office of the National Coordinator PROTECT, Association of Chief Police Officers; Bob Chatterton, head of Special Branch, Essex Police; Duncan Hine, executive director, Integrity and Security, Identity and Passport Service; Lorraine Morrison, detective chief inspector, Gatwick Operations, Sussex Police; Dave Padwick, detective inspector, Counter Terrorism Unit, Gatwick Operations, Sussex Police; Paul Kiteley, Detective Sergeant, Cargo Unit, SO15 Counter Terrorism Command, Metropolitan Police Service; Vaughn High, Small Ports Team Leader, Essex Police.

The conference was chaired by Ian Hutcheson, the security director at BAA Airports Ltd. The main presentations were the one by Frontex about "how to solve cross-border challenges and create an integrated border control system" and the one by ACPO on "the national strategy for UK border policing."

The page advertising the conference on Capita's website 'disappeared' since the action:
http://www.capitaconferences.co.uk/public-sector-conferences/police-criminal-justice/full-conference/article/policing-the-borders.html
The page, however, can still be accessed via Google's cache: http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:0nCwbucmDKkJ:www.capitaconferences.co.uk/public-sector-conferences/police-criminal-justice/full-conference/article/policing-the-borders.html
The conference brochure and programme are here: http://www.capitaconferences.co.uk/pdfgen.html?filename=policing_the_borders_WOPDF.pdf

[3] The video footage of the protest can be found at: http://london.indymedia.org.uk/videos/4518.

[4] Frontex (officially known as the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union) has recently assumed extra powers to charter mass deportation flights, buy equipment and explore satellite technology to survey the EU borders. For more details, see this recent Guardian article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/14/european-union-border-frontex-deportation.

More On Yarl's Wood And Child Detention

Interestingly the Yarl's Wood Inspection report comes a day after yet another in a long line of reports critical of the treatment of children in the UK's detention system, this one from Refugee and Migrant Justice entitled 'Safe at Last? Children on the front line of UK Border Control', and also just two days after news that three doctors at Yarl's Wood itself are facing investigation by the General Medical Council.

'Safe at Last?' documents some pretty appalling treatment meted out to child migrants upon their arrival in the UK, being forced to undertake "oppressive and unlawful" interviews even before being offered basic welfare like rest and food or basic health care.

Zubier, a 16 year old from Afghanistan suffered serious leg injuries when his neighbour's house was bombed by Allied forces. He subsequently suffered abuse at the hands of his father's family and the Taliban after his father had died. His maternal uncle organised his escape, paying an agent but the people traffickers bet him as well because his injured legs slowed him down. His journey took many months via Greece and the 'Jungle' in Calais, where he was stabbed and the wound became infected.

He eventually made it across the Channel but was intercepted in Dover in the early morning. Taken to Dover IRC, he was strip-searched but not offered a doctor. Eventually, he was interviewed later that afternoon with the use of an interpreter on a phone line.

Imagine: you are a scared 16 year old, confused and in a great deal of pain, being interviewed by strange men in uniform who speak a language you don't understand and have to get another stranger on a telephone to interpret for you. He tells you that you are talking too much and to only give short answers to questions. You tell the interviewer about you injuries and that you are in a lot of pain but he doesn't want to see your injuries, all he is interested in is if you can continue and what happened on your journey.

The interview takes ages and then they leave you alone. Eventually you are taken to a hostel and days later a social worker turns up and only then are you taken to hospital, where you are told you are very ill and may have to have one of your legs amputated. Then you discover that your asylum claim was refused because you didn't give enough information during the interview when you first arrived. How would you feel, especially when you find out that one of your brothers had since been killed? Even being granted special leave to remain because of your age is little comfort and cannot stop the nightmares and panic attacks.

This is the sort of story that is used to illustrate the systematic failure by the UK Borders Agency to follow the statutory guidance published under Section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 in the way the Illegal Entry Interviews are carried out with minors, though many of us would also criticise their use with adults.

On the Yarl's Wood health care front, the Inspectorate's report was on the whole positive:

Healthcare provision had also improved, particularly for children, with specialist mental and physical health services. - Introduction.

Clinical governance and management of health services had significantly improved. A female GP attended once a week. Detainees had good access to primary care services. Many detainees complained about delays in seeing healthcare staff and there could be some long waits for additional clinics when detainees attended at the same time. GP clinics were available every weekday and on Saturday mornings. In contrast to clinics, there were no significant waiting times for routine appointments and detainees were seen on the same or following day following nurse triage. - Safety HE.21.

Yet the privately-run subcontracted health care provision at the detention centre continues to draw criticism and demands for it to be returned to the NHS. There is usually no smoke without fire to use an old cliché.

Selected Lowlights Of The Yarl's Wood Inspection Report

As many of you probably cannot be bothered to read the full report on the unannounced full follow-up inspection of Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre on 9 – 13 November 2009 by the Chief Inspector of Prisons, we've chosen a few lowlights for you, with the odd comment of course.

Length of Detention:

Over the past six months, 420 children had been detained, of whom half had been released back into the community, calling into question the need for their detention and the disruption and distress this caused. Some children and babies had been detained for considerable periods – 68 for over a month and one, a baby, for 100 days – in some cases even after social workers had indicated concerns about their and their family’s welfare. Detailed welfare discussions did not fully feed into submissions to Ministers on continued detention. - Introduction. [This figure of only 50% actually deported was confirmed earlier this month.]

Now Phil Woolas has responded to this directly, on amongst other things Radio 4, and has claimed that, whilst half of all Yarl's Wood detainees are released at some point (he helpfully pointed out that "all the people we are talking about are appeal-rights exhausted"), almost all are subsequently removed from the country. Now, this raises a few interesting points.

Firstly, and our maths here may not be too hot, but if half of all detainees are released but almost all are subsequently removed then:
1] half are being detained before all legal avenues have been exhausted, be they appeal-rights exhausted or not;
2] in order to remove almost 100%, if half are removed at each subsequent detention, then 25% are detained twice before deportation, 12% detained three times, 6% four times, you get the picture.

Therefore the line that "whenever we [UKBA] take decisions involving children, their welfare comes first and we will always seek to act in the best interests of the child" and that the Home Office's only detains people when their removal is imminent or when there is a risk of them absconding, and when other alternatives have been considered, is clearly not true.

And just ask yourself, if you have been in the country for a number of years, you have a settled home life with your children in school, are you likely to go on the run? The Home Office clearly thinks so, despite them never having offered one scintilla of evidence that this is likely to be the response of families facing deportation.

So his statement in response to the report that "The sad fact is that some illegal immigrants refuse to comply with the decision of the independent courts and return home voluntarily. The alternatives to centres like Yarl's Wood include putting children into care – which would mean separating them from their parents and risking increased child trafficking and further illegal immigration," is a load of hogwash. [Note: he does not iterate the other alternatives.] And to bring child trafficking into the argument is really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

None of the five families who had been held for 28 days or more [NB: reviews of continued detention have to be carried out after 28 days] and who were discussed during a conference call held during the inspection were removed and all were eventually released. - Main recommendation #2.

More than 10% of detainees had been held at Yarl’s Wood for more than six months. Of these, 13 had been held for six to eight months, eight for eight to 10 months and 11 for more than 10 months. Three detainees had been detained for two years and more. The average length of detention at the centre was 34 days for single female detainees (compared to 22 days in 2008) and 16 days for families. There were no statistics for length of detention across the estate and even those for length of detention at Yarl’s Wood were not easily accessible. The cumulative length of detention was highly relevant to the management of cases, including by the UKBA’s on-site office, so this lack of accurate statistics could adversely impact on detainees. - Immigration casework 3.15.

One Zimbabwean woman detained for nearly two years was awaiting a Court of Appeal hearing, but the monthly review letters failed to mention that there had been no forced removals to Zimbabwe throughout this period. In the case of another woman held for 13 months, it had taken a year to confirm her claim of having Nigerian nationality and the monthly review letters failed to identify the reason for lack of progress. There was no evidence in the case file that the detainee was not cooperating. In other cases, the reason for continued detention was highly questionable. One Nigerian woman who had been at the centre for 16 months was told that her continued detention was because she had been ‘assessed as posing a serious risk of harm to the public’ for committing the offence of possession of a false identity document for which she had served nine months in prison. - Immigration casework 3.17.

Health & Welfare Provision:

Provision of activities for them was among the poorest seen in any removal centre. It had been inadequate at the last inspection, and had declined even further. The absence of activity added to the depression and anxiety of women, many of whom were spending lengthy periods at Yarl’s Wood. The average length of stay had increased by 50% since the last inspection, and one in ten women had been detained for more than six months. There was some paid work, but only about a dozen jobs offered more than 10 hours a week. The quality and quantity of education was poor, except for some good arts and crafts work. - Introduction.

The conditions, activities and services for children, within the centre, had improved significantly, but this, while welcome, could not compensate for the adverse effect of detention itself on the welfare of children, half of whom were later released back into the community. - Introduction.

There had been no assessment of adult mental health needs. - Introduction.

Food:

None of the 5 previous recommendations regarding food had been achieved, though the percentage saying that "the food was good or very good" had risen to 17% from the previous only 7%, against the comparator standard of 27%.

Food lacked variety, could be of poor quality and was much criticised by detainees. - Respect HE.24.

Detainees did not work in the kitchen and were unable to contribute to the preparation of national dishes. - Respect HE.33.

Removals:

[Between August and October 2009], 845 detainees had left following issue of removal directions: 554 [66%] had been escorted by G4S inland and 143 of these removals (26%) had failed; 291 [34%] had been escorted by overseas escorts and 74 (25%) had failed. - Removal and release 10.18.

There were several examples of arrangements made to split the family for effective removal. This usually meant separating the family from the father, but in one case the proposal was to separate a five year old child from his mother on their journey to the airport. In another case, separating the father was described as ‘leverage over the mother’ and in another, separating the mother from her 18 year old son was described as ‘leverage to decrease the mother’s obstructive behaviour’. - Removal and release 10.26.

In January 2009, force had been used to split a family of six so that the father and two children could be removed. The youngest child had been removed by force from his father’s grip and a 10 year old child was taken by force into the departure area after refusing to leave his mother. In the same month, force was used on a pregnant woman. Her three year old son had been kept in the family care suite while she was taken to the legal offices to be given removal directions. On leaving the offices, she had refused to move further and called repeatedly for her son. She had been forcibly placed in, and held in, a wheelchair and taken to the family care suite where she was reunited with her son. - Removal and release 10.27.

Paid Work:

Paid work had expanded to 49 paid work roles, but this was still inadequate for the population. Only a quarter of roles offered work for more than 10 hours a week and there was a two to three week waiting list for jobs. The application process was unclear and work agreements that detainees were required to sign were not translated. Access to work could be vetoed for non-compliance with UKBA, which inappropriately mixed custodial and immigration functions. the child. - Activities HE.37.

The privileges of enhanced status were access to the clothing bazaar, 30 minutes a day internet access and the ability to apply for paid work, subject to UKBA approval (see section on work and learning and skills). Standard level detainees were restricted to 30 minutes a week of internet access, which inappropriately reduced the amount of their contact with the outside world. - Rewards scheme 8.15.

Further recommendations 8.16 Detainees should only be downgraded to the standard level for a pattern of behaviour rather than a single incident, unless that incident is very serious. 8.17 Reviews should be regular and take place on time. 8.18 Reduced access to the internet should not be a penalty within the rewards scheme

Other findings:

A 65% increase in the use of force in first 9 months of 2009 compared to the same period in 2008.

Almost twice the numbers of incidents of temporary confinement under Rule 42 in first 9 months of 2009 compared to same period 2008.

A 37% increase in the number of complaints, nearly half were made about medical issues [32%] and ‘poor communication’ [16%].

After the 2008 inspection, the HM Inspectorate of Prisons made 128 recommendations, the same number as during the 2009 visit. Of those, only 59 [46%] were achieved by the second visit. Of those 43 unachieved and 16 partially achieved recommendations from 2008, 65 were carried over to this report to make 187 new or repeated recommendations to the operators of Yarl's Wood [156] and to UKBA [29], plus 2 jointly addressed.

But probably most damning of all:

There seemed to be no change in practice following the removal of the reservation to Article 22 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and no consideration of whether detention was essential or in the best interests of the child. - Childcare and child protection 4.28.

Scraping The Bottom Of The Racist Barrel

It beggars belief that this trivial story can make the front page of a national newspaper, and you can bet your bottom dollar that it wasn't the front page story in the local newspaper?

As to the story itself, it turns out that the Romanian family were sold a pig in a poke when someone told them in a local shop about what they thought was an empty house that they could squat it. So rather gullibly, they went along and forced the front window of the rather down-at-the-heels and abandoned looking end of terrace house (check out the photo) and started to throw out the 'rubbish' they found inside, only for the owner to return and call the police.

And yesterday the Romanian couple, Mihai and Laura Dediu, were given 12-month community orders and sentenced to 100 hours' community service for criminal damage to a window and door locks. As the burglary charge against then was dropped (the judge having commneted "in 26 years I cannot remember a case where burglars have taken a young child with them to carry out a burglary.”), they were only in the building for a few hours and nothing was actually taken, we fail to see how the Express can have come up with the headline 'Romanians steal man's home'.

[See 'In Every Back Garden A Heartache' for another take on the tabloids trying to criminalise migrants over civil court issues and playing fast and loose with the facts.]

Three Strikes & You're Deported

In an interesting new twist on the idea of the 'three strikes and you're out' law, a wheelchair-bound polio victim who won five gold medals representing Great Britain is to deported. Vincent Onwubiko's crime: driving his specially adapted car while disqualified after twice being convicted of careless driving, once after jumping a red light. His sentence: five months in prison.

Now the criteria for deportation of so-called 'foreign national prisoners' is that they are over 17 years old, have been convicted of a serious criminal offence which carries with it a prison sentence (usually of 1 year or more) and the sentencing court have recommended that s/he be deported once s/he has served their sentence. There is also a general presumption that the continued presence of the prisoner is not 'conducive to the public good' and that this consideration outweighs all over factors, unless deportation would breach the individual’s human rights or his rights under the European refugees convention.

So how is the continued presence of someone who has been in the country for 16 years, who has n 11-year-old daughter and who has represented his adopted country with distinction at the highest level in his chosen sport (weight-lifting) not 'conducive to the public good'? Maybe we should ask the judge who threw out his judicial review or the government whose deportation of 'foreign national prisoners' target headboard Vincent is today to become yet another notch on?

So, at 43 years old and no longer able to compete for Team GB, GB and his cronies have deemed him surplus to requirements, given him 3 months supplies of painkillers and will put him on tonight's 22:05 Virgin Atlantic Airways flight VS651 to Lagos.

Footnote To "In Every Back Garden A Heartache"

There is actually a serious reason to posting 'In Every Back Garden A Heartache', something that the Mail and the Express chose to ignore because of their rabid opposition to most things European and to all things EU.

It is almost certain that these squatters are all from the so-called A8 EU states - Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic - and because of that, and the way the A8 accession state agreements are structures, it is almost impossible for them to claim any welfare benefits, including Jobseekers' Allowance and housing benefit.

So, as most are likely to have been in seasonal employment picking vegetables, they suddenly have no money to pay rent and have no option but to live on the streets, or in someone's back garden, unless they have the money to travel back home. And if they are sleeping rough, they have little or no chance of finding other work.

Hence the Peterborough garden squatters, and the increasing numbers to be found across East Anglia. Obvious really but when one thinks about it but where's the newsprint in that?

The other problem is that seasonal work is by its very nature temporary and often the companies involved do not keep adequate paperwork. So when it comes to A8 or any other temporary workers claiming benefits when they do become eligible, assuming they know about them (around £10bn in available benefits goes unclaimed each year), they often lack the correct paperwork (payslips, etc.) to claim them. Making them even more likely to end up on the streets.