Monday 14 February 2011

New Business Opportunities: Deportation Hostels

"In May 2010, the new coalition government committed to ending child detention for immigration purposes. The 'commitment' had to wait another few months to materialise (only last week reports revealed that a 11-year-old girl had been detained at Tinsley House detention centre, near Gatwick, over Christmas). Meanwhile, the UK Border Agency has been experimenting with a new deportation process for families, spun as "a new, compassionate approach to family removals." Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg went as far as claiming that this marked "an enormous culture shift within our immigration system." But while many serious concerns regarding the rights and welfare of migrant families remain, the new system appears to have created a new market for detention and deportation profiteers."

Given the interest raised by the current planning application by the Home Office to build yet another detention facility in our back yard (except the government PR machine calls it "Open Accommodation"), we recommend anyone interested in the Crawley forest School issue and the Coalition's 'commitment' to 'ending the detention of children' read this Corporatewatch article: New Business Opportunities: Deportation Hostels.

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