The below report of TCAR's recent public meeting 'Against Racism' was written by Northumbria Uni Law student Katie Bales along with Raul Ally, and first published on the
Northumbria Law Blog
Where’s the Humanity?
February 14, 2013
Katie Bales and Raul Ally
On Saturday the 26th January I attended a meeting organised by Tyneside Community Action Against Racism (TCAR).
The day was organised by activists to highlight some of the pressing
issues within the asylum regime. This blog will reiterate some of the
concerns raised, in the hope that it will shed further light on an
asylum system shamelessly focused on reducing immigration rather than
providing sanctuary and meeting the needs of asylum seekers.
The speakers included
Tom Vickers,
Frances Webber,
John Grayson and Raul Ally.
Tom’s speech
‘Racism and Politics in British State Welfare’ focused
on the pitiful support that asylum seekers receive whilst they are in
the UK and the racism which pervades the history of welfare provision
and remains to this day. His speech can be accessed via his blog,
consequently it will not be reiterated here.
I had the pleasure of reading Frances Webber’s book ‘
Borderline Justice‘,
which gives a comprehensive account of various aspects of the asylum
system such as welfare, housing, detention, border control and access to
justice. Her inspired speech gave a general overview of the
developments in the legal system and the role of asylum seekers,
community, lawyers and judges in fighting for a more humane asylum
system, reiterating the importance of activism and community support. A
video of her
speech can be viewed by clicking the link.
The remainder of this blog is co-written by Raul Ally, who explains
his profoundly moving experience of detention in the UK. He has also
included a video link documenting his experience of seeking asylum
Before examining the deplorable practice of detention in the UK, the
blog will examine discussion by John Grayson and the transfer of asylum
seeker housing from the UK Border Agency to the privatised company G4S.
Privatised Housing and the shameless disregard for humanity:
Asylum seeker housing in the UK is now 100% outsourced to three
multi-national security companies: Clearel (London and the South of
England); Serco (North-West and Scotland & Northern Ireland); and
G4S (North-East, Yorkshire & Humberside and the Midlands & East
of England), who earn millions of pounds through securing provision.
These companies cut costs by purchasing sub standard properties and
letting them to asylum seekers who are left with little or no other
options. Their blatant disregard for the standards of housing provided,
the needs of asylum seekers and the suitability of areas of
accommodation continue to place asylum seekers in precarious positions
where their rights are frequently infringed.
G4S were granted 211million pounds for the seven year asylum housing
contract. The company recently hit the headlines for botching security
at the London Olympic Games, and more seriously for the death of
Jimmy Mubenga in
October 2010. Mubenga died after being restrained by G4S guards on a
British Airways flight in an attempt to deport him to Angola, he was
heard repeatedly shouting ‘I can’t breathe’ and ‘they’re going to kill
me’ by fellow passengers and British Airways Crew.
In December 2012, G4S
evicted a heavily pregnant asylum seeker from
her home on the day she was due to be induced to give birth, expecting
her to move all her belongings, register as homeless and travel to
hospital herself. The woman was aided by one worker who took pity on her
and gave her a lift to hospital.
The standards of housing provided by G4S are described by Grayson as
appalling. In one case, a mother who had been housed in what Grayson
describes as a ‘slum’, found a cockroach in her five month old son’s
milk bottle. Her accommodation was damp and infested by slugs and
cockroaches, the back yard was littered with piles of rubbish from
previous tenants and the landlord had screwed cockroach traps to the
walls, one of which was placed close to her son’s cot. Unlike national
citizens who have tenant’s rights, asylum seekers were stripped of such
rights via the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. Despite this, the
Government still have an obligation to provide asylum seekers with an
adequate standard of living and physical and mental health via Article
11(1) and 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights.
They also have a national obligation to safeguard and promote the
welfare of children, which they are bound to consider via Section 55
Borders Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 and the Convention on the
Rights of the Child. However, evidence suggests that the Government is
failing to adhere to these obligations.
A recent
parliamentary inquiry into
the experiences of children within the asylum system found that in
relation to housing, “families are living in poorly maintained,
overcrowded accommodation which can be damp, dirty, cold and unsafe;
infested with mice, cockroaches and other pests, rotting floorboards and
locked windows. One submission characterized this as ‘death trap’
accommodation” noting there is little obligation upon housing providers
to ensure high quality or appropriate accommodation. During the inquiry,
one local authority affirmed that properties issued by private firms
“are less well maintained and sometimes lack basic facilities needed for
families with young children, such as washing machines. Children and
parents have to share bedrooms, or live in flats and hostels with
strangers, sharing communal areas.” The accountability of housing
standards is thus a major concern.
Racist incidents have also been disregarded by G4S in their selection
of accommodation areas, often housing asylum seekers in rough and
notoriously racist areas. Grayson discussed the plight of an asylum
seeking journalist from Iraq who was dispersed to a G4S property in
Stockton in October 2012. On arrival the applicant and four other asylum
seekers were overwhelmed by a crowd hurling racist abuse, who proceeded
to break down the door and windows to their accommodation before being
removed by police. The landlord repaired the door but refused to repair
the windows, declining to move the asylum seekers to more appropriate
accommodation. The police also refused to register the attack as
racially motivated. In fear of reprisals the other four asylum seekers
left the property, yet in doing so they also lost qualification for
support.
The failure to return or subside at an authorised address constitutes
a reason for the discontinuation of financial support to asylum
seekers, who are also prevented from working. (See SI 2000/704 and
Policy Bulletin 17, Failure to Travel)
Abandonment of address for reasons of racial harassment is classified as
a reasonable excuse. In considering whether to discontinue support in
these circumstances adjudicators must take into account the nature,
degree, frequency, persistence and organisation of the harassment, as
well as the effect it has on the asylum seeker and whether police have
been informed and taken action. ‘The ‘sufficiency of protection’ test of
refugee status itself has even been applied to deciding whether a
refusal to return to the site of previous racist harassment was
reasonable in the light of the police response. These decisions suggest
that there is such a thing as an acceptable level of racial harassment
(or a level of harassment which asylum seekers must accept).”
(Macdonald’s Immigration Law and Practice 2010, page1104)
Though some asylum seekers are active in their fight for humane and
dignified treatment, some are afraid to speak out, worried of the impact
it could have on their asylum application. Consequently hundreds of
asylum seekers continue to live in squalor and allow racist incidents to
go unreported, choosing to remain at home rather than risk racial abuse
outside.
Detention: A punitive response to seeking asylum?
Though immigration detention is claimed not to be a form of punishment,
Morton Hall detention centre, where Raul was recently held used to be a
female prison. At the TCAR meeting Raul described being locked in a cell
intermittently during the day and released for breakfast, lunch and
dinner. The centre placed restrictions on internet access, which
prevented Raul from accessing websites to aid his asylum claim and he
claims that staff would intercept his post. Raul reported that the
majority of detainees were depressed, one of whom he witnessed stabbing
himself with a fork in the dining hall through fear of deportation.
Though asylum seekers have committed no crime, once detained, they
are imprisoned and unable to leave. Whereas criminals are imprisoned for
a fixed amount of time, there is no time limit placed on immigration
detention and no requirement to inform detainees of how long they will
be incarcerated. The imprisonment of asylum seekers in the UK has led to
countless riots, hunger strikes and suicides.
The National Clinical Director for Health and Criminal Justice at the
Department of Health has affirmed that ‘custody causes mental distress
and acts to exacerbate existing mental health problems, heighten
vulnerability and increase the risk of self-harm and suicide.’ The
following case study has been taken from a
blog written by Clare Sambrook and provides an insight into the realities of immigration detention and deportation:
“When immigration officers called at his home in Leeds for a
‘pastoral visit’, the man was open and friendly. He let them in, offered
them a seat, a cup of coffee, told them of his depression, showed them
his medication. The very next day a dozen officers arrived at dawn and
broke down his door with a battering ram — (an “absolutely routine
pick-up”, they called it). The man and his 13 year old son woke up to
find an immigration officer and a police officer in their attic bedroom.
They were told to dress and pack, told they’d be flown the following
morning to Angola — a country where, the man said, his mother, father
and sister had been killed by the authorities.
On the drive to the removal centre — Yarl’s Wood, in Bedfordshire —
escort staff from private contractors G4S confiscated a coil of washing
line from his bag. At Yarl’s Wood they said he could not keep his
medication or the washing line with him, but nobody noted any indication
of risk of self-harm in his file. He was found hanged in a Yarl’s Wood
stairwell at around 1 AM the next morning. His son was woken up and told
the news. The man was Manuel Bravo. He was 35 years old. The
circumstances of his death were recorded, with some compassion, by the
Prisons and Probation Ombudsman Stephen Shaw in January 2006.”
At the TCAR event Raul spoke of the profound impact detention had had
on him, stating ‘I may seem ok on the outside, but really I am not.’
Raul’s account:
On the 24th of June 2012 I was arrested and held in North Shields
police station for 3 days. I was released 3 hours before my prom, I was
arrested without committing any crime or doing anything wrong and
ordered to sign on (at an immigration centre) every week.
It was Wednesday the 1st of August and I was meant to be watching an
Olympic football match between Brazil and Australia, but unfortunately I
couldn’t make it because I was rearrested by the UKBA and taken to
Morton Hall detention centre in Lincolnshire where I was detained for
over 2 months.
My experience in Morton hall has to be the worst experience I have
had in Britain. I first arrived there thinking there would only be a few
of us, but I was shocked to see how many people were held there, people
from all different countries with different circumstances. I expected
to see only asylum seekers but there were people being detained for no
specific reason which was very sad to see. There were people with major
illnesses such as heart disease, people who were blind, those suffering
mental illness and people without limbs. It was sad spending time with
them, sometimes I wished that they could be released and I remained in
there because they didn’t deserve to be held in those conditions.
The staff in Morton Hall were very harsh, I heard one with my own
ears saying that they had the hardest job working in a detention centre
as we (asylum seekers) were the worst criminals. They treated people
like animals, I saw one detainee being forced to move, they strangled
and cuffed him, the guy couldn’t even breathe properly and shouted that
they were killing him, it was very sad to watch. The nurses lie and say
whatever is necessary so people can be deported, there was a Vietnamese
person who had heart problems and couldn’t even go to the dining hall to
get his food, yet the nurses signed that he was fit to be deported, and
they only supply you with pain killers as medication.
The immigration rules say that the maximum someone should be held in
detention is 3 months, but some of my friends were held for up to 6
years, some people have even been deported to wrong destinations, just
so they can get rid of them. There were a few Somalis who pooed in the
plane because they were taken to unknown countries and they used fake
documents to deport them. It was hell being in a detention centre, and
it hurts me to see people being treated like this. God’s world has no
borders. Shut down detention centres!
By Raul Ally
A video documenting Raul’s asylum journey can be viewed at:
