No Borders MCR statement on the planned deportation next week
A charter deportation flight, scheduled for the 2nd of December, has been confirmed by a source from the Jamaican Ministry of National Security. The Home Office is planning the deportation of upwards of 20 people from the UK to Jamaica on the last day of the UK lockdown, just weeks before Christmas.
It is known that at least 8 of the men due to be deported next week have been in the UK from 18-21 years. At least 5 have indefinite leave to remain in the UK, while others have no family in Jamaica, and some will be at risk if they return. In the last few years several individuals who have been deported from Britain to Jamaica have been murdered, reminding us how mass deportations violate universal entitlements to fundamental human rights, the rights to liberty and security as well as the right to respect for private and family life. It is clear that these men and their families call Britain their home. Each individual has served or is serving the sentence a British judge has deemed appropriate for their crime, in a manner deemed acceptable by the British court.
We demand an end to the double punishment in which people serve their sentence then met with detention.
If the deportation flight goes ahead, these men will be facing a further punishment; aggressive removal from their families and lives. There are 31 children who are at risk of seeing their fathers deported just before Christmas, the youngest being just 3 years old. Many of these detainees were acting as the main carers for their children whilst their partners continued to work throughout the pandemic as key workers. These families will now be forced to seek alternative childcare in an already precarious period.
The government claims to want to bring families together over Christmas by lifting the lockdown temporarily but is simultaneously tearing others apart.
To carry out the flight, upwards of 20 people will be shackled with waist, hand and feet restraints with a guard on either side of them as they are forced on to a plane. Coronavirus restrictions mean they will not be able to say goodbye to their children and families in person. We expect in the run up to the flight next week more individuals across the country will be detained when they go and sign at their local immigration reporting centres. It was reported last week that detainees at the Immigration Removal Centre Morton Hall were having to self-isolate following an outbreak of Covid-19. To put these individuals' health at risk during a pandemic when people of colour are a higher risk category is indicative of the Government’s disregard for black and brown life. To force these people onto a flight across the globe, whilst nationally non-essential travel is not advised, with the potential to spread Covid-19 in Jamaica is reckless.
The government’s action is a further insult to the victims and legacy of the Windrush Scandal.
It begs the question to what extent the Home Office is really committed to righting the wrongs that were brought to light through the scandal of 2018. The Hostile Environment and its legislative predecessors have long served to create fear, harassment and internal border violence in this country for black, brown and ‘non-British’ groups, however following the disastrous events of 2018 we hoped the Government would reconsider, and bring an end to its heartless schemes.
Four of the detainees that Movement for Justice (MFJ) spoke to are connected to the Windrush generation via either their grandfathers, aunts or uncles. David Lammy previously summed up the continuation of these injustices in response to a mass deportation that was planned in February this year ‘The echoes of Windrush are deafening, just two years after this national scandal was exposed. The Home Office admitted that it wrongly deported or detained at least 164 black British citizens and probably many more. At least 11 of them died on the streets of foreign countries where they were deported.’ whilst the home office claims to be compassionate, it is continuing a system of destruction.
Following the mass deportation flight to Jamaica that was scheduled in February this year, a cross-party group of MPs demanded the government halt this flight until the Lessons Learned Review was published. From this flight, 41 children would have lost their fathers. Fortunately, reprieve was granted to several of the individuals who were due to be deported, but many still saw their lives and families torn apart by the deportation. The individuals who made up the #Jamaica50 in February were subjected to triple punishment of detention and threat of deportation after serving the sentenced time for the crimes they had committed. The Home Office had also lied about the nature and severity of these crimes, which was reported in the media, putting their safety at greater risk in Jamaica. The Home Office claimed that those being deported were guilty of murder and rape, when in reality most of the crimes were drug supply, GBH or joint-enterprise crime. These were usually once and many years ago. Once again these callous tactics are in full swing.
In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, the Prime Minister acknowledged the discrimination in ‘the application of criminal law’ and promised to take action to address this. The official apologies to those affected by the Windrush Scandal and the promises made in response to the BLM Movement are empty words unless they are matched by actions.
In July Priti Patel promised a more compassionate and people first led approach in the Home Office in the wake of the Windrush Scandal, so far Patel’s Home Office has only engaged in the opposite. Mass deportation to Commonwealth countries such a Jamaica, are just one feature within a framework of systemic racism in Britain. Institutional racism within our criminal justice system is another. 6 out of the 8 detainees MFJ spoke to, who are due to be deported next week, were convicted on drug offences, largely possession with intent to supply, 2 were possession of an offensive weapon. The Lammy Review reported that the odds of receiving a prison sentence for drug offences were around 240% high for BAME offenders compared to white offenders, and stated ‘regardless of criminal convictions, it is a breach of human rights legislation to deport individuals to a country where their lives could be in serious danger.’
This plane can be stopped.
Currently, reporting and awareness about the flight is taking to pick up with Parliament and the public, but it needs to keep momentum. Together we can call on our elected representatives, and shout as loud as we can to insure this injustice will not go on quietly. But not just because we are in a pandemic, because we wholeheartedly oppose the Government’s disregard for black and brown life, and we envision an alternative to the features of structures of systematic racism in this country.
We will not let the violent border regimes of the hostile environment tear apart families, or inflict a secondary sentence to people that have done their time.
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