Politicised Deportations are Morally Corrupt
Kaya Purchase / Jan 14 / Domestic Policy
In the early hours of the morning on the 2nd of December, 13 individuals were deported from the UK on a charter flight to Kingston, Jamaica. There were originally intended to be 50 deportees on board, but in the days preceding the flight, organisations such as BARAC (Black Activists Rising Against Cuts) and Detention Action called on people across the UK to take mass action. A group of celebrities, including Thandie Newton and Naomi Campbell, signed an open letter to politicians asking them to stop the flight. A total of 185,000 people signed an online petition, whilst some also sent letters to MPs and put pressure on airlines, such as TUI. These actions successfully removed 37 people from the plane, although some were only granted reprieve at the very last instant, including one man who was removed mere seconds before the plane was about to take off. The success of this activism clearly proves the potential influence of organised mass mobilisation. However, 13 people were still torn from their families and sent to a country that they may not have seen since they were children. These are people who have set up their lives in the UK, attended British schools, worked in British jobs, married and had children here. Why were these people deported and why has such deportation sparked so much controversy?
Charter flights are a common way to remove people from the UK that the government does not believe have a right to remain. This includes foreign national offenders. The Home Office has publically defended the Jamaica 50 flight by declaring that all those on board were dangerous criminals who have committed serious offences. However, this is seriously, and I believe intentionally, over-simplifying a complex situation. Since the 2007 UK Borders Act, a person who was not born in the UK and has served a prison sentence of longer than 12 months can be deported. This broad category does indeed include dangerous offenders, such as murderers and sex offenders, but it also includes those who have committed theft or drug offences, such as the production and selling of class A drugs. Whilst I do not wish to undermine the detrimental impact of drug abuse on communities, it is well-established that young black men are disproportionately targeted for drug crimes by the police system. The institutional racism present in both the British justice system and the Home Office means that the two systems working together results in cases such as that reported on in Detention Action’s press release. This is the case of a man who was among the 13 deported. He came to the UK from Jamaica aged 13. It is thought that he was a victim of criminal grooming which led to one conviction of intent to supply Class A drugs. He served his sentence. All of his extended family live in the UK, meaning that he knows no one in Jamaica, so will be homeless on arrival. Yet he was punished a second time by deportation. It is difficult not to compare such a story to that of a white British person who has committed the same offence. Why does one man deserve an additional punishment, a second possibly life-threatening sentence, while the other is only subjected to a single punishment? Another case, shared by Bella Sankey, director of Detention Action is that of a young man, who arrived in the UK as a child and also committed a drug offence in 2003. He has since been completely rehabilitated, married, had children and become the primary care-giver to his disabled wife. He was also deported, leaving his wife and children behind.
Charter flights cost a lot of tax-payer’s money, which means that the politicians who order them are under pressure to fill the plane to maximum capacity. This means they cut corners. In addition to this, inmates of Immigration Removal Centres and prisons are often not provided with sufficient access to immigration information and legal representation. The Guardian has reported that of those 37 who were reprieved, more than one had no legal representation and had not yet had their cases properly heard. Others were victims of trafficking which has only been officially investigated and confirmed since their removal from the charter flight. As long as the laws remain so vague, deportation can be used as a weapon with which to attack immigrants and their families, even if they have lived here since childhood.
Priti Patel shared a letter addressed to MP Clive Lewis on her Twitter account the day before the deportation. It addressed his objections to the flight and urged the criminality of those who were set to be deported. It was a letter full of passionate rhetoric about keeping our streets safe and having sympathy for the victims of the violent offences that had been committed. We should always consider the victims of such crimes and stand in solidarity with anyone who has experienced violence. It is our duty as a nation to work at protecting people from such trauma. Having said that, to focus on the single most extreme case studies is a purposeful tactic to distract from the fact that these deportations are discriminatory. Such rhetoric has been used repeatedly throughout past generations to justify racism. To incite terror in people towards those of a certain race or culture is an attempt to dehumanise a whole group of people. This is not a new tactic and coming from Priti Patel is especially concerning because of her political stance on immigration. It is unconvincing to hear sympathy with victims of violence from a woman who is happy to inflict violence on women and children who are trapped in the middle of the sea, simply because they are refugees. Patel’s sweeping generalisation that all those who are deported from the UK are threats to the safety of our streets is simply not true.
It is these types of reductive statements and refusal to confront complexities that leads to cases such as that of Osime Brown, who first came to the UK aged four years old. Osime is autistic and said to have a learning age between six and seven. He was involved in what is called a joint-enterprise offence, where a group of people commit a crime. In Osime’s case, he was involved in a group that stole a mobile phone from a friend, but he denies responsibility for the actual theft. It is believed he was taken advantage of because of his vulnerability and exploited, in an example of what is referred to as ‘mate crimes.’ Despite this, he served his prison sentence but is now threatened with separation from his mother and deportation to Jamaica. It is suspected that he would not survive such deportation as he has no relatives to support him there. There are reports of several individuals who have died after deportation to Jamaica. The point of the matter is that a law that says twelve months in prison and being born in another country is enough grounds for deportation is not a proportionate or fair law.
It is not just those who are actually deported who are affected, but whole families, including children. Many of those of the original fifty and some of the remaining thirteen are fathers. When an individual is threatened with potential deportation after serving a prison sentence, they are not allowed to work or study. This means that those with families become the main care-giver while their partner is forced to become the main bread-winner and support the family financially. If that individual is then deported the partner is left with no child support and has to struggle to hold the family together. Detention Action has employed the support of child psychologists to investigate how the loss of their fathers has affected the children left behind. The results are, as expected, distressing with signs of extreme stress and even PTSD. Even without the actual deportation, how are those who have committed less serious offences expected to be rehabilitated if they are not allowed to work or study? They are essentially restricted from self-improvement. It is factors like this that convince me that the Met Office and Home Secretary have no concern for the safety of our streets at all. They are only concerned with making life for those they consider immigrants as difficult as possible.
If you are interested in learning more about the Jamaica 50 charter flight or immigration detention and deportation in general then have a look at Detention Action’s website or check out Gal-dem.