Gatwick detainees group

Nic Eadie, the Coordinator of the Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group, tells us what it is like to visit asylum seekers in detention.

The Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group aims to provide emotional and practical support to anyone who is held in immigration detention at Gatwick. We have been doing this work for the past fourteen years, and during that time have assisted many thousands of detainees. For most of that time there was just one detention centre, Tinsley House, with a capacity of around 140, including space for women and children. However, in March 2009 the Home Office opened an additional detention centre at Gatwick, Brook House, with a capacity of 426 single males. This will clearly have enormous repercussions on the work we do.

Our experiences have demonstrated to us that immigration detainees are some of the most vulnerable and powerless people in society, in many ways divorced from the country in which they are living, and existing in a sort of limbo which has no time limits and an uncertain conclusion. Many detainees pass through detention in a relatively short period of time, perhaps a few weeks at most. However, there is also a significant minority who spend extended periods locked up for ‘administrative purposes’, and the effects on the individual can be catastrophic. Most of our clients have claimed asylum, and many have spent years in the legal process. By the time they reach detention, they may have had their case refused at many different levels, and are now facing the prospect that Immigration will attempt to remove them back to their country of origin. For most, this is a terrifying prospect, for while they may not have won their asylum case, the stories they tell us are often of poverty, persecution, torture and fear. It is difficult for us to even envisage what it may be like to be sent back to a place that you felt you had to escape from, essentially after having been told that you do not deserve to be protected from this fate.

Our work largely revolves around our volunteers, who visit one-to-one any detainee who asks for someone to talk to. While this work can be difficult and emotionally draining, it can also be fascinating, and can sometimes result in a friendship that can exist beyond the barbed wire gates. Some of those we visit are released back into the UK, sometimes after months or even years of detention. This of course raises all sorts of questions over the effectiveness and value of locking these people up, although the most important cost is that which is paid by the detainees themselves, whose mental health inevitably suffers from the experience.

Brook House is a new and seemingly darker chapter in our history. Already we are hearing much discontent amongst detainees about the centre. It is built on a prison model, with very limited activities, cell accommodation, lock-downs for extended periods, and inexperienced staff. We fear that this will impact even more greatly on the vulnerable people held there. We will however continue with our work to try and make the detention experience as bearable as possible for those held at Gatwick.

Amnesties and public opinion

Keith Best, Chief Executive of the Immigrant Advisory Service (IAS), discusses what the British public might think of a regularisation programme for undocumented migrants.

“There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune”

So is Brutus’ advice in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. We might think of a more modern idiom of striking while the iron is hot – but enough of these pleasantries! The real issue is when is the public going to be ready for an earned regularisation programme? Probably, at the present time even in a period of recession because many recognise that irregular migrants are now doing jobs that others, whether unemployed or not, are unwilling or unable to undertake.

Clearly, with the notable exception of the Liberal Democrats, however, the politicians are not so inclined. They are fearful of giving ground to the BNP and the anti-immigrant lobby and that attitude is hardly likely to weaken this side of a general election which, by law, has to take place no later than just over a year from now. If the local and European elections in June favour the far right and go against the Government then the attitude will be reinforced. A bleak prospect for those of us who will gather on 4 May for the rally in favour of earned regularisation?

Not really. The amount of civic and religious society commitment towards this goal as well as what we see as public opinion (not the recent poll which indicated that the majority want to see illegal migrants removed – the question was not asked about those who are already working) shows more support than we have had in the past. The momentum is growing – maybe the tide is approaching its flood. May 4 will be a turning point. If there is mass support then we can keep that momentum going; if not, we shall have to retire to our tents to lick our wounds.

From a strategic point of view we need more stories of those who are working, albeit illegally, who are undertaking vital tasks and who are not being exploited unscrupulously by employers. Sadly, there will be many cases where the opposite is true and where regularisation could save these workers from much misery. The general public, however, will not be moved to support those who are undercutting the minimum wage and we should be honest about this.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor the outgoing head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales has called on the Government to provide an amnesty for illegal immigrants who have been resident in the UK for several years. If, in retirement, he is elevated to the Lords he may become a leading and impressive independent advocate.

On 31 March 2006 Nigel Morris in the Independent reported that “From London's building sites to farms in East Anglia, and from late-night takeaways to the treacherous sands of Morecambe Bay, they generally fill the jobs deemed too menial or too hazardous by UK nationals. If discovered, they face deportation. But according to a radical new study published today, an amnesty on their status could be worth up to £6bn to the economy. By giving the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants in Britain a promise that they will not be deported, at least £1bn a year would be raised in taxes, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has calculated. The left-leaning think-tank, which has the ear of Downing Street, also warns that government plans to tighten restrictions on bona fide migrants could have the perverse effect of driving more "illegals" underground.” The article went on to report that nearly 50% of foreign-born immigrants leave Britain within five years and that migrants fill 90% of low-paid jobs in London and account for 29% of the capital's workforce. London is the UK's fastest-growing region. No wonder Mayor Boris Johnson is in favour – think of all those votes if they could be exercised legally!

Migration Watch predictably warns that an amnesty for illegal immigrants in Britain should be rejected because “it is wrong in principle to reward illegal behaviour and
amnesties have demonstrably failed in other EU countries and are strongly opposed by the French and German governments. In the past 20 years Italy has granted five amnesties and Spain six. The only effect has been growing numbers of applicants and increased pressure on the borders.”

The Government and the Opposition have ruled out an amnesty – yet it was not always the case. Whether through naivety or inexperience on 20 June 2006 Liam Byrne MP, appointed as immigration minister only 15 days previously, told the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee that an amnesty could not be ruled out and agreed with The Voice’s call for common sense to prevail in tackling illegal immigration.

It is often forgotten that some 30,000 asylum seekers were given a status in order to take them off the backlog of over 100,000 that had developed some years ago, then there was the family amnesty: in total, according to a 2008 Centre Forum report “If these various exercises are calculated cumulatively, excluding the de facto regularisations that occurred with European expansion but including the asylum backlog-clearing exercises, the current Labour government has regularised between 60,000 and 100,000 persons since 1997.” On the accession of the A8 countries to the EU on 1 May 2004 a large number of those who went on to register under the Workers Registration Scheme were reckoned to have been in the UK illegally before that date.

Then there is the experience from abroad – much mistaken and misrepresented by those who wish to denigrate the concept of regularisation. Again, Centre Forum’s report is to be commended by giving the true picture on both the Spanish and Italian situations and demonstrates that what actually happened is far from the way in which it has been portrayed by those who wish to use these experiences as evidence against a similar exercise in the UK.

Keith Best
Chief Executive IAS

It is becoming uncomfortable to be a migrant

Today's post is the first contribution from one of our guest bloggers: Keith Best is the Chief Executive of the Immigration Advisory Service. They provide legal aid and have won major campaigns on behalf of migrants and asylum seekers, such as the campaign to outlaw removals of Zimbabweans from the UK, back in July 2008. Today he speaks of the additional measures placed on migrants who wish to come to the UK.

We learn that migrants and students from outside the EU are now to be charged an extra £50 for UK visas to support communities struggling to cope with migration. The £70m raised by the scheme, announced by Communities Secretary Hazel Blears, will go towards providing more teachers, police and translators it is claimed. Yet this is a drop in the ocean with the £250m the local authorities state that they need to cope with increased numbers of children who do not have English as a first language. So, it is window dressing trying for the quick headline. It is also unfair – the levy will be paid by those from outside the EEA (many of whom, especially those from Commonwealth countries, have good use of English) yet most strains appear to come from the eastern Europeans who, of course, exercising their Treaty rights to come to the UK, do not need visas and so will not pay. More worryingly is the way this will focus “blame” on migrants and further damage social cohesion.

Then there is the recent headline “Most people in major European countries and the United States believe unemployed immigrants should be asked to leave” following the FT/Harris polls published by the Financial Times showing support from more than three-quarters of Britons. Interestingly, if the question had been asked about migrants already in work, even illegally, it could have been very different as previous opinion polls have shown.

The worry is that all this could elevate immigration as a political issue and boost support for far-right parties in the elections this year and next. It is a dangerous game for politicians to play.

Meanwhile, in the House of Lords the Border, Citizenship & Immigration Bill proceeds to its Report Stage. Part of that will establish border controls within the Common Travel Area (Great Britain, Northern Ireland, Channel Islands, Isle of Man and the Republic of Ireland) on air and sea routes (not on the common land border). Another part of the Bill will enable restrictions to be placed on students to remain at the same institution unless permission is given by the UK Border Agency for them to switch. This is on top of the provisions in the UK Border Act 2007 which, for the first time, enabled residence, reporting and other restrictions to be placed on those who have been given leave to remain in the UK (not, as previously, only on those who were granted temporary admission).

It is becoming very uncomfortable to be a migrant.

Keith Best

Chief Executive IAS