Growth of Immigration Detainee Deaths in UK Reveals Flaws of Broken System

Continued from previous page

Immigration is a red-button topic in the UK. “Illegal immigrants” and “bogus asylum seekers” have become a national bugbear and newspapers like the Daily Mail delight in flagging up stories of Somali or Pakistani families “milking” the government benefits system, hammering home the myth that immigrants are given top priority on public housing waiting lists. (A myth roundly rebuffed in a 2009 study for the Equality and Human Rights Commission that found that only 1.8 percent of public housing tenants are immigrants who had moved to the UK in the past five years.)

Meanwhile, many of those who have had their requests for asylum refused, languish in custody -- not quite gone, but very much forgotten. And their forced deportations, when they can be arranged, are increasingly and unavoidably in the public eye for the simple reason that they take place largely on commercial flights - making for a lot of witnesses when someone dies under excessive restraint, as did Angolan Jimmy Mubenga, who was pinned face down by three security guards during his forcible deportation on a British Airways flight last October.

Law firms specializing in human rights issues, such as Bhatt Murphy Solicitors, continue to release a steady flurry of case results that serve to illustrate quite how dehumanizing the system is proving. Examples from this year include a mother separated from her three children while unlawfully detained by the Home Office.

“The children were scattered across the UK in separate foster care arrangements of varying degrees of stability, isolated from each other and their mother,” said Janet Farrell of Bhatt Murphy solicitors. “Section 55 of the Borders Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 places a statutory duty on the UKBA to take the best interests of the children involved properly into account. Unfortunately, this case is another example of the Home Office not complying with their duties towards children.”

A judge with the High Court issued a statement after hearing the case condemning the Home Office. “It is plain from the material from the Children’s Society, as well as the submissions of the Children’s Commissioner, that such circumstances are not unique, and that the circumstances in which such detention continues has caused considerable concern.”

Then there is the issue of actual, physical deportations.

A medic, who spoke on condition of anonymity, for Aeromed365, the sole supplier of specialist medical personnel to the Immigration Service, whose remit includes the removal of immigration detainees, said that simple removals had become nigh impossible. “When it comes to immigration, the shit has hit the fan in every conceivable way. It’s getting impossible to remove people.” He added that dragging people “kicking and screaming to a plane is never going to be pretty but it’s just enforcing the law…”

That was the case at least for 50 Tamil asylum seekers who, this past week, were sent back to Sri Lanka despite a firestorm of protest from NGOs who warned they could face immediate detention and possible torture. According to the London-based Tamil Guardian, a bid to halt the deportation failed, although two people were removed from the flight.

"42 men and 8 women were arrested and questioned by Sri Lankan police on arrival at Colombo airport,” the paper notes. “There is now serious concern for the wellbeing of the deportees.”

“Some of these people may have been let down by the asylum system and have a genuine fear of being returned to their country,” said Jonathan Ellis, Director of Advocacy at the charity Refugee Council. “If people have to be returned in this way, it must be done in the most dignified, respectful and safe way possible… These are human beings we are talking about.”