Manchester - City of Destitution, Detention and Deportation

Mate, It's not only happening in Manchester. To put a personal slant on your admirable protest I've just lost contact with a friend I've known for almost five years. He was a doctor and a political activist from Albania. Paid a fortune to fly out out when the bullets started to target his family home. His family ended up in Halifax. I got to know him very well, helped him with learning English, helped when social services got him an emergency housing transfer when BNP thugs started to hurl bricks through his window. He had two young daughters, both of whom came to speak English with a thick Yorkshire accent. I did two appeals with him. Both were "postponed" right at the end of the day. But all along he insisted on playing the game correctly. He said his pride prevented him going "underground" as many - mostly single - of his compatriots actually did. Everyday was mired by the anxiety of a Home Office letter, who, stupidly, stupidly, deny the right of asylum seekers to work.

In the end a sympathetic barrister - like the rest of us - hugely impressed by the man's character, agreed to represent him free of charge.

The appeal failed. The family reported to a holding centre in Oxford last Tuesday. I understand that they were flown back to Albania the following day.

i wish your protest well.

Peter Good (TCA)

yes, its not only happening in Manchester. I'm really sorry about your friend, Peter. Its so hard for people that they are often denied access or find it hard to get to decent solicitors and that they can be seized and held and eventually deported arbitarily when reporting to centres such as Dallas Court in Manchester and other reporting centres across the country.

The purpose of this demonstration is to lift the lid off the stinking mess which is asylum policy in practice. Thats why its called Manchester - City of Destitution, Detention and Deportation, because people like myself a few years ago know little if anything about what is really happening to people like themselves in this city and in cities across the UK.

At the moment there is particular concern about children held in detention (not disregarding how shit it is for their parents either), the Children Act lays down certain provisions in law but the children of people facing deportation are non-people. so for them, its tough shit. The staff in the detention centres don't even have to have the same background checks that any other person employed in an official capacity working with kids has to have.

There are kids who have been in detention for over 200 days. However, this is a report from an unannouced inspection at a short term holding centre at Heathrow airport. The conditions in which people are being held are not untypical of longer term facilities run by Global Solutions Ltd/aka Group4/Wackenhut. Basic requirements not met ffs..blankets to keep warm.

Queen's Building - unannounced inspection by Anne Owers HMCIP

"the worst feature that emerges from these

inspections is the dehumanising aspects of the

immigration removal process itself"

"little evidence of individual care within the

immigration removal system itself, where

decision¬makers appeared to be focused on cases,

files and targets, rather than people. This is

neither humane nor, in the end, effective." Anne

Owers

Queens Building Short-Term Holding facility at Heathrow Airport is usually the last stop for the majority of failed asylum seekers/over stayers

and immigration defaulters being forcibly removed from the UK. This the first inspection of the facility by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons and it

makes grim reading. Her praise for the staff at the facility should in no way be seen as approval of what happens there. They are part of the

process and Group 4 Securicor who employ the staff and manage the facility have a checkered history of involvement in immigration

enforcement, a history that is more grim than the

report below.

Detainees were dealt with by immigration as

though they were parcels and not people

Unfit to hold children

Staff lacked child protection training

Unfit to hold detainees overnight

Detainees being sent to wrong destinations

Instances of force being used on reluctant returnees

The process could and should be better managed in dignity and safety

Inspection took place in October 2005, report

published Wednesday 5th April 2006

Introduction to the report

This is our first report into the short-term holding facilities at Heathrow, including that in the Queen's Building, which handles the greatest

number of forced removals from the UK.

The good news from these inspections is that we found, at all five Heathrow facilities, that custody staff who were looking after detainees

were caring and respectful, alert to their particular vulnerabilities and anxieties. We also commend the management oversight provided by both

the escort contract manager and Group 4 Securicor, who run the facilities; noting, for example, that managers regularly and without warning observed the difficult final stage of removal to aircraft.

Nevertheless, in spite of the efforts of staff, we found that none of the five facilities was fit to hold detainees overnight, or, in their present state, to hold children. Families and single men were held together, and staff lacked child protection training or adequate criminal records checks. Basic requirements for overnight stays - blankets to keep warm, toiletries, places to stretch out - were not available in all centres; though all held detainees overnight and sometimes for up to 36 hours. This requires urgent action.

However, the worst feature that emerges from these inspections is the dehumanising aspects of the immigration removal process itself. Some of

those we observed in detention had been dealt with by the immigration authorities as though they were parcels, not people; and parcels whose

contents and destination were sometimes incorrect. At Queen's Building, two of the files we examined contained paperwork belonging to a

different person. We observed detainees asking for, and failing to get, legal advice and basic information about the reasons for their detention

or removal. We came across two detainees, one a pregnant young woman and the other a young man summarily taken from a removal centre without his own clothes, who had been passed around various

places of detention without any appropriate care or attention to their individual needs. In the latter case, it emerged that he could not in any

event be removed that day as the paperwork was in the wrong place.

Poor paperwork was not the only inefficiency in the system. At Queen's Building, there were many instances of force being used on reluctant

returnees who caused disruption: sometimes in public places, and always with risks to the safety of themselves and staff. Yet it was rarely

possible to effect a removal in these circumstances, as airlines refused to carry disruptive detainees. The process could and should be better managed in dignity and safety: first, by ensuring that detainees have had full information about their situation, and the opportunity to seek advice; and second by carrying out risk assessments on those challenging removal and ensuring that in-flight security staff are available for those assessed as posing a risk. The work of the small removals facilitation unit showed how care, discussion and understanding could both persuade reluctant detainees to comply, and prevent ill-considered, ill-prepared and ultimately unsuccessful removals.

Heathrow's short-term holding facilities need improvement if they are to continue to hold detainees overnight, and to hold women and

children. But overall, we were impressed by on¬site staff's approach to detainees and concern for their welfare. By contrast, there was little

evidence of individual care within the immigration removal system itself, where decision¬makers appeared to be focused on cases, files and targets, rather than people. This is neither humane nor, in the end, effective.

Anne Owers

HM Chief Inspector of Prisons

February 2006/Published 5th April 2006

Heathrow Queen's Building and Terminals 1-4

non-residential short-term holding facilities

Report on the unannounced inspections of five

non-residential short-term holding facilities:

Queen's Building and Terminals 1-4,

Heathrow Airport

10-13 October 2005

by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons

please if anyone wants to do something postive about this shit donate to NCADC (national coalition of anti-deportation campaigns) either one off or standing order or produce some leaflets telling people how crap this this and maybe asking them to support NCADC and give them out on the demo.

sorry. end of rant.

btw i'm not endorsing the conclusions of this report ie

just wanted to show how much people faced with deportation are non-people in terms even of simple humane considerations. don't even get me started on lack of access to legal representation, physical and mental healthcare, education and play for kids held in detention, family contact, etc etc and this is only a short-term holding facility.

hopefully if we can take people to where this shit happens and have some printed info to give people passing by then maybe someone who didn't know how Manchester stinks will find out. I'm trying for optimisim aka JDMF

its today at 12 noon at HMP Manchester (Strangeways) *bump*

I'll be there, see you later.

Guys, I'm really sorry. My daughter is pretty ill and we just can't leave her.

Please shout extra loud for us.

Solidarity.

we will mate, send her our best as well and hope she will be better soon.

Oh, and we have some red & black flags - and mighty nice ones if i may add We had a quick flag making session last night at the head quarters of the south east manchester anarcho-cynicalist front

Sorry. look out for the beautifully waving flag of proletarian justice and freedom in the crowd

will do, hope you made one for me

I'm not there because I'm busy writing essays and doing other pointless shit for uni.

Post pictures, especially of JDMF arguing with SWPers.

only argument JDMF managed to get into was with a 3 kids shouting abuse

(went ok 100ish people there, a fair percentage of them asylum seekers and their families. Long route mind...)

that wasn't really an argument, but it could have become one quite quickly!

Hey, there wasn't that many SWP folks - perhaps they were ordered somewhere else today?

Quite a few Fight Racism Fight Imperialism blebs, and Revo youth were nowhere to be found...

But the coolest block with the most beautifully flying flags must have been the anarchists 8)

In all, i think it was a fantastic turnout, and great number of refugees as well.

Gone home for Easter, most likely.

Here you are Refused. Just for you.

sorry didn't catch JDMF mingling with the yoof.

look at those flags - clearly made by professional hands!

brilliant picture

Cool flags!

hey, I'm obscured

sorry, sorry

look on the bright side, at least you'll be safe from redwatch and The Man

those flags rock!

when does mass production start to rival those expensive foreign imports boulcolonialboy has been peddling?

Some of them look upside down to me

ahh but we will turn the world on it's head, and then they'll look right! [/derailing]

only one of 'em!

dammit. a failure in the production line.

as soon as the manchester anarcho-cynicalist kollective find the person responsible and sack them. no whinging at the back there. we demand (and expect) perfection.

(m.a.c.k investors in people, winner of the local national business award 2006)

Call me picky but I prefer them this way up.

one of them was deliberately other way around to highlight the inherent diversity of our mass movement. Individual in a class and stuff...

...not to mention sometimes its really fucking hard to see which way around it is when you ram it through the sewing machine...

For some reason I find the thought of JDMF working a sweing machine very amusing.

hey, you are right and there is a photo to prove it

there was that one SWP bolke that made the grindingly awful speech in china town thanking the chinese people for there contributionto british cusine

seriously??? i missed that.

i only spotted two SWpers, one half-arsedly flogging papers and the other sorting out the PA - SWPer doing somethign useful shocker!