Open%20borders%20The%20case%20against%20immigration%20controls%20-%20Teresa%20Hayter

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Refugees: Tightening the Screw 117 be detained’, blithely disregarding the fact that most of those locked up have not ‘offended’ at all, under any definition, that many of them subsequently attain the holy grail of refugee status, and that most of them are eventually released, for reasons which are no more clear than why they were detained in the first place. There is no time limit on detention. The 1999 act did not introduce one, the government’s white paper merely claiming, in paragraph 12.11, that: Often detainees are held for longer periods only because they decide to use every conceivable avenue of multiple appeals to resist refusal or removal. A balance has to be struck in those circumstances between immediately releasing the person and running the risk of encouraging abusive claims and manipulation. Amnesty International’s sample had been held for an average of five months, which was slightly more than the average length of detention for all detainees at that time; one person had been held for eight months without receiving an initial decision from the Home Office. Some people are detained for a few days, others for a year or more; one exceptional case was three years. The absence of any release date for detainees, unlike for ordinary prisoners, is one of the hardest and most demoralising aspects of detention, especially for new arrivals in detention centres and prisons when they discover that others have been incarcerated for months and even years. Detainees, including some who are initially resilient and even cheerful, gradually decline. Between 1987 and 2000 at least nine asylum seekers committed suicide or for other causes died in various forms of detention. A report by C.K. Pourgourides and other medical practitioners, entitled A Second Exile, gives a full account of the effects of detention on the mental and physical health of detainees, including many examples and quotations from detainees themselves. It says, ‘the responses to detention, namely hopelessness, helplessness, powerlessness, despair, despondency, demotivation, distress, anxiety and so on are predictable and understandable. They are normal responses to an abnormal situation.’ And it concludes: Detention, based on the evidence presented, ... recreates the oppression from which people have fled. It places detainees in predicaments parallel to those they may have faced under torture or previous detention. It maintains the mechanisms of persecution which precipitated their flight. Detention is therefore clearly abusive and inhumane. This report has presented compelling evidence against detention, which is a noxious practice which should be opposed on medical and humanitarian grounds. A Nigerian detainee sent the Campsfield Monitor the following poem from Bullingdon prison, where he was imprisoned following a protest at Campsfield detention centre, which said something similar: Arrived; Immigration; Interrogation;
118 Open Borders Detention; detained; imprisoned. Group 4: abuse, threat, discrimination. Case: adjudicator, hearing, appeal dismissed. Meanwhile: abuse, repeated; threats. Fed up: protest, demonstrate. Arrested; interrogated; charged. Court; magistrates; Solicitors. Remanded; suppressed; but supported. Court; adjourned, Crown, Barristers; Court, case ... And still ... They continue to remind me of Horrors faced back home. The Labour government, while admitting that the purpose of much of its ‘toughness’ is deterrence, continues to maintain, as the Tories did, that detention is used only ‘as a last resort’, in cases where it is absolutely necessary. Britain locks up over 9,000 asylum seekers each year. At any one time there are now around 800 asylum seekers detained. In addition others, often the fathers of small children who, sadly, travel to visit them in detention, are locked up for violations of immigration rules, such as ‘overstaying’, or working without permission. The Home Office claims that less than 1 per cent of asylum seekers are detained. This figure is obtained by taking the numbers detained as a percentage of the total backlog of people with unresolved claims. The percentage of new applicants detained is much higher; immigration officials detain around 14 per cent of all those who arrive and claim asylum. Ministers have a stock response to questions about detention, which is pasted into all their replies to letters. The following quotation happens to be from a letter from the Conservative Home Office minister Charles Wardle to the Tory MP John Patten, dated 15 April 1994, in response to representations from one of his constituents; subsequent letters from Labour ministers have used exactly the same phraseology, presumably plucked from Home Office computers: It is Immigration Service policy to use detention only as a last resort. Temporary admission is granted wherever possible and detention is authorised only when there is no other alternative and where there are good grounds for believing that the person will not comply with the terms of temporary admission. In deciding whether to detain account is taken of all relevant circumstances, including the means by which the person arrived in this country and any past immigration history, and the person’s ties with the United Kingdom, such as close relatives here. In practice, only a very small proportion of asylum seekers are detained. Detained cases receive a very high priority and the need for continued detention is reviewed regularly. It is not in our interest to detain a person for longer than is necessary and if there is any indication that asylum is likely to be granted then the person is released immediately.
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OPEN BORDERS The Case Against Immig
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CONTENTS Preface to the First Editi
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PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION This b
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PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION The f
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Preface to the Second Edition xi Th
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Preface to the Second Edition xiii
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Preface to the Second Edition xv An
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Preface to the Second Edition xvii
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Preface to the Second Edition xix o
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Preface to the Second Edition xxi a
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Preface to the Second Edition xxiii
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Preface to the Second Edition xxv r
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INTRODUCTION Human beings have migr
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Introduction 3 an orgy of ‘libera
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Introduction 5 of people coming fro
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Introduction 7 merely led to demand
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Migration, and Migratory Myths 9 fo
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Migration, and Migratory Myths 11 I
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Migration, and Migratory Myths 13 o
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Migration, and Migratory Myths 15 p
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Migration, and Migratory Myths 17 i
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Migration, and Migratory Myths 19 T
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2 BORDER CONTROLS RACISM Many, prob
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Border Controls 23 Mrs Thatcher’s
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Border Controls 25 some 80,000 Prot
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Border Controls 27 be a blessing fo
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Border Controls 29 abilities or ski
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Border Controls 31 streets for fear
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Border Controls 33 MP for Dover had
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Border Controls 35 black people and
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Border Controls 37 efforts to contr
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Border Controls 39 more crucially,
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Border Controls 41 But Labour’s i
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Border Controls 43 Sir Edward Boyle
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Border Controls 45 when asked about
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Border Controls 47 Even, it was arg
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Border Controls 49 whelmingly as yo
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Border Controls 51 admission of stu
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Border Controls 53 middle class the
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Border Controls 55 the guestworker
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Border Controls 57 entitled only th
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Border Controls 59 detention centre
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Border Controls 61 Any Colombian, R
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Border Controls 63 The most substan
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Refugees: Tightening the Screw 65 l
Page 92 and 93: Refugees: Tightening the Screw 67 s
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Page 96 and 97: Refugees: Tightening the Screw 71 a
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Page 100 and 101: Refugees: Tightening the Screw 75 P
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Page 160 and 161: Resistance 135 had made. Abdul then
Page 162 and 163: Resistance 137 movement against rac
Page 164 and 165: Resistance 139 1994 by Sir William
Page 166 and 167: Resistance 141 In the 1950s and 196
Page 168 and 169: Resistance 143 have been many organ
Page 170 and 171: Resistance 145 victory and, some ar
Page 172 and 173: Resistance 147 • The arguments wh
Page 174 and 175: 5 RE-OPEN THE BORDERS IMMIGRATION C
Page 176 and 177: Re-open the Borders 151 comparable
Page 178 and 179: Re-open the Borders 153 countries a
Page 180 and 181: Re-open the Borders 155 Hensman wro
Page 182 and 183: Re-open the Borders 157 maintain th
Page 184 and 185: Re-open the Borders 159 levels of i
Page 186 and 187: Re-open the Borders 161 IMMIGRATION
Page 188 and 189: Re-open the Borders 163 over £5,00
Page 190 and 191: Re-open the Borders 165 and the maf
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Re-open the Borders 167 goods and s
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Re-open the Borders 169 Subsequentl
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Re-open the Borders 171 public assi
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APPENDIX: MANIFESTO OF THE NO ONE I
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Appendix 175 state. Under immigrati
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Appendix 177 tions - that is the tr
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Appendix 179 Second, we are critica
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Appendix 181 and that both have a s
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Appendix 183 In France the sans-pap
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Bibliography 185 Cohen, S. (1988),
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Bibliography 187 Kindleberger, C. P
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ORGANISATIONS AND CAMPAIGNS Amnesty
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Organisations and Campaigns 191 Imm
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INDEX Abbott, Diane MP 85, 111 acco
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Index 195 demonstrations/protests 2
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Index 197 International Covenant on
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Index 199 racist violence 24, 25, 2
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Index 201 Women Against Rape (WAR)/
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