Stop the Deportations

Students and politicians mounted a last-ditch bid to stop the deportation of a Pakistani student, who says his brother, uncle and cousin have been killed or “disappeared” in his home country for their political activity.

NUS Scotland, along with a number of SNP MPs, have called for the Home Office to urgently look again at the case of City of Glasgow College student Majid Ali, who is due to be deported imminently.

Language student Ali claimed asylum in 2011, telling the Home Office that officials in his home province of Balochistan enforced the “disappearance” of his brother. Ali claimed his family home was raided and his uncle and cousin killed two months ago. Ali himself was a student activist in the troubled region, before leaving for Scotland and his legal team have claimed he believes his life could be in danger if he were to return.

NUS Scotland president-elect Vonnie Sandlan said that Ali’s detention had happened very suddenly, immediately after he went to the local Home Office to sign some papers on Friday. “He never had a chance to pick up his belongings. He had his phone taken away and, after four years of building a life here, he never even got a chance to say goodbye to his friends and loved ones,” she said. “We are extremely concerned for his well-being, and very distressed that he is being deported regardless.”

Sanjay Lago, president of the City of Glasgow college students’ union, explained  “We won’t stop the campaign here, this has really opened the eyes of so many people about how this kind of deportation can happen to someone they know, and we’re going to fight to stop this happening again”.

Where they jail the innocent

The Home Office said it only detains people for the shortest period necessary but dozens of asylum seekers have been held at Dungavel immigration removal centre (IRC) in South Lanarkshire for months, new figures releasedto BBC Scotland reveal. In some cases detainees were held for more than a year.

"The difference between prison and detention is that in prison you count your days down and in detention you count your days up," ‘Sol’ told BBC Scotland.

"It's mental torture. It's so scary. You don't know when you will be released. You don't know when you'll be deported. You are in limbo." explained “Sol” who had spent two and a half years in Dungavel, and a total of three and a half years in detention, more than three times as long as his initial prison sentence.

Dr Katy Robjant is a psychiatrist found that those who were detained for more than 30 days had higher instances of mental health problems than those held for shorter periods. She told BBC Scotland: "Research has shown that long term detention is linked to mental health problems including anxiety, depression and PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).

"From my clinical experience, clients often report PTSD symptoms that are directly linked to the experience of detention. For example, nightmares or intrusive memories about being in detention or about experiences they witnessed while in detention such as seeing other detainees injured whilst resisting removal attempts, seeing other detainees on hunger strike or self-harm."

Campaigners welcomed the cross-party parliamentary committee’s call to end indefinite detention and added that the practice should be stopped altogether. Jerome Phelps of Detention Action said: "The inquiry is right that it is not enough to tinker with conditions in detention. Only wholesale reform can address the grotesquely inefficient and unjust incarceration of 30,000 migrants a year."

According to the Home Office, the average cost of keeping one detainee in an IRC in 2014 was £97 per night. Dungavel is the only detention centre in Scotland. There are 12 others across England. Previously, children have been held at the centre, and in 2012 a newspaper investigation found that victims of torture had been held at Dungavel, despite this being against Home Office rules, unless in exceptional circumstances.

Driven to Suicide

Three immigrants facing deportation died after jumping from the 15th floor of a high-rise flat. Two men and a woman tied themselves together before making the 150ft suicide leap. Locals said they may have been Kosovans who faced being kicked out the country.

Socialist Courier can only regret the price they felt they had to pay for being victims of capitalism .“Illegal” remains a class-based description that politicians, through their two-faced cant and deceit, will continue to attach to asylum seekers entering the UK for “economic reasons” rather than “genuinely fleeing persecution”.

We are all asylum seekers.

Asylum Britain

A report, published by the Independent Asylum Commission which has been the most comprehensive examination of the UK's asylum system ever conducted , with testimonies from every sphere of society, including three former home secretaries, more than 100 NGOs, 90 asylum-seekers, the police, local authorities, and hundreds of citizens, has found it "marred by inhumanity" and "not yet fit for purpose". The commission found that Britain's treatment of asylum-seekers "falls seriously below the standards to be expected of a humane and civilised society". The report details how the "adversarial" system is failing applicants from the very first point of interview, with officials accused of stacking the odds against genuine claimants. "A 'culture of disbelief' persists among decision-makers," it said. "Along with lack of access to legal advice for applicants this is leading to perverse and unjust decisions." "Some of those seeking sanctuary, particularly women, children and torture survivors, have additional vulnerabilities that are not being appropriately addressed," it found.

The use of detention centres – especially to lock up children, pregnant women and torture victims – was condemned, as was the often brutal handling of removals, and the use of destitution as a tool to drive claimants out of the country.