asylum | ukwatch.net

Profit and power: the privatisation of asylum control

Tim Holmes — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:18:50 +0000

In 2007, tucked away behind the headlines, a number of news stories quietly filtered through discussing the latest developments in the privatisation of asylum control and administration. Compared to the sensationalist rhetoric of asylum seekers as scroungers, cheats, liars, and criminals such developments rarely provoke much attention. Indeed, reading the Sydney Morning Herald in March discussing proposals by two businessmen to start-up ‘Asylum Airlines’; an airline exclusively running deportation flights, you could have been forgiven for believing the proposals were an early April Fools Day prank. The planned flights would have a human rights representative on board, but ‘no immediate news of plans for inflight entertainment or a frequent-flyer scheme’ the paper sardonically reported (Sydney Morning Herald, 2007).

The reality, however, is much more sombre. According to the Independent nine months later the key protagonist behind Asylum Airlines – Heinz Berger – has already set the company up, and has been closely involved with British airport security. An aviation consultant; Berger claimed that only bureaucracy was hindering his airline from beginning to negotiate the contracts for deportation transportations. He claimed to have had interest from a host of European countries, including Britain, and could save governments millions of pounds. One way in which these savings would be made, presumably, would be based in cutting the number of private security officers that are currently required to accompany those who are deported. Instead, the specially modified asylum airline planes will have seats with built in straps and restraining equipment for ‘disruptive’ passengers. Whilst those who persist in resisting their forced removal will be taken to padded rooms built into the aircraft (Verkaik, 2007).

The control and administration of the fate of asylum seekers has quite literally become big business. An entirely false and misleading discourse between ‘bogus’ and ‘genuine’ asylum seekers has underpinned a widespread shift in policy formation. And rather than seeking to offer safety and opportunity to those who are forced to migrate across the globe; opportunities are instead offered to those who wish to profit from such movement. In the first months of 2005 for example Daon (UK), a subsidiary of the secretive biometrics firm Daon, recorded pre-tax profits of €34, 114. Relatively speaking, such profits are not that remarkable. Yet a closer look behind the expansion activities of the company reveals that Daon, working with consulting firm Accenture and mobile phone company Motorola, is part of a consortium with an ‘€18 million contract to develop an electronic fingerprint system’ for immigration services within Europe. The first stage of this venture involves updating pre-existing fingerprint systems for asylum seekers. Moreover, in 2007 Daon was also believed to be working with Accenture to develop an EU-wide fingerprint matching database in a contract worth €157 million (Daly, 2007).

It is not wholly implausible to imagine a scenario where those seeking asylum could have almost their entire claim – a claim which is fundamentally a matter of life or death – processed in a way that ensures financial gain for companies ready to capitalise on those fleeing from death, torture, and misery. To offer a hypothetical scenario; albeit one entirely grounded in current reality, let’s imagine an asylum seeker arriving in the UK looking for sanctuary. She is housed by one of the nine companies who secured contracts worth roughly £135 million a year to provide NASS (National Asylum Support Service) accommodation in 2006 whilst her claim is processed (Home Office, 2006). Faster decision making procedures consolidated through a new asylum model (NAM) however means that her claim is unsuccessful as she does not have enough time to amass evidence and work with lawyers to present their case. In turn, massive reductions in legal and restrictions in appeal rights means that there is little opportunity for redress against this decision (Burnett, 2008a). Instead, she is forced to turn to private lawyers who can, and often do, charge extortionate fees. Yet as the claim has been rejected the individual is now destitute – homeless, hungry, and increasingly marginalised – and, like all asylum seekers, is not allowed to work. Consequently she becomes an undocumented worker in what are often dangerous and exploitative economies. After raising the money to pay for a private solicitor new representations are submitted to the state. But before these representations are processed she is picked up in one the increasing number of ‘dawn raids’ occurring across the UK – in 2006 running at an average of 22 raids a day (Ibid, 2008b). She is subsequently taken to a privately run detention centre – a likely event as most of the UK’s detention centres are contracted to the private sector – and held in, for example, Harmondsworth Detention Centre: built and run by ‘UK Detention Services’ (a subsidiary of Sodexho) in a contract worth £180 million over 8 years (Corporate Watch, 2004).

Now let’s imagine she tries to escape from detention but is caught in the process. Her solicitor ensures her release but, because of the unsuccessful escape attempt, she is electronically tagged by one of the many companies who have secured extremely lucrative electronic monitoring contracts in the UK.[1] In the meantime she is offered Section 4 (hard case) support whilst her representations are considered. Forced to reside in ‘no choice’ accommodation of which almost all is contracted to the private sector; she is given £35 per week in food vouchers that can only be used in the mainstream supermarkets such as, for example, Tesco, that have secured the contracts for their use. Section 4 support has proven to be an extremely profitable market and, for example, housing provider the ‘Angel Group’ recorded pre-tax profits of £4.8 million between 2000-2001. Its owner paid herself a salary of £458,000 (Pallister and Bowcott, 2005).

This scenario is not particularly unlikely, and emphasises just some of the contexts in which the harrowing ordeals that many asylum seekers are forced to endure in the UK have been turned into extremely profitable business opportunities. Indeed, if our hypothetical woman above has her fresh representations rejected then, if he gets his way, she could well become one of Heinz Berger’s first passengers on Asylum Airlines.

Of course, the above sounds wildly conspiratorial. Yet the privatisation of asylum control is already well advanced and developed. Campaigners must recognise this if effective challenges to the brutality that is embedded in the asylum process are to be posed. For as it stands, the wars, inequalities, famines, and dangers abroad that asylum seekers symbolise by their very presence here provide lucrative opportunities for those who wish to make money from misery.

Jon Burnett is Information and Communications Officer at Positive Action for Refugees and Asylum Seekers (PAFRAS).

Notes:

[1] The opportunity for businesses to branch out into the electronic monitoring of asylum seekers is increasingly likely. In 2006 the then Immigration Minister Tony Mcnulty announced plans to electronically tag almost all asylum seekers on arrival (Travis, 2006).

References:

* Burnett, J. (2008a) ‘No access to justice: legal aid and destitute asylum seekers’, PAFRAS Briefing Paper No. 3, Leeds: PAFRAS.
* Burnett, J. (2008b) ‘Dawn raids’, PAFRAS Briefing Paper No. 4, Leeds: PAFRAS.
* Corporate Watch (2004) ‘Sodexho: A Corporate Profile’, Corporate Watch UK.
* Daly, G. (2007) ‘Desmond firm reports profits in UK’, The Sunday Post Business Online, 14 January.
* Home Office (2006) ‘New Five Year Accommodation Contracts Signed’, Home Office Press Release, 24 March.
* Pallister, D. and Bowcott, O. (2005) ‘Inquiry into firm’s asylum contracts’, Guardian Unlimited, 3 August.
* Sydney Morning Herald (2007) ‘New airline for failed asylum seekers’, Sydney Morning Herald, 14 March.
* Travis, A. (2006) ‘Electronic tagging for asylum seekers’, Guardian Unlimited, 14 March.
* Verkaik, R. (2007) ‘Austrian company offers to remove UK’s “disruptive” migrants in adapted aircraft’, The Independent, 27 December.

Refugees abandoned on our doorstep

JamieSW — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 23:35:18 +0000

Gordon Brown’s government is complicit in the misery of tens of thousands of refugees attempting to flee the “war on terror”. Many of these “non-people” are trapped in the French port town of Calais. They risk their lives trying to enter Britain.

Socialist Worker visited Calais and spoke to refugees. They were from Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Eritrea. We found Kurds fleeing sectarian and ethnic hatred and educated women forced out of Eritrea as the “war on terror” washed up on their shores. We met Palestinians who have no country to return to, Africans living in fear of French police and racist gangs, Iraqis fleeing sectarian killers. Among their number was a 14 year old Afghan boy who had travelled across seven countries looking for some kind of future.

According to the United Nations there are “8.4 million refugees and as many as 23.7 million uprooted civilians in their own countries”. The vast majority of these refugees wander from country to country – only to find doors slamming in their face everywhere they go. There are four million refugees from Iraq alone – driven from their homes by the US and British invasion and the death squads that followed in its wake.

This year the US has accepted a paltry 7,000 refugees from Iraq – cherrypicking the educated and those with money. In 2006 Britain accepted only 950 Iraqi refugees. Over 90 percent of applications are refused.

Britain has a moral duty to care for the victims of the war this government helped to unleash. Instead Brown has found it easy to hide behind cheap tabloid headlines.

Refugees are denounced as “scroungers” and treated as criminals and outcasts in “fortress Europe”. In 2002 the British government forced the closure of the Red Cross shelter in Sangatte outside Calais. They hoped that by making life for these refugees unbearable they would “disappear”.

Instead we found them living in woods, under bridges or in abandoned factories. Many were ill and hungry, fighting each other for meagre resources as the winter closes in.

Recent attempts by the council in Calais to open a day centre for refugees were scotched by the British government following a media frenzy that branded it “Sangatte II”.

Many of the refugees told us that even this precarious life as a refugee is better than random death back home. They are demanding Britain take some responsibility for their fate. “Let them just come and see the conditions we live in,” one Iraqi told us.

Last week 51 refugees drowned as they attempted to cross the Aegean Sea into Turkey. This winter an unknown number in Calais will perish and be buried in nameless graves. They are victims of government policy, official indifference and moral cowardice.

Asylum System is Criminal

Ellie Keen — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 02:13:57 +0000

Britain's asylum system is a regime that includes government-tolerated criminality. Illegal acts and the abuse of asylum applicants are allowed to happen and are not punished. Many of these violations of the rule of law are perpetrated by the private companies that are contracted by the Home Office to run asylum detention camps and the deportation of would-be refugees.

This outsourcing of asylum abuses echoes the US policy of extraordinary rendition and torture of terror suspects in third countries. It does not, however, relieve the government of ultimate responsibility for criminal acts committed by others on its behalf and in pursuit of its objectives. The buck stops with the Home Office.

Home Office ministers and officials should be sacked. They should also face criminal charges of failing in their duty of care.

The latest evidence against them comes in a shocking new report by the government's own watchdog, the Border and Immigration Agency Complaints Audit Committee.

The report is one of the most damning condemnations ever made concerning the Home Office and its private agents. It reveals "glaring failures" and widespread abuses of people facing deportation, including allegations of racism, discrimination and physical assault by contractors hired by the Home Office's Border and Immigration Agency.

The Audit Committee said complaints about mistreatment by immigrants and asylum applicants were often not followed up. It found that only 8% of complainants were interviewed and 89% of investigations were "neither balanced nor thorough".

The committee revealed that 19% of misconduct complaints against deportation agencies in 2006/07 concerned criminal behaviour - a rise of 12% over 2005/06.

It condemned the denial of legal and human rights to deportees by the private firms who act on behalf of the Home Office; detailing "glaring errors" in dealing with complaints about the mistreatment of people being deported from the UK.

The committee's report says investigations into misconduct complaints have been "poor", with 71% of complaints not being completed within time targets. In 95% of cases, those investigating the complaints had been from the companies under investigation. "Upwards of 20%" of records sought by the committee were missing and 83% of replies received were "indefensible".

The report says complaints of wrong-doing are of "grave concern to us because of the risks of injury or death, wrongful arrest and civil liability arising from the arrest, detention and removal of failed asylum seekers".

In a case highlighted by the BBC in its report on the committee's findings, asylum seeker Apollo Okello said he had been bundled on to a plane at Heathrow Airport and refused permission to see his lawyer, despite the security guards knowing he already had permission to stay in the UK. He says he was beaten up in the back of a van: "That's where I was punched - my ribs, my eyes, my neck, my back." Mr Okello also said one of the guards told him: "These black monkeys don't want to go back to their country."

I can corroborate these patterns of abuse from my own recent work with asylum claimants.

Although they have committed no crimes, they are held in detention centres, such as the notorious Campsfield House in Oxfordshire. These are prisons in all but name. People mostly get put in detention if the Home Office thinks their claims are unfounded and or if they come from a "white list" country which is deemed to be safe. In other words, the Home Office prejudges their application.

In detention centres, run by private contractors appointed by the Home Office, asylum claimants are at the whim and mercy of the guards. Many guards are caring, fair and commendable. But in cases bought to my attention, some guards are bigoted and brutal.

Violent assaults do sometimes take place. They happen mostly in the "blind" areas, where there are no CCTV cameras. They also occur in the internal prisons within the detention centres - the high security segregation units - where "troublemakers" who try to assert their legal rights are sometimes punished.

As well as racist, misogynistic, anti-Muslim and homophobic insults, abuses include unjustified strip-searches and internal genital examinations. There are no checks and balances to protect against these violations. The systems of redress are woefully inadequate. Detainees are virtually powerless.

A Ugandan torture and rape victim I am supporting, KM, was held in detention for six months, without receiving any medical treatment or psychological counselling. He says requests for treatment are frequently ignored and people suffering severe trauma are sometimes fobbed off with aspirin.

Some claimants are deported illegally, without removal orders being served. Others get deported, even though they have a pending judicial review of the decision to refuse them asylum. Having an upcoming case in the High Court is no bar to the Home Office forcibly removing someone from the UK.

Despite filing for a judicial review of the decision to deny him asylum, a Jamaican national, EB, was forcibly repatriated. When he got off the plane in Kingston, he could barely walk. EB alleges his injuries were from violent beatings by Home Office-contracted security guards who forced him on to the plane and held him down in his seat during the flight.

I have experienced people being served with deportation notices while awaiting medical examinations to confirm their claims of torture. Their removal looks like a deliberate attempt to thwart medical corroboration. Even those who have their claims of torture confirmed by the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture are not safe. Some still get deported, without any court ever being allowed to consider the medical evidence.

It is not unknown for the Home Office to serve removal notices with little or no warning, perhaps just an hour before asylum applicants are carted off to the airport. This leaves lawyers insufficient time to challenge the deportation.

I am also aware of detainees who have had phone access confiscated when they are due for removal. This means they cannot contact their solicitors. They end up on the next plane out of Heathrow.

One of my asylum applicants in a London detention centre was bussed to Scotland shortly before his deportation order was served. His removal from English legal jurisdiction seems to have been calculated to make it as difficult as possible for his solicitor to take last minute action to halt him being sent back to Uganda.

Asylum seekers scheduled for deportation can be shackled, bound and forcibly injected with sedating medication, according to eye-witness accounts I have received. To stop deportees screaming en route to the plane, some escorts allegedly apply semi-strangulating thumb pressure to the throat and twist handcuffs so tight that they pinch wrist nerves and cut the flesh, leaving some victims complaining of semi-permanent nerve damage.

Home Office ministers cannot blithely claim they are unaware of these abuses. If they don't know, they should. It is their responsibility. If they do know, why are they allowing it to continue?

The Border and Immigration Agency Complaints Audit Committee has highlighted many complaints of abuse and the failure of the government to remedy them. The Home Office is responsible for the Border and Immigration Agency and its private contactors. The buck stops with the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith MP, and her immigration minister, Liam Byrne MP.

This report is so damning, and the abuses so serious and widespread, that these ministers should be sacked and face criminal charges of negligence in their duty of care towards immigrants and asylum applicants.

Still Human, Still Here

The Staff — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 22:07:19 +0000

from Amnesty UK:

Documentary maker Nick Broomfield has made a new short film for Amnesty International to highlight the issue of destitute refused asylum seekers in the UK. Amnesty is campaigning to end the scandal of destitution of refused asylum seekers, and are supporting the Still Human Still Here campaign along with other refugee, migrant and church organisations who are working on rights and welfare of asylum seekers in the UK.

You can watch this film here.