Jon Burnett | 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.

Brutality and Fear

Ellie Keen — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:27:34 +0000

The human costs of dawn raids

There are some statistics that the New Labour government makes sure the public know about. The constant rise in the number of police officers patrolling British streets for example; the number of arrests that these police officers carry out; or the relentless year by year increase in people incarcerated in prisons up and down the country. Another of these statistics is the number of people that are removed from the UK. The higher the figure, the better; and last year this statistic reached an all time high. Every eight minutes a person was removed, one way or another, from the country.

According to the Home Office, these numbers equate, quite simply, to a form of success: evidence that ‘strong controls are working’. So it is ironic that the means through which these figures are realised are shrouded in secrecy and misinformation. Dawn raids – or to use their official term ‘enforcement visits’ – are rarely discussed in the same self-congratulatory tones as the aims they supposedly achieve. And there is a reason for this. They are brutal. They rip people from their homes at the time that is least expected. And they tear families apart from each other; sometimes never to see each other again.

Dawn raids have emerged as a central facet of New Labour’s asylum and immigration policies, with little semblance of public debate. Statistics are not available to the public, yet what evidence there is suggests that dawn raids are carried out at rapid pace. Records of the number of dawn raids have only been made available since April 2005, but in the House of Commons in 2007, the Minister of State for Borders and Immigration explained that 8,100 ‘enforcement operations’ were carried out before 8 am in 2006. On average, that is roughly twenty-two dawn raids a day. Dawn raids are carried out explicitly for the purposes of detention and removal. Yet of these 8,100 conducted, only 2,009 led to arrests. A ‘success’ rate that equates to roughly one out of every four suggests that they are – from one perspective – an ineffective way of meeting government targets for ‘removing more failed asylum seekers than new anticipated unfounded applications’. Yet it is exactly these targets that continue to justify their use. Ensuring the former figure is higher than the latter is described as ‘public performance’ and according to Liz Fekete from the Institute of Race Relations, ensures that ‘[i]n the process, the fact that those who seek refuge…are human beings, not mere statistics, is lost’.

This reduction of people to statistics covers a horrifying level of abuse, harm, and fear. As stated above, dawn raids are particularly barbaric. They are carried out in the early morning – when people are most likely to be at home, asleep, and disorientated – apparently in ‘the interests of health and safety and to help minimise disruption’. But the reality of dawn raids suggests that health and safety is far down the list of priorities. For example, the 1993 raid on immigraion overstayer Joy Gardner led to her death, after she was placed in a body belt, had her wrists, thighs and ankles tied to handcuffs and belts, and thirteen feet of tape wrapped around her mouth to stop her making any noise.

Statistics for the number and nature of complaints made by people in relation to dawn raids are not available. But work by the Border and Immigration Agency Complaints Audit Committee gives some idea of mechanisms of redress. In their 2006/7 Annual Report the Complaints Audits Committee emphasised that 20% of records of complaints against BIA had gone ‘missing’ (although this was later reduced to 15%), and of complaints against arrest teams their audit sample showed that ‘none was handled in time’. Of overall complaints, those of criminal behaviour (some of which were assault) rose 7% from the previous year.

Where there is hope though, it rests within continuing actions of campaigners, many of whom are in the asylum process, who continue to display solidarity, raise awareness, and resist. In doing so, they emphasise not only their refusal to succumb to one of the fiercest tools available to the Home Office; but the wider polices in which these activities are concretely embedded.

Hearts and Minds in the Domestic 'War on Terror'

eddie — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 16:07:56 +0000

New Labours anti-terrorism strategy continues to take shape, consolidating a number of processes that were already well underway before 7/7: increased stop and search and surveillance of Muslim citizens, the blanket stigmatisation of those seeking asylum, police shoot-to-kill tactics and control orders imposed on terrorist suspects. Derogation from the European Convention on Human Rights and an ever expanding arsenal of anti-terrorist legislation means that the shadow of Paddington Green police station, where terrorist suspects are routinely held, looms large over many peoples lives. On more than one occasion, ministers have told Muslim citizens that they should expect to be monitored closely and a new Terrorism Bill proposes the introduction of a widely drawn offence of glorifying terrorism, or affiliation to organisations thought to do this. It is, apparently, a reasonable price to pay for security.

These forms of coercion are all now familiar features of the war on terror. Yet there is a central facet of the UKs counter-terrorism strategy which underpins these coercive practices and is gathering speed with much less critical discussion: propaganda. The enemy within which carried out the terrorist attacks in London this summer is, according to ministers, dedicated to the destruction of our values, our way of life and the core of Western democracy. Thus, at the core of New Labours anti-terrorist strategy is an ideological battle, aimed at winning the hearts and minds of Muslim citizens.

This battle was already in place before the July 2005 attacks. Its centrepiece is Operation Contest, which has been overseen by Tony Blair since 2004. Its foundations were put in place following the formal occupation of Iraq and included proposals to recruit young Muslim ambassadors to promote particular perceptions of Britain, financially support moderate Islamic media outlets, arrange seminars in which to reach disaffected young Muslims, and vet foreign imams.

A recently leaked letter, entitled Hearts and Minds of Muslims, from the Head of the Defence and Intelligence arm of the Foreign Office to the governments security and intelligence co-ordinator Sir David Omand, revealed plans to instigate a campaign of black propaganda. Spies would be tasked to infiltrate Islamic websites posing as radical Muslims, draw out extremists, and then somehow dissuade them from attacking the nation. This would be achieved by bolstering moderate, Western-oriented currents of thought in Islam. Given that only individuals with impeccable Muslim credentials were deemed able to carry out the deception, the proposals were considered problematic due to a shortage of Islamic experts working for the government that are able to undertake the operation. Moreover, there were thought to be potential risks of the strategy backfiring through links back to the UK or US becoming exposed. Nevertheless, the core motivation behind the plans was seen as valid.

Strategies to battle for the hearts and minds of citizens are underpinned by a perception that a number of disaffected Muslims are being drawn into terrorist activity. The governments own estimates are unclear, yet there is a consensus that the number of such people are in the thousands. But while ideological battle is being joined, the context of such a contest is simply ignored. Tony Blair has firmly reasserted that there is no political cause of global terrorism; it is simply evil. Foreign policy is irrelevant, as is domestic policy, as is, in fact, politics in general. Consequently, strategies to win hearts and minds almost completely airbrush such considerations out of the picture. And where the political context is recognised, it is to the extent that disaffected citizens can be convinced of the fundamental good of a politics of anti-terrorism.

In a context where a vigorous debate regarding the purposes and motivations of anti-terrorism policy is desperately necessary, the result of the current hearts and minds strategy is precisely the opposite. Promoting Islam-friendly images of Britain does little. Rather than changing or altering the increasingly divisive effects of the war on terror, it merely seeks to package these effects in a presentable manner. Furthermore, while there is a coordinated attempt to win the hearts and minds of Muslim citizens, these same citizens are also increasingly called on to win the hearts and minds of the rest of the population. Following the London bombings, in particular, Muslim citizens have been prompted again and again to prove their allegiance to the state and demonstrate their loyalty. All of this calls into question the actual likelihood of winning the hearts and minds of those now cast as Britains suspect community.

The result is cultural authoritarianism, with an imposition of core values assumed to be the answer to all problems: diversity is acceptable when it is wrapped in a Union Jack. Where shared values are lacking, this is taken to be due to the absence of a strong national identity. Community cohesion thus becomes community coercion. Consequently, Muslim citizens are presented with a choice of false distinctions, echoing President Bushs bold assertion that you are either with us or with the terrorists. A core facet of Operation Contest refers to persuading young Muslims that they can be Muslim and British. It appears that it is New Labour which needs persuading. Either way, attempting to win the hearts and minds of increasingly stigmatised communities, while simultaneously expecting this to be reciprocated through an increasingly devout fervour of patriotism, makes for a perverse anti-terrorism strategy.