End Immigration detention
Bill MacKeith (Close Campsfield Campaign)
Home Secretary David Blunkett published his White Paper "Secure Borders, Safe Haven: Integration with diversity in modern Britain" on February 7.
As the National Coalition of Anti-Deportations campaigns put it :"The document sets out a comprehensive set of measures to deliver a improperly managed, racist and intimidating system of immigration, nationality and asylum for Britain in the 21st Century.
"The measures will enable the UK to mismanage migration, shut its borders, and build distrust and incredibility in the system amongst the wider community."
One of Blunkett’s anouncements was that Campsfield "House" Immigration Detention Centre near Oxford is to close in about a year. The closure decision may be down in part to size, location, or age, but there can be no doubt that the vigorous campaign of protest over the last eight and a half years from inside and outside the centre has been the major factor.
However, "victory" is not sweet. More and more refugees are being detained as the government opens more detention centres Next after Yarl’s Wood [900 places] and Harmondsworth [550 places] last year will be Dover [400 places] being converted from a youth offenders institution this spring.
Since May 1997 New Labour has increased the number of dedicated immigration detention beds from 700 to 2,800, and has stated 4,000 is its aim. What this represents in terms of the suffering of individuals, including clinical depression, actual and attempted suicides, is uncountable.
If Campsfield is "outdated" as Blunkett says, then the detention prisons and centres at Haslar, Rochester, Linholm, Holme "House", Dungavel, Tinsley and Oakington should also be closed. They are of the same age or much older with some dating back to the 19th century!
The new generation of two mega detention centres at Yarl’s Wood (Europe’s biggest) and Harmondsworth (550) may have bigger gyms but they are still prisons. As one detainee said "If you surround the Hilton with a fence, it is a prison."
Detention is an abuse of the basic right to freedom unless you are awaiting trial or have been convicted of a criminal offence. This is an absolute right, but to be denied it is worse when, like most immigration detainees, you are claiming political asylum – your right under international convention.
Demonstrations will continue at Campsfield on the last Saturday of the month until the centre is actually closed. The theme for February’s protest (February 23, at 12 noon) is: ‘No One Is Illegal’.
The need for local activity may well continue: there is at least a 50% chance that one of the four 750-place "accommodation centres" will be at Arncot near Bicester, 12 miles from Oxford.
Action is also taking place elsewhere On February 2 a campaign was set up to oppose the new Dover "Removal" Centre while the Yarl’s Wood campaign set up last year is vigorous, systematic and inventive.
Over Christmas activists took part in an unprecedented—in the UK—number of "airport actions" against deportations: passengers and crew being leafleted near the check-in desks.
Despite Blunkett’s sweet talk (an end to "shameful" detention in prisons!) and rechristenings ("removal" centres), the majority of those detained are still detained on arrival. They are awaiting a first decision on their asylum application, not awaiting "removal" at the end of the proces as the Home Office says.
As the Oxford Mail said under the heading "Curtains for Campsfield",
"For as long as any similar establishment remains open, we as a nation cannot stand in judgement on countries whose regimes we condemn as oppressive. Let us hope that Campsfield House is the beginning of the end."
Blunkett’s new proposals make the conference to defend asylum seekers in Manchester on March 23 organised by a number of anti-racist organisations even more important than before.
For further details contact: defend-asylum.org or phone 07905 566 183
Note: this article was written before the fire that half-destroyed the Yarl's Wood detention centre. This raises a whole set of new issues around the defence of detainees, lack of fire safety in the centres and the rise of resistance to detention of refugees.