Tag: Charter Flights

Open Letter by #Jamaica50 families: to Jamaican High Commissioner

Open letter signed by 51 individuals & family members affected by mass deportation charter flights to Jamaica.

This open letter was sent to the High Commissioner on Monday 4th April 2022. We are yet to receive a response.
You can sign your support for this letter on our change.org petition.

Open Letter: To His Excellency Mr Seth George Ramocan 

We are individuals and families in the UK who have been suffering under this government’s racist hostile environment for years. Our fathers, brothers, sisters, mothers, partners, grandparents and children have been subject to racist demonisation, torturous detention and unjust deportations.

We need you to stand up for your citizens facing racism & injustice in the UK. We need you to refuse to accept charter flight deportations and reinstate your agreement that no one who came to the UK as a child should face deportation. We are asking you to support our call for an immigration amnesty, so that we can live free and equally.

On 27th April 2022 at 4pm we will be coming to the High Commission with Movement for Justice, to speak out about these injustices, to make our voices heard. We invite you to come out and speak with us, to accept our letter in person, to listen and make a stand. (Facebook event)

There has been NO JUSTICE for our Windrush Generation, only pathetic apologies and promises that have led nowhere. People have died waiting for compensation. We are forced to jump through hoops like performing animals to prove our right to compensation[1], our right to be here.

The descendants of the Windrush Generation, children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, brought here as children or born in the UK suffer racism at every stage of life. We face discrimination in schools, we are criminalised from childhood, we are stereotyped and degraded, we are treated as animals. The open, blatant racism and stereotypes of our community in the early 00’s[2] have not gone away, they’ve just been absorbed into government policy.

Many of us and our children, were groomed into criminal activity in childhood[3], never treated as victims, only as criminals. Then we face deportation to a country that is no longer home, where we are demonised and stigmatised by hostile media coverage[4] and where we face destitution and murder[5].

Our lives are here, our families are here, we are PROUD of our Jamaican heritage, we are PROUD of the role our communities have played rebuilding Britain, bringing hard work, music, culture, love and joy. We are Jamaican and we are British in all but the colour of our passport. But every day this government and the Home Office treat us as less than human.

The Jamaican people and government have taken a clear stand to further throw off the shackles of colonial rule, have demanded reparations for slavery[6]; we praise all those who have fought for this moment for decades. This country enslaved us, stole our labour, they broke our backs then told us we were one with them that we were British. Our elders came to rescue the ‘mother country’ in its time of need, they worked hard, they faced down the racists and now this country throw their descendants out like rubbish. Enough.

The UK government keeps on with their unjust charter flights, spending tens of thousands of pounds to deport a handful of people[7]. The charter flights are by their nature brutal and unjust. We are swept up in a racist dragnet of our communities, we are imprisoned and given just 5 days to find representation and build a case. The majority of us are not put on that plane because we have lawful grounds to remain[8], yet every year, twice or three times a year we are put through this torture. Immigration officers and police barging into our homes, terrorising our children who are left with nightmares and mental health difficulties[9]. 

Thousands of children across the UK go through this, the constant fear their father will be taken away from them, the despair of knowing this country does not want us, does not care for us. Then there’s those who have been deported, barely surviving in Jamaica, unable to work, at risk of exploitation and murder, living in fear. Desperately searching for working Wi-Fi so they can see their children over a shaky connection, trying to comfort their children and partner without being able to put their arms around them.[10]

So many of us have to survive without the right to work, unable to care for our families, deepening our depression and despair. The Home Office want us to commit crime, they want us to give up hope, that’s what the racist hostile environment policies are designed to do – force people to leave[11]. But in all this horror we have found hope and strength in each other, in organisation and community. Every time there is a charter flight we stand together; we organise with Movement for Justice and we have made the truth of this injustice known[12]. We need our Jamaican government, our people back home, to stand with us in this struggle.

This government have shown they have no regard not only for decency and human rights but for the law. They routinely breach peoples Human Rights and when called out on that by the courts, their response is not to act more humanely, but to change the law. That is what they are doing with the Nationality and Borders Bill, which will deny us even the smallest legal protections such as trafficking/modern day slavery protections. A Bill which has been roundly condemned as breaching international law and treaties[13]. Judicial Review is our only means of having our voices heard in the courts at these desperate moments yet this government is working on limiting those rights[14]. They are criminalising asylum seekers and view us all as no more than “red meat’[15]to throw to their racist voter base. Immigrants & asylum seekers are not human beings to this racist government, we are seen as scapegoats for a failing government.

We know you are aware of this injustice; we know you have stepped in to try and stand up for the people who came here as children. We know the UK government and Home Office has treated you appallingly by sending a flight even when you have explicitly called for it to be stopped because of COVID risk[16]. 

We also know that the Jamaican government CAN refuse to accept these flights, CAN make permanent the agreement that no one who came to the UK as a child should ever be deported. We know our closest neighbour; Ireland has introduced an immigration amnesty[17] so we also know this is possible.  It’s time for change.

We hope to see you on the 27th April.

All of the 51 signatories below either directly experienced detention and the risk of charter flight deportation to Jamaica or they are a family member of someone who has faced that trauma (for public release their names have been anonymised):

1. JP

2. FS 

3. AF

4. NP

5. MM

6. PJ 

7. MS

8. FM

9. EP

10. NS

11. IH

12. SR

13. LR

14. BS

15. MR

16. SB

17/18. M & AB

19. DJ

20. TM

21. GB

22. MW 

23. AW

24. LP

25. TT 

26. WH 

27/28. C & DB

29. LR

30. LP

31. CB

32. RG 

33. AV 

34. MW

35. WF 

36. LPL

37. AC 

38. LS 

39. LRM 

40. SE

41. NR 

42. RB

43. RH 

44. TH

45/46. KF & PD 

47. AM 

48. SRR 

49. RS 

50. PD 

51. SS

[1] https://www.voice-online.co.uk/news/uk-news/2021/11/25/windrush-compensation-scheme-slammed-by-mps/

[2] https://www.thenational.scot/news/20008635.boris-johnson-published-article-saying-jamaicans-mind-pea-editing-spectator/

[3] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/trafficking-victims-county-lines-deportation-jamaica-home-office-uk-b1954502.html

[4] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/12/ripped-from-my-family-deportee-struggles-cope-jamaica-chevon-brown

[5] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/may/09/revealed-five-men-killed-since-being-deported-uk-jamaica-home-office

[6] https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/jamaicans-protest-slavery-reparations-ahead-visit-by-british-royals-2022-03-22/

[7] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/11/uk-deportation-flight-four-onboard-raises-questions-viability-jamaica

[8] https://www.thejusticegap.com/jamaica50-deportation-charter-flights-and-access-to-justice/

[9] https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/children-of-deported-people-are-developing-ptsd-and-depression-report-finds/

[10] https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/shine-a-light/do-your-parenting-by-skype-uk-tells-fathers-being-deported-to-jama/

[11] https://www.thejusticegap.com/20996-2/

[12] https://www.bigissue.com/news/activism/they-want-to-take-your-soul-the-race-to-stop-priti-patels-jamaica-deportation-flight/

[13] https://www.paih.org/the-most-racist-legislation-of-our-lifetime-the-nationality-and-borders-bill

[14] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/oct/31/this-reform-of-judicial-review-will-put-the-government-above-the-law

[15] https://inews.co.uk/news/what-is-operation-red-meat-boris-johnsons-plan-rescue-premiership-explained-1404138

[16] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/aug/10/jamaica-calls-deportation-flight-from-uk-halted-covid-fears

[17] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/immigration-amensty-ireland-b2006737.html

Yarl’s Wood detainees resist Nigeria/Ghana mass deportation charter flight – unlawful deportation prevented

Free AG NOW. Amnesty for ALL immigrants – and shut down ALL detention centres. Stop mass deportation charter flights. Build the independent, integrated movement.

In Yarl’s Wood detention centre new battles in the fight for women’s rights and immigrant rights have been opening up, with women taking all means necessary, encouraged and more confident having seen the government’s hostile environment immigration policy exposed and vulnerable, and having been part of the struggles that made it vulnerable through months of collective action inside Yarl’s Wood.

In Yarl’s Wood on Wednesday 30 May 2018, women gathered in Dove unit to defend Nigerian and Ghanaian women whom they knew to be the latest targets for a mass deportation charter flight. This action to stop deportations took place in the context of the Government’s wider, self-inflicted crisis over its anti-immigrant policies. It takes the fight to end detention and the whole hostile environment to a higher level and asserts the importance of immigrant leadership in this fight.

Continue reading “Yarl’s Wood detainees resist Nigeria/Ghana mass deportation charter flight – unlawful deportation prevented”

Diaspora+ Day of Action Calling on Nigerian & Ghanaian Governments to Stop Wednesdays Charter Flight!

Day of Action for Nigerian and Ghanaian Diaspora community and ALL those who want to see an end to charter flights to demand that Nigeria and Ghana withdraw all co-operation with the UK’s mass deportation charter flights – that they intervene to STOP the charter flight to Nigeria & Ghana scheduled for Wednesday 30th May 2018

Tuesday is the last full working day before the Home Office fill a charter flight with Nigerians and Ghanaians. those being removed are shackled by their hands and feet with a restraint belt and two guards for each person. These are women and men, some of whom have lived in the UK since childhood, fathers of British children, grandmothers and partners who have no one left in their country of origin, people who have lived in the UK for 15 years, victims of torture, LGBT people and more. Charter flights inflict a deep injustice on our communities. Deportation targets are put before human beings and many are denied due process, deported while their case is still ongoing. THESE CHARTER FLIGHTS MUST STOP!

In the light of the abuse and deportation of the Windrush Generation it is time for Commonwealth countries to withdraw co-operation with these unjust flights.

TAKE ACTION ON TUESDAY 29 MAY:
Everyone can use Tuesday to call/email/tweet/Instagram/Facebook the High Commissions, newspapers, radio stations,  TV stations, celebrities and politicians to make the call on the Nigerian and Ghanaian governments to withdraw cooperation – if they do this the planes will not fly. Continue reading “Diaspora+ Day of Action Calling on Nigerian & Ghanaian Governments to Stop Wednesdays Charter Flight!”

Meet Yarl’s Wood detainees the Home Office plans to deport on Wed 30 May by charter flight #StopCharterFlights

These are stories of the 15 people we know of in Yarl’s Wood who are at risk of being on Wednesday’s charter flight to Nigeria and Ghana. They include people who have lived in the UK for 17, 15, 14, 13 and 12 years, a gay woman who has been here since she was 12 years old, two couples, several victims of FGM, domestic violence, rape and torture, women who are married or partners with British Citizens and EEA nationals, people who are carers, people who have no one left in Nigeria and people ranging in age from 20’s to 50’s.

1. FA: I have lived in UK since Feb 2006, 17 years. I am a victim of domestic violence, FGM and suffering from high blood pressure which is classified by the Home Office as adult risk level 2. I have been detained in Yarl’s Wood for 7 months. When I first came to the UK with was with my previous husband (a British Citizen) on a spousal visa, I suffered from domestic violence for years, which was deeply traumatic, and when that relationship broke down it meant my right to stay broke as well. I now have a loving partner with EEA citizenship, we have been together for 6 years and living together for 3 but no matter what evidence we submit we are treated as liars. My only sister lives in the UK, we are very close and I love my young nephew very much, I would be devastated to leave them and my partner. We are all treated as liars, no matter what we say, the Home Office is just looking to meet its targets, it is wrong.

Continue reading “Meet Yarl’s Wood detainees the Home Office plans to deport on Wed 30 May by charter flight #StopCharterFlights”

EMERGENCY Demonstration to Stop Charter Flight to Nigeria and Ghana

Call for Nigerian diaspora community to demand Nigeria withdraw co-operation with these racist, unjust mass deportations.

What you can do:
1. Call, email, Facebook & tweet at the Nigeria High Commission…

Make the point about how Commonwealth citizens of the Windrush Generation have been treated, how many were deported on charter flights? How many Nigerian Students were part of the 50,000 expelled by Theresa May? How many mothers, fathers, grandmothers have been deported on charter flights? How often Britain is returning people whove lived their whole lives since childhood in the UK. It has to stop. Read this petition and statement by Nigerian women in Yarlswood in 2015 who successfully resisted the November charter flight ‘Nigeria Where Is Your Backbone?’

High Commissioners Secretariat: Mrs H. Taddy, 0207 839 1244, hc@nigeriahc.org.uk

Head of Political (Commonwealth Affairs): Mrs I. Effiong-Archibongg, 02078391244,

political@nigeriahc.org.uk

Continue reading “EMERGENCY Demonstration to Stop Charter Flight to Nigeria and Ghana”

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