More detention, not less, says the Home Office

 

This announcement does not bode well for Derwentside IRC, which only last month was again deemed unfit for purpose by its Independent Monitoring Board. We are deeply disappointed, in fact devastated, that the new Labour Government  shows no signs at all of understanding that detaining people, especially vulnerable women, will serve no purpose in curbing immigration.

NGOs hit back

The government’s proposals have attracted criticism from Amnesty International UK, which accused Labour of “reheating” Conservative rhetoric over border security. Steve Valdez-Symonds, refugee and migrant rights programme director at the charity, said:

“People in urgent need ‒ including those fleeing war and persecution in places like Sudan, Afghanistan, Syria and Iran ‒ will keep coming to the UK and other countries, and the government needs to establish safe routes that reduce the perils of dangerous border crossings and the risk of exploitation by ruthless smuggling gangs.

“This ‘securitised’ approach to asylum and immigration will simply deter and punish many of the people most in need of crossing borders, people who are therefore often most vulnerable to criminal exploitation.

“Increasing immigration powers  ‒ including to detain people  ‒ rather than making sure existing powers are only used where that is necessary and fair has for decades rewarded Home Office inefficiency and injustice.

“A new set of ministers promoting an age-old message of fear and hostility regarding some of the most victimised and traumatised people who may ever arrive in the UK, means that smuggling gangs and racist and Islamophobic hate-mongers at home are likely to feed off this to everyone’s detriment.”

Colette Batten-Turner, founder and CEO of  Conversation Over Borders, has echoed our own position in this statement just released:

“Three weeks on from the far-right inciting and carrying out racist violence against asylum seekers in hotels, British Muslims and minorities and the terrifying scenes we all witnessed of hotels being set on fire, we are now learning of the response from the Home Office – which is to further target, dehumanise and criminalise asylum seekers. The rhetoric from the Home Office and their planned actions are a gift for the far-right and those in power who want to use refugees and asylum seekers as political punch bags for their own failed economic policies over the past decades.

We are disappointed in the rhetoric from the Home Office which fails to address any of the key issues or uphold international conventions and rights of asylum seekers and refugees. Labour has a chance to reset the dial on asylum and immigration policy – instead it has chosen to turn the dial back. Criminals exploiting desperate and vulnerable people should be dealt with, however these criminal gangs only exist because there are no safe and secure routes for people to arrive in the UK.

We are calling on the government to focus on the root causes of why people are arriving here and risking their lives to do so and to focus on creating an immigration and asylum policy that is fit for purpose – not one that is fanning the flames of charged, inaccurate and hateful rhetoric with devastating consequence as we have already seen.”