Notes on interview w. Residents Against Racism activist in immediate run-up to the Deportation

international | racism & migration related issues | news report Wednesday July 06, 2005 03:15 by eeeekkkkkk

The Residents Against Racism people knew that the deportation was imminent from early this afternonn. In the early afternoon they were part of an anti-deportation demonstration at the Garda National Immigration Bureau on Burgh Quay. Around 20 Nigerian men were picked up on Sunday night in Blanchardstown. Gardai conducted something of a trawl through pubs in the area as part of the process leading up to the deportation flight. People without ID were picked up in the pubs and their identities checked later.

More Nigerians were picked up yesterday evening from a hostel on the quays. Some people got wind of an imminent deportation and did not turn up in recent days to 'sign on' at the GNIB.

There were (earlier today at least) five Women in Mountjoy Women's Prison awaiting deportation. One was Tanya Dube. RAR activists because of longstanding connections with Tanya were able to visit her there earlier today. Three of the four other women are pregnant. One is lightly pregnant and two are 5-6 Months pregnant. Two of the women apart from Tanya spoke to a RAR activist by telephone later while the demonstration at the GNIB was taking place. One of the women told the RAR activist that she had found out her husband was in Cloverhill Prison awaiting deportation. A woman with children, according to contacts of RAR, was picked up in recent days in Cork. A woman was also picked up in Tralee according to their contacts.

Tanya Dube was transported from Galway to Dublin in the company of a number of african men. Similar pick ups by the Gardai may have taken place in other Irish towns. The RAR activists have no way of knowing as they can only get information from areas where they have contacts.

The RAR activists canot get information at the time of writing about any named person who will be on the flight early this morning. There is no Garda or immigration number that will supply this kind of information. Information on the flight and passengers is generally not released until the morning after a mass deportation. Generally these flights carry 32-36 deportees and there is usually a certain amount of confusion about passenger lists in the immediate aftermath. So people wait. They wait in hostels, houses, prisons and 'offices'. Any information they get is from friends, relatives and other contacts. The prisons will generally tell people who contact them whether or not a named person is there or 'has gone'.

Some are simply taken downstairs in the GNIB when they turn up for a sign in appointment, they are put in a van and driven to their hostel or home to collect their belongings and brought directly to a detention facility in the airport. This is what happened to ******** ********* earlier today. She is 21, an 'aged out minor', four months pregnant by an irish man and has two younger brothers and a mother who arrived here before June 2000 and who has worked here legally as a nurse ever since. Pretty much all aged out minors that RAR know of from African countries, including Angola, are recieving deportation orders at this time.

*******'s Mother was at work when she was detained while signing on at the GNIB. As ******* was being brought down through the swipe-card doors to the garage to get in a van to collect her belongings to go to the airport an RAR activist was contacting her Mother. Her Mother was in work at the time. By the time she got leave from work and got home ******* was gone.

******* was finally given her mobile phone to make a call to her mother at 11 o'clock this evening. She told her mother. 'The flight is leaving at one o'clock'.

******* had run in a panic into the women's toilet in the GNIB on being suddenly informed that she was going to be brought to pick up her belongings. A number of RAR activists were present at the GNIB at the time. They had been fearful for some time that ******* would imminently be picked up. ********, having been in the country for over five years, was in a state of denial even as she walked in to the GNIB today. Some of the activists went with her into the toilet. Five Gardai followed them and very quickly after ******* was allowed to call her boyfriend, dismissed all requests for one of the Women RAR members to be allowed to accompany the by now hysterical and upset ******* 'upstairs'.

RAR activists reported meeting a middle aged irishman outside today. His pregnant nigerian partner had been picked up. RAR activists regularly encounter lone individuals who have taken it upon themselves to try to offer some protecton to people who are in bad situations. Today the people they met also included a Protestant clergywoman trying to intervene in some way in the deportation of a parishoner and a community activist from Rialto trying to protect the interests of an aged out minor woman who was involved in some of the community activities he helped organise.

All of the people to be deported who were in some kind of contact with RAR have been here for significant periods which mostly exceed three years. Some have been here for six years. Some of those to be deported who arrived in Ireland before June 2000 have since been in constant employment. The only crime of some was no to have had an Irish citizen child over their long period here.

Despite McDowell's vague promises of compassion towards those with children in school for years here; all RAR contacts from Nigeria in that category seem to be receiving deportation orders now.

The Gardai also called to pick up a woman with four children in Galway in the last few days. She was six months pregnant and had been on the run since the runup to a mass deportation in March with her four children. RAR had managed in the meantime to get her back into the system. Only her medical records which she had with her convinced the Gardai that she was too pregnant to fly. Within a short period (months not years) of the birth of her fifth child she and they will be eligible for for a deportation order again.

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RAR need help imho from speaking to them. They sounded down and exhausted thinking of people they knew sitting for hours in bare rooms for a flight back into the 'Africa' all our leaders and celebrities claim to be so dreadfully awfully concerned with. There is no oversight of the situations of all of these people and the decisions taken in the Department of Justice on their leave to remain.

Bigger players than the unresourced RAR need to begin demanding some kind of oversight. One in ten at least of the files which lead to the issuing of a deportation order should be independently and publically assessed. If there are privacy concerns then redact the names.

In the absence of any observable political will to ensure humanity is observed in the deportation system it is all too easy to be left with the overall impression that the churches, the broad left and the unions have washed their hands of these people and are basically giving the Minister for Justice free and easy space to run around shouting 'Bogus' repeatedly at Africans.