Spouting Cave

In early November, Guxim Imerio, a 25 year old man from Albania, absconded from Dungavel Immigration Removal Centre near Strathaven. Reports say Guxim attached himself to the underside of a van, waited until it was out of the compound and had stopped, before fleeing. Even after escaping the centre, he faced several cross-country miles on foot. A search on Google Maps would have told him it is “unable to calculate transit directions” to or from the facility. Tucked in the rural backroads of South Lanarkshire, Dungavel is a remote abstraction, out of sight and out of mind. Housed in this strange outpost are around 250 asylum seekers, many having fled war, persecution, even torture; cast to our geographic and societal periphery while awaiting deportation or a ruling on their claim. Men and women enduring compound displacement, and locked up indefinitely for the crime of seeking residence in this country. Two weeks after Guxim’s escape, around 200 protestors descend on th