A Peculiar Prison
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 the grounds of this peculiar penitentiary on a clear but bitterly
cold Saturday afternoon. Originally a hunting lodge and summer retreat for the
Dukes of Hamilton, the imposing steel fences and barbed wire around this 19th
century Gothic manor greet the demonstrators with appropriate menace. The
sinister environment is a fitting physical expression of the UK’s malicious immigration
system and its Kafkaesque bureaucracy. The multi-generational, multi-ethnic
crowd carry banners and drums and megaphones. There’s even a pop-up childcare
tent. Some of the party have family members or even personal experience on the
other side of these walls, returning in defiance of harrowing memories. Coordinated
with another demonstration at Yarl’s Wood in Bedford, the action follows three
deaths in the space of a month at British detention centres, including that of a
Chinese man at Dungavel in September.[i]
An investigation was launched, but his name, circumstances and the cause of his
death remain unreported.
To enforce the incarceration of dispossessed migrants in
this incongruous setting of bucolic Scotland, the punitive British state has
found an eager friend in American private enterprise. The notorious GEO Group
is one of the leading profiteers of the prison-industry complex in that fervently
carceral nation. It has been the subject of numerous multi-million dollar
lawsuits for the mistreatment of prisoners and between 2006 and 2012 also managed
a site for migrants on Guantanamo Bay.[ii] Now the GEO Group’s flag flutters proudly at Dungavel, where
the band of protestors stride round the grey perimeter, past the Police Dogs on
Patrol signs and the glowering CCTV cameras. Stamping their mudded heels on these
walls of state violence, they vent their rage at Dungavel’s litany of sins.
In
2015 Dozens of detainees took part in a hunger strike here to protest
conditions and their length of time held. A Freedom of Information request the
same year revealed that some asylum seekers were interned at Dungavel for over a
year, dozens for months.[iii]
In a 2016 Sunday Herald report,
accounts by former inmates attested to squalid and cramped conditions, with
claims that asylum seekers were working in the facility for as little as £1 an
hour in laundries.[iv] Most
residents were “depressed” and “half-mental”, according to a detainee in the
short documentary, Behind the Wire: Inside Dungavel.[v]
Even Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons for Scotland expressed
concerns about the “unreasonably” long time people were detained. While commenting
positively on relations between detainees and staff at Dungavel, the inquiry
raised alarm about the holding of vulnerable individuals who had been raped or
tortured – despite rules stating this should only happen in “exceptional
circumstances”.[vi]
At the protest, the dissenters assemble on top of a small
hill overlooking the fence and into Dungavel’s central courtyard. The mound is curiously
boggy underfoot, despite the grass in full growth nearby. Rumours circulate
that this may even have been a deliberate ploy by security. Then, rebellious
cheers as the detainees emerge from the centre to greet the visitors, arms
raised and fists clenched. “Shut down Dungavel! No one is illegal”, rings out raucously.
This crowd demands the abolition of migrant detention, but even an end to
indefinite confinement has been resisted by the UK Government. Unlike every
country in the EU, the UK places no time cap on detention, despite calls by
Amnesty Intentional, the HMIP and the House of Lords for a 28-day limit. From
the comfort of the House of Commons recently, Immigration Minister Brandon
Lewis denied the existence of indefinite detention, absurdly insisting that
“our policy is that there is always a presumption of liberty”. With procedural
indifference, he added that “detention never lasts longer than is reasonably
necessary to achieve the purpose for which it was authorised, which is to
return somebody.” [vii] Even
on its own dehumanising terms, this statement contradicts a key finding of the
Shaw Report (January 2016), commissioned by then Home Secretary, Theresa May,
that there was no correlation between the number of people detained and the
number “lawfully deported”.[viii]
As the Government continues to equivocate, the human tragedy
becomes ever graver. The death toll of those who have died in immigration
detention or shortly after release now stands at 43. Official figures recorded
393 suicide attempts in removal centres in 2015, with nearly 3,000 on suicide
watch, including 11 children.[ix]
In September 2017, a BBC Panorama investigation exposed the abhorrent abuse
suffered by migrants at Brook House Immigration Removal Centre, with deliberate
acts of humiliation towards mentally unwell and vulnerable detainees.[x]
The Shaw Report joined a chorus of voices concluding that incarceration can do
serious damage to mental health, and also condemned the holding of pregnant
women, a practice which goes on regardless. Meanwhile, statistics two years on
show a slight increase in detainees,
despite the report’s call for their number to be reduced “boldly and without
delay”.[xi]
Any notion that detention is a necessary evil can be
dismissed categorically. A comprehensive body of research by the International
Detention Coalition identified a diverse range of alternatives to the
practice which attempt to shift the emphasis away from security and
restrictions to a pragmatic and proactive approach focused on case resolution.[xii]
Indeed, evidence shows that the vast majority of people released from detention
and awaiting appeals do not abscond. In countries such as Sweden and Germany, alternatives
(such as placing undocumented families in community housing; charity-run care
homes and temporary bridging visas) are not only more humane, they are also less
expensive. It costs British taxpayers £30,000 to keep someone in detention for
one year, while in the past four years the UK Government has paid out over £16m
in compensation for unlawful detention.[xiii]
Ultimately, however, the Home Office is uninterested in
evidence-based policy. Its primary concern is creating a climate that it is tough
on immigration, “illegal” or otherwise. While the need to end detention is
urgent, it is but one component of Theresa May’s “hostile environment” of dawn
raids and Go Home vans; of mandatory ID checks by landlords, banks and
hospitals; of lifelong British citizens ordered to return to their “home”
country.[xiv]
A report by Oxfam reported the UK had taken just 18% of its “fair share” of Syrian
refugees, relative to size of its economy.[xv] In the period an asylum seeker has their claim administered
– a process which can take years – they are entitled to just £36.95 per week –
compared to £65.59 in France, for example – and they are not permitted to work or
claim unemployment benefits.[xvi]
When the protestors unfurl banners reading “Freedom to Move.
Freedom to Stay” and “Stop Deportations” and “No Human is Illegal”, it is in
defiance of this entire system. Asserting these messages will only become more
crucial in the coming decades. According to the UNHRC, the displacement of
people is now at the highest level on record.[xvii]
A combination of climate change and population growth will accelerate this
phenomenon, with food scarcity, water insecurity and extreme weather set to
pose massive humanitarian challenges. While
these issues must be tackled at source, we can expect millions of people to
head to Europe for a share of the resources that the continent has plundered in
recent centuries. This will bring huge challenges, but a fortress mentality
will only guarantee misery, death and conflict.
In this context, there has never been a worse time for the
UK to shut itself off from the world. With Britannia stupefied in a post-imperial,
Brexit delusion, what can Scotland do to chart a different course? The Scottish
Government has committed to closing Dungavel in an independent Scotland and to
create a more “humane” asylum system,
but in the meantime it must continue to pressure the UK to change course, and
advocate for an end to migrant detention around the world. More broadly,
Scotland must make a more concerted effort to reconcile its historic role in
colonialism and slavery, and root out the more insidious forms of racism that
permeate its society today. Glasgow City Council’s support for CRER’s proposals
for a museum of empire, slavery and migration is an important step in this
process, as is the University of Glasgow’s research project into the city’s
links to the slave trade.
In November 2016, thanks to pressure from groups like We
Will Rise, the Unity Centre and Stop Detention Scotland, as well as hundreds of
concerned citizens, Renfrewshire Council rejected the Home Office’s planning
application to build a holding facility on the campus of Glasgow Airport. While
the ruling meant Dungavel would remain open, the alternative was even worse, as
it would have allowed the Home Office to shuttle migrants out of the country with
little scrutiny or oversight. Such victories demonstrate that grassroots
activism, often led by those with direct experience of the immigration system,
will drive future change. It will be through their courage, resolve and perseverance that this injustice will end.
[i] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-41326686
[ii] http://cepr.net/blogs/haiti-relief-and-reconstruction-watch/private-prison-company-gets-haiti-contract
[iii] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-31710402
[iv]http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13211253.Revealed__refugees_at_Dungavel_paid_just___1_an_hour_for_work_in_detention_centre/
[v] Behind the Wire: Inside Dungavel, Liam O’Hare, 2016
[vi] https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprisons/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2015/07/Dungavel-web-2015.pdf
[vii] https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2017-11-20/debates/1C86C1FE-1295-4E66-97A3-A36B200F0603/ImmigrationDetentionCentres
[ix] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/04/suicide-attempts-uk-immigration-removal-centres-all-time-high-home-office-figures
[xi]
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/review-into-the-welfare-in-detention-of-vulnerable-pers
[xiii]
detentionaction.org.uk/
[xiv]https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/nov/28/hostile-environment-the-hardline-home-office-policy-tearing-families-apart
[xv] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/syrian-refugees-uk-fair-share-report-a7478891.html
[xvi] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/21/asylum-seekers-allowance-surviving-charities-counting-pennies
[xvii]
http://www.unhcr.org/uk/figures-at-a-glance.html
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