Deportation in this cruel hostile environment

StatusNow4All: This cruel hostile environment has given rise to yet another Home Office plan to deport people to Zimbabwe on 2 March 2022.  StatusNow4All abhors this decision made in the name of the Home Secretary, Priti Patel.

It is immoral:

These are just some of the factors of note in relation to those who are being rounded up for deportation right now:

·   Some have been here a long time, as many as twenty years; 

·   Some will have had Refugee Leave, such was the compelling case they presented on arrival in UK, but the law allows the Home Office to strip them of this due to a conviction for particular offending behaviours [para 339 Immigration Rules].

·   Deportation Orders are automatically made against people without British or Irish citizenship who have been given a prison sentence of more than a year

·   Some of these people will have served their time in prison and on license like any other person with a conviction,  and have subsequently lived in the community for years without re-offending

·   They have been suffering the psychological damage and indignities of being on indefinite Immigration Bail with ankle tags, curfews, not allowed to work or study, and the ever-present threat of removal.

It is putting people’s lives in jeopardy:

In Zimbabwe: We note that there has been a change of name of the President of Zimbabwe from Robert Mugabe to Emmerson Mnangagwa, but the Political Party ruling the country remains Zanu-PF.

We also note that serious concerns are being raised about the human rights record in Zimbabwe, and ask what sordid deals have been made that allow the UK to send people to a such place where their lives are at risk.

In its World Report 2022, Human Rights Watch reports: The administration of President Emmerson Mnangagwa failed to take meaningful steps to uphold human rights and ensure justice for serious abuses primarily committed by security forces in 2021. There has been no accountability for abuses by security forces, including the August 2018 post-election violence, and killings and rape during the January 2019 protests. Abductions, torture, arbitrary arrests, and other abuses against opposition politicians and activists have not been meaningfully investigated. The government has yet to establish an independent complaint system—as provided for in Zimbabwe’s Constitution—to receive and investigate public complaints against the security services. Other human rights concerns include a severe water and sanitation crisis, including during the Covid-19 pandemic, forced evictions, and child marriages.   

The United States, United Kingdom, and European Union all renewed targeted sanctions against Zimbabwe for serious human rights abuses by security forces, corruption, and failure to ensure justice for past abuses.  https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2022/country-chapters/zimbabwe

See also this report from the late Human Rights Watch reporter Dewa  Mavhinga: Critic of Zimbabwe’s Government Fears for His Life: Authorities Should Ensure Apostle Chiwenga’s Safety, Free Speech Rights  https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/10/22/critic-zimbabwes-government-fears-his-life

Zimbabwe Human Rights Organisation: Clearly Zanu PF feel so threatened by the voices of reason, that they are retaliating in the only way they know – threats of violence, and corrupt judiciary. Laws do not create morality, and bad laws should be resisted in a [claimed] “democracy” – but it would be naive to use the democracy ‘umbrella’ when evidently Zimbabwe is a dictatorship, and a Military Dictatorship at that! https://www.zhro.org.uk/zim-updates

It is financially a great waste of resources:

There is an additional twist, and that is the financial cost to UK tax payers of the system that allows the Home Office to make assumptions about who should be deported;  to round up 100+ people and incarcerate them in Immigration Removal Centres such as Colnbrook – with the extra risk of catching Covid; and to book an expensive charter flight that then leaves with a handful of people because the Courts are convinced by the application of the Law that many potential victims of this action have reason to remain in UK https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jul/22/legal-bids-mean-uk-deportation-flight-to-zimbabwe-takes-off-just-one-third-full

deportation has a massive impact on family member including children

When one person is suddenly removed to another country, families are torn apart .

StatusNow:

Our campaign for those with precarious status to be granted Indefinite Leave to Remain now is spurred on by the injustice of decisions to deport people to Zimbabwe.

This is our call:

We call upon the British and Irish States to act immediately so that all undocumented, destitute and migrant people in the legal process in both the UK and Ireland are granted Status Now, as in *Indefinite Leave to Remain. In this way every human, irrespective of their nationality or citizenship can access healthcare, housing, food and the same sources of income from the State as everyone else.

https://statusnow4all.org/status-now-4-all-this-is-our-call/

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