Category: immigration

Refugee report – May


Immigration, refugees and Rwanda still hot topics

May 2024

Immigration and asylum issues continue to exercise politicians and sections of the media and flights to Rwanda edge closer. We are grateful for this report produced by group member Andrew.

The Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act finally became law on 25th April.  Since then, two pre-action letters have been sent (i.e. indicating intent to take the matter to court) from the FDA Union (on the grounds that civil servants cannot be expected to break international law) and Asylum Aid (claiming the legislation breaks with international law.)

It is reported that the Home Office is already rounding up refugees to send to Rwanda.  As a result many are going into missing or into hiding – or moving to Ireland.  It has also been said that countries under investigation as possible destinations include Armenia, Ivory Coast, Costa Rica and Botswana.  (Costa Rica has forcefully denied any such idea.)

A further aspect of the legislation is that Rwanda is a ‘monist’ country, meaning that it takes international law directly into domestic law.  This could mean that, if it is recognised that the Act breaks international law, it will, therefore, break Rwanda domestic law. 

The Oslo Peace Research Institute has surveyed the effect of warnings about migration rules as they affect third world countries.  Knowledge of the situation to be faced in Europe varies, but most communities are aware of messaging not to travel.  The effect on young adults has been minimal; indeed in some cases a better understanding of the bar on migrants has tended to raise expectations.

There has been a big increase this year in arrivals from Vietnam, higher even than among Afghans.  Vietnam is known as one of the worst countries for modern slavery, so trafficking appears to be rife.

The All-Party Parliamentary Groups on Poverty and Migration combined this month to produce a report on the effect of recent migration laws.  They considered that it was hard not to conclude that pushing claimants into poverty was a deliberate attempt at a deterrent.  They recommended several changes to the processing of immigrants.  The view that deterrence is not working is endorsed by this week’s report by some Calais-based charities, who note that heavy-handed action by French police to prevent the boats has encouraged the migrants to take to the boats more recklessly so as to avoid them, with dangerous consequences.  This police action is funded by the British Government.

The latest numbers of arrivals have been reduced by bad weather – an increase is expected.  1st May saw 711 arrive by boat.  The backlog of claimants awaiting processing was 83,000 in mid-April; the rate of processing has slowed in the last six months (the pre-2022 backlog, which the Prime Minister claimed had been cleared, still contains 2,300 people.)  The Refugee Council anticipate that, under the new laws, 94,000 are likely to be in permanent limbo by the end of the year.  Homelessness is also on the increase as asylum seekers are ejected from hotels after their claim is accepted.  Finally, the conditions in the Bibby Stockholm have been described as ‘prison-like’ with severe overcrowding.  An FOI request this week revealed that 1,871 children, who may be victims of modern slavery, have dropped off the register meant to support them up to the age of 18.

A depressing picture.

It was agreed the Group would monitor events for information on any proposed flights to Rwanda with a view to taking action, as previously, should Boscombe Down be the chosen airfield for departure.

The Salisbury group was established 50 years ago this year

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Refugee report


April 2024

This month, the report starts with the EU. The Freedom United charity note that so far this year more than 200 people have died trying to leave Libya, many shot by the Libyan Coast Guard. The EU continues to help fund the LCG, and the Institute of Migration say that 600,000 people are trapped in Libya seeking to get to Europe. Needless to say, there are many allegations of breaking international law in this crisis.

Also beyond the UK, the latest news from Rwanda is that, following the lack of progress in deportations, 70% of the properties allocated to receive deportees have now been sold to local buyers. On this topic, the Rwanda Bill returns next week for more ping pong – it could yet go for the Royal Assent within a few weeks. Judges are being given “special training” to ensure speedy delivery of those to be deported to Rwanda, according to the Daily Express. The airline Air Tanker is reported to be in discussions with the government about providing the transport, although they withdrew from previous similar discussions. RwandAir has already declined for fear of reputational damage.

The Prime Minister has claimed that 24,000 irregular migrants were deported last year. Full Fact have checked this and argue that only about 25% were enforced returns, the rest being voluntary. The number of arrivals in small boats this year stands at 4,644 at the end of March – bad weather has reduced the number in the last few days, but the figure is still higher than last year.

Charities and law firms have sent a letter to the Home Secretary seeking a Ukraine-style visa scheme for Palestinians who have family in the UK. The Home Office has also refused to decide on whether to drop the need for biometric data for reuniting family

arrivals from Gaza, although obtaining such data is virtually impossible in the crisis; the Upper Tribunal ruled against the Home Office in two test cases.

In their annual report, the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner note that the number of immigration advisers at the Home Office is growing, but not fast enough to keep up (and large numbers are leaving).

Finally, back to Europe, where the European Parliament has passed the Pact on Migration and Asylum today (Wednesday 10 April) against votes from the extreme right and extreme left. The 10 provisions of the pact cover issues like relocating from over-immigrated countries, financial allocation, fast-track routes and exchange of data.

A group of 22 NGOs has issued a statement arguing that “while the adoption … is likely to lead to a detrimental degradation of people’s access to protection in Europe, the new Union Resettlement Framework (URF) adopted alongside the Pact offers a glimmer of hope.

“The URF signals the EU’s political support for global resettlement efforts and has the potential to be a step towards advancing solidarity, capacity-building and responsibility sharing. It must now be operationalised effectively to ensure that more people reach safety and find long-term solutions,” the groups, which include the International Rescue Committee and Oxfam, said.

Andrew Hemming

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Refugee News


March 2024

As usual, we lead with Rwanda. The Lords have been inflicting a number of defeats on the government over the provisions of the Bill, and the “ping pong” between the two Houses will reach a climax next week, when we will know which, if any, amendments the government will accept. Further issues have arisen over the role of the civil service in the planned scheme, with the FDA union threatening legal action against the government in the event of a clash with the European Court.

The National Audit Office has calculated the cost of the first (total?) 300 deportees to Rwanda to be £541 million, at £1.8 million per person. Indeed, the cost to date is £20 million with no flights. Ian Dunt has calculated that the cost per asylum seeker generally in 2015/6 was £7062, whereas in 2022/3 it was £20921.

The latest wheeze, as revealed in The Times today (Wednesday) is simply to pay failed claimants £3000 for a  “voluntary return” – to Rwanda.

Figures released this month show that, as of 23 December 2023 the number of asylum seekers waiting for an initial decision was 128,000. The Government, of course, has claimed to have removed most of the legacy backlog, so most of these are new.

The sacking of the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration has resulted in the sudden release of the plethora of reports he wrote, which had not previously been published. They mostly concern the implementation of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and are generally critical of the Home Office’s performance. It is unlikely that a replacement for Mr Neal will be found before the end of this parliament.

Refusal rates for asylum seekers went up in the last quarter of 2023, with a  third of applications refused. This is unusual, as most applications end up being accepted.

The rules on Ukrainian refugees’ visas changed last week (with 4 hours notice of implementation) – The Family Scheme was closed though the Homes for Ukraine scheme is extended, but will not be processed until 2025.

This week the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatovic, criticised the Rwanda scheme along with certain French actions as acting above the law. She was concerned that two large European nations were giving a bad lead to the rest.

A small boat arrival, Ibrahima Bah, was sentenced this month to 9 ½ years in jail for “facilitating illegal entry, gross negligence and manslaughter “ following the deaths of fellow passengers. He is the first shipwreck survivor in the UK to face such charges and was not a people smuggler, but a refugee left in charge of the boat. The court concluded his age was 20, but he claimed to be 17.

Andrew Hemming

The Salisbury Group was established 50 years ago this year
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Rwanda report


Cross party committee on human rights criticizes the government’s Rwanda policy

February 2024

The Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill ends its House of Lord’s stage today (12 February) and returns to the Commons. The Bill has been roundly condemned by many human rights and other organisations and the committee said that it is ‘fundamentally incompatible with Britain’s human rights obligations’.

The Supreme Court has already ruled that Rwanda is not a safe country and the government’s attempt to pass a law simply saying it is is bit like passing a law saying water can run uphill. The Committee went on to say ‘the Bill disapplies laws that might prevent and individual’s removal to Rwanda including many of the key provisions of the Human Rights Act.

‘It might also impact on Northern Ireland, that it would both undermine the Windsor Framework and the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement’.

It also raises the point about UK’s reputation. We have they say, a reputation for respect for human rights of which ‘we should be proud’. 

Immigration, and most recently the Channel crossings, have generated a considerable degree of angst and hostile media coverage. This is not recent and goes back many years and started to emerge as a political force during the Blair years. In many respects it goes back further to various waves of immigrants such as the Huguenots from France, Flemings from the low countries and Jews fleeing Russia. All have been met with hostility of some degree. 

Recent immigrants are cast as not really refugees at all but economic migrants, are cheating the system, are living off benefits and so forth. Newspapers – and not just tabloids but the Daily Telegraph and the Independent – have carried hundreds of negative stories and helped keep the temperature high. The Sun even ran a story that swans were being stolen from the London parks and eaten by immigrants (invented). The raised media attention has increased public concern to which the politicians are obliged to reflect. 

Watch the Amnesty video

Anomaly

A curious anomaly is that people who’s offspring emigrate to live and work overseas (as ‘economic migrants’ no less) are spoken of in terms of pride. Emigrants good: immigrants bad. 

Another curiosity is that many of the politicians leading the hostility and proposing ever harsher measures including deportation to Rwanda, are themselves sons or daughters of immigrants. Priti Patel, Kwasi Kwarteng, Suella Braverman, Rishi Sunak, Danny Kruger and going back further, Michael Howard (Romania). 

The benefits of immigration to this country almost don’t get a look in. In November last year, the government’s own statistics show that around one in 5 of people working in the health service were not born in the UK. Indeed, the service would struggle to survive (even more than now) if these people were not working here. 

The entire debate is based on hysteria. Boat people have assumed a disproportionate sense of anger and fear even though they represent a small proportion of all immigrants to this country. The majority do go on to claim asylum. The hysteria and media mis- and disinformation has resulted in the plan to deport a few hundred to Rwanda, a policy which is performative rather than likely to be effective. 

Sources: Daily Mail, FullFact; Liberty; Hansard, Guardian (accessed 12 February 2024)

The Salisbury Amnesty group celebrates 50 years of existence this year

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Refugee report, December


Refugees and Rwanda continue to fill the headlines

December 2023

As the House of Commons debates the Government’s latest attempt to make their Rwanda project fly, this month’s emphasis has been very much on the small boats. On the progress of the Bill over the next few weeks, anything might happen. The government managed to get the second reading of their bill passed on 12th to clear the way for the plan to remove some people to Rwanda. 

As a topline figure, the number of arrivals by small boat this year has reached 29,000; this is about a third down on last year. It has been argued, however, that it’s the number of boats that is down, not people – they are using bigger boats. We have no confirmation of this.

The Government has changed the rules for asylum seekers/refugees following their processing; they now have 28 days to leave the temporary hostels they have been confined in and to find their own accommodation.  As a result the level of homelessness among this community has increased dramatically.  The Evening Standard claims that the numbers of homeless in the migrant community has increased 39% in a month (presumably this is a London figure).

The big increase in the number of claimant withdrawals has been exercising the legal profession.  These are migrants who have claimed refugee or asylum seeker status, but have not turned up for interview.  As a result, 17,000 claimants who have apparently withdrawn their claim are now unaccounted for, though presumably they are still in the UK (the Home Office has no knowledge of their whereabouts).  On a similar topic, of the 154 unaccompanied child asylum seekers who went missing earlier this year, 132 are still missing.

While the number of legacy cases is being reduced, new claims are still keeping the total high.  The Government’s aim of clearing the pre-June 2022 backlog has not yet been achieved (it’s believed to be still about 10,000, and these are among the most complicated cases).  Meanwhile, new applications have amounted to 90,000, leaving the total figure at around 109,000 (less than the peak).  It should be noted that Home Office staff turnover is very high and it may well be that the 17,000 alluded to above include names taken off the backlog to reduce the figures.  Also the Home Affairs Committee this week elicited the information that approval levels went down to 38% in Q2 and back up to 67% in Q3 – the reason is unclear.

Small boats population accounts for around 6.6% of the total

It is worth pointing out, as part of the argument, that the small boats population amounts to about 6.6% of the net immigration numbers for the year (the 700,000 excess of arrivals v departures) figure) and half that for the gross total (incomers only)

Another problem area has been the gap between a claimant being granted leave and receiving a Biometric Residence Permit – the Home Office claim not to know how long the average wait in limbo is.

The apparent suicide of an asylum seeker on the Bibby Stockholm has drawn attention to the cost of the barge, currently estimated at £22 million.  The number of boat people on board is not known, but is believed to be around 200 currently.

On the issue of potential refugees from Gaza, the request in October from various refugee organisations in the UK to the Government to come up with a scheme for taking numbers on, as was done with Ukraine, does not appear to have been acted upon as yet.

Finally, a survey by Labour List this week invited respondents to say how many arrivals had actually been removed to Rwanda.  The percentage saying, correctly, none was 48%.

Andrew Hemming

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Refugee report: November


Reports focus on destitution and the need for cooperation concerning asylum

November 2023

We are grateful to group member Andrew for his work in compiling this report on the current state of affairs with refugees and asylum seekers. A quiet month on the legislative front, but much noise from certain quarters. It was noted that the Home Secretary’s complaint against “tent-dwellers” included the aside “many of them from abroad”, with its implication of illegal immigrants joining in the supposed lifestyle choice. This was roundly condemned by a number of refugee charities, along with homelessness support groups. 

The Joseph Rowntree Trust have published a report on destitution in the UK. Among its findings was the fact that 28% of destitute households were migrants, and rates for that group were 35% higher than the national figure. Such households also tend to have more children. 

The Institute for Public Policy Research (a centrist think tank) has also published a report, “Charting New Waters”, on dealing with those crossing in small boats. Like the Safe Passage report mentioned last month it is concerned with developing safe routes, an organized Europe-wide system to share the responsibility, and a reform of the asylum processing system. The report does not give much detail, but reinforces the feeling that the government needs to engage with our neighbours in finding solutions to the issue. 

On that topic, the numbers of asylum seekers crossing the channel has been lower this month, mainly because of the weather 

We still await the High Court decision on the Rwanda plan, but the feeling is that the government is prepared to lose the case. This would, of course, put the European Court of Human Rights in the firing line, at least with the Home Secretary. The decision is expected in the first half of December. 

Many Afghans who were promised a safe passage to the UK after the Taliban takeover are still waiting; 3000 who have been promised asylum in the UK are in UK-funded hotels in Islamabad, but the Pakistan government is ejecting all Afghan refugees. There has been no government statement, as far as we know. 

The Home Office has rolled out a new “asylum decision-making prioritisation”. This is really a pushing ahead in trying to reduce the backlog of cases awaiting decision. The government has argued that the backlog has been reduced, but in fact the total has increased due to new cases, while the “legacy” cases from pre-2022 are indeed being reduced. 

Migration lawyers have noted with pleasure that the number of refusals of claims of trafficking by new arrivals has fallen, following a change in the regulations. 

The Home Office announced this week that the number of asylum seekers to be held on the barge Bibby Stockholm is to be reduced from 500 to 425, following a fire risk assessment. This would likely make the provision 10% more expensive than housing claimants in hotels. 

On the campaigning front, next year’s Refugee Week will be from 17th to 23rd June. The theme will be “Our Home.” 

AH

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Refugee summary


The October update on the current state of refugees into the UK
October 2023

The week’s big event has been the start of the Supreme Court’s review of the legality of the Rwanda deportation plan. They are expected to take 3 days to come to a conclusion, but this will not be made known for some weeks. Also, the Mayor of Portland’s planning permission protest against the Bibby Stockholm ship was heard this week (she lost) and the Home Office have reported that claimants will be sent back to the barge from 19th October. In passing, the Home Office is refusing to state the cost of the barge, as it would not be “in the public interest”.

The government’s Illegal Migration Act is facing a court challenge from the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC) on the ground that it breaches the Windsor Framework. The framework is the revised post-Brexit deal for Northern Ireland, which was agreed by the UK and EU earlier this year. It deals mostly with trade issues but also includes a human rights element. It commits the UK not to water down the human rights provisions that flow from the Good Friday Agreement.

Opening up the UN Refugee Convention to reform would cause the world to “go backwards” on refugee rights, a UN leader has said. Gillian Triggs, UN Assistant Secretary-General, told the One Young World Summit in Belfast that there is a “global environment of populist rhetoric” that is damaging to refugees. The 1951 UN Refugee Convention outlines a number of protections for refugees, including basic minimum standards, and asserts they should not be returned to a country where they face serious threats to their life or freedom.

Suella Braverman

In a trip to Washington DC last month, the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, said it should be questioned whether the application of the UN’s Refugee Convention is “fit for our modern age”.

Channel crossings

The mild Autumn has kept the small boats coming, the total people arriving for the year so far being just over 25,000. This is down by about 20% on last year, mostly because of the absence of arrivals from Albania. There have been two major reports this month: Safe Passage has been looking at safe routes for prospective refugees and the Refugee Council have looked at the data on arrivals, and discuss the impact of the new Illegal Migration Act. The Refugee Council’s analysis of new Home Office statistics shows that three in every four of the people who have crossed the channel so far this year would be recognised as refugees if the UK Government processed their asylum applications. This is higher than the Refugee’s Council previous analysis of those who made the journey in 2022, which found it was almost two-thirds. The statistics also show that:

More than half (54 per cent) of those who have made the perilous crossing come from just five countries – Afghanistan, Iran, Eritrea, Syria and Sudan.

With the exception of Albanians, the number of people crossing the channel is higher in 2023 compared to 2022.

Analysis based on the data shows that once the Illegal Migration Act 2023 comes into force:

 • Each year, over 27,000 refugees who cross the channel will be denied status in the UK.

 • As few as 3.5 per cent of those people arriving by small boat, 1,297 people, will be removed from the UK to their own country.

 • 35,409 people who arrive in the UK by small boat could be left in limbo each year, having had their asylum claim deemed permanently inadmissible but not having been removed.

• Even with a safe third country agreement in place with Rwanda which allows for up to 10,000 people to be removed there annually at least 25,409 people will be left in a state of permanent limbo each year.

(The Illegal Migration Act The Illegal Migration Act became law on 20 July. The main elements of the Act include the creation of a duty for the Home Secretary to arrange for the removal of anyone who arrives irregularly into the UK – including, but not limited to, those who arrive by small boat. Anyone who is covered by the duty to remove will also have any asylum application or relevant human rights claim deemed automatically inadmissible. )

The Safe Passage report concentrates on devising a better system of dealing with new arrivals. It recommends developing safe routes, not least to end the control of the smugglers, an organized Europe-wide system to share the responsibility, and a recommitment to the UN-based regulations under international law.

The Migration Advisory Committee has recommended that the shortage occupation list is abolished and that people in the asylum system with permission to work are allowed to work in any role. These are some of the recommendations in the full review of the shortage occupation list, published this week.

With thanks to group member Andrew for the work in producing this report.

AH

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Refugees and Rwanda


Government still in difficulty with refugees and its Rwanda policy

October 2023

Immigration remains a key issue for both the government and the opposition and the focus is on the large number of Channel crossings from France. The prime minister has pledged to end the crossings, however they continue to come in large numbers. The government spent considerable time trying to find countries willing to take migrants and eventually found Rwanda to which £145m was paid to set up the necessary reception facilities. The planned first flight ended when the European Court found against the deportations because under article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights, there is an absolute ban on the use of torture and other serious mistreatment of which there is considerable evidence that it takes place in that country.

In a Country Report by the US Department of State in 2022, there is an extremely long list of problems with human rights in Rwanda. They include: unlawful or arbitrary killings; torture or cruel, inhuman, degrading treatment by the government; harsh and life threatening prison conditions and arbitrary detentions. Their activities also extend overseas and in particular in the Democratic Republic of the Congo which include killings, kidnapping and violence. The report also lists a range of activities against the media and journalists. There are similar reports from Human Rights Watch and Amnesty. Altogether it paints a picture of a country which is a stranger to human rights and where violence and repression are a way of life.

Daniel Trilling in his ‘long read’ in today’s Guardian newspaper (5 October) Inside the Rwanda deportation plan: there were so many warnings it would fail. How did it get this far? traces the whole story of where the idea came from and how it got stuck after the European Court ended it at least temporarily. The proposal was meant to act as a deterrent to further Channel crossings. This was never likely to have been the case since people willing to risk their lives in a rubber dingy having paid considerable sums to a smuggler are sufficiently desperate not to heed any such threat even if they were aware of it.

He reveals that the Foreign Office said ‘no’ to Rwanda largely because of the sort of reasons listed above. They were aware of the UN putting pressure on Rwanda to stop its troops engaging in mass killings and rape in DRC. Officials from the Foreign Office were preparing Country Policy and Information Notes CPIN, which were unfinished at the time the decision was taken.

The government was embarrassed when an undercover report secretly filmed Johnson Busingye, the high commissioner for Rwanda saying disobliging things about the UK government such as it was “immoral for the British to claim to be a compassionate country”. Asked about the shooting of twelve refugees he replied “so what”.

The Supreme Court is due to rule at the end of the year and it is likely that the prime minister Rishi Sunack will ignore the European Court if it rules in the government’s favour.

It is hard to fathom the reasoning behind the government’s position on this policy. It was designed to be a deterrent but it was advised by its own officials that this was unlikely to be effective. The numbers of immigrants who would be sent is a matter of a few thousand which, in the face of the many thousands crossing the Channel and the tens of thousands languishing in immigration centres and hotels, will be a tiny proportion. They must have been aware of the copious evidence that the country was entirely unsuitable as a place to send vulnerable people. They must also have known that Israel abandoned the very same policy and the Danish government had put its policy on hold.

At the Conservative conference this week, the prime minister cancelled the next leg of the HS2 rail project claiming that ‘the facts had changed’ and this prompted a change in policy. Yet in the case of Rwanda, the facts haven’t exactly changed but have been visible all the while. It is though the policy – described as ‘shameful’ by Amnesty International’ chief executive – has become totemic existing in a space beyond reason and facts, a kind of belief system which defies rational thinking. Partly it is because the prime minister has made stopping the boats a key policy aim and Rwanda is central to that, a policy which cannot be cancelled for fear of looking weak. If flights take place at the end of the year it will cause considerable suffering to those sent there.

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Salisbury group member appears in national paper


Salisbury group member Lesley appears in a montage on the front page of the Long Read in the Guardian, 5 October

October 2023

An article in the Long Read section of the Guardian newspaper entitled Inside the Rwanda deportation plan has a photo montage in which group member Lesley features holding two banners.

The article is by Daniel Trilling and is a detailed review of the muddle, confusion and dissembling behind the government’s desire to send unwanted migrants to Rwanda.

We received word that the first deportation flight in June was to take off from Boscombe Down, a secure airfield near Amesbury in Wiltshire. It had been moved from Stanstead at the last moment to ward off potential protests and because it is surrounded by barbed wire fencing. Two Salisbury group members were able to make it to the airfield where there was a large contingent of police officers and a bevy of cameras. The photo was taken by one of the photographers. As you know, while we waited for the take-off, a final appeal to Europe meant the flight was cancelled hence the fury about the European Court and threats to take us out of the jurisdiction of the Court to enable future deportations to take place.

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Detention centre report published


Enquiry into the the shocking treatment of immigrants at Brook House published

September 2023

In September 2017, BBC Panorama broadcast a programme, Undercover: Britain’s Immigration Secrets, into the shocking treatment of detainees at the Brook House detention centre near Gatwick in Sussex. It followed months of undercover filming to expose a wide range of wrongdoing at the centre. Those who watched the programme were treated to examples of what the report refers to as ‘the use of racist, abusive and derogatory language by some of the staff towards those in their care, the effects of illicit drugs and the use of force by staff on on physically and mentally unwell people’. An enquiry was commissioned in November 2019 and it was published today (19 September 2023) in three volumes.

It showed one custody officer place his hands around the neck of a detained person and say “you fucking piece of shit, because I’m going to put you to fucking sleep” (para 14). Using force to restrain detained people who were physically or mentally ill was common (43).

Conditions at the centre were extremely poor. It was run at the time by G4S and then by Serco both given contracts the report explains, based largely on price with little regard to quality aspects. Misgivings about the tenders were not put into practice (19). The Senior Management Teams were poor and largely invisible to junior staff.

Although conditions were poor to begin with, and the proximity to Gatwick added noise to the problems, the Home Office carried on adding numbers of inmates thus sometimes increasing to three the number of occupants in the cells. The cells had no privacy concerning toileting (25).

The report opens by saying that it was a matter of ‘out of sight, out of mind’. The combination of hostile attitudes to immigrants and refugees, the use of contractors who were unequal to the job, Home Office failures and seemingly no sign of inspections or visits from outsiders to see what was going on, combined to create a toxic mix of arrogance, cruelty and gratuitously bad treatment of people many of whom had suffered trauma and in some cases torture. Indeed, it is reported today that Suella Braverman, the current Home Secretary, stopped inspections taking place at all. Detainees were isolated from the outside world. Language barriers made things worse. Basic freedoms were curtailed the report said. This took place here in Britain.

Priti Patel was the Home Secretary during this time and in her many speeches and interviews she has made no secret of her hostile attitude to refugees and immigrants. She talked up the crisis and played a part in creating an atmosphere of disdain for those arriving, increasingly at the time, in small boats. One of her proposals for example was to install wave machines to prevent boat people from landing on our shores. That Britain took a far smaller proportion of refugees than many other nations was seldom mentioned.

It is sometimes easy in situations such as this to focus on the front line individuals behaving badly and one thinks of other undercover programmes in care homes and institutions where people with disabilities are living and where bullying and other failures have been exposed. They are the visible end result but their behaviour is in turn a result of failings further up the food chain by people less visible. It is the politicians who set the tone and agree the funding or more usually, the cuts to funding. It is the system which prefers outside contractors employed largely on who will do the cheapest job, who have weak management systems and whose main interest is turning in a profit. It is the media which perpetuates myths of ‘invasions’ and that immigrants are not really refugees but ‘economic migrants’ or even coming here to enjoy our bounteous benefit system. The combined effects of this hostility and disinformation was that someone poorly trained on the front line of an overcrowded detention centre feels it is acceptable to treat vulnerable people in the way they did.

Immigration, and in particular those crossing the Channel in small boats, is a political hot potato at present. The temperature is only going to rise as the election date gets nearer with attempts to ‘weaponise’ the issue for political advantage. We should all be aware however, that it is people we are dealing with in centres such as this and the majority are genuine migrants from war or persecution. A majority win their appeals.

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