Jamaican removal flight

[ash]

Does anyone know why this current flight is being publicised and there are MPs fighting the removals. From my understanding the law has for some time meant that people who have had a sentence of 12 months with the immigration status described have been subject to deportation. I visited an immigration removal centre in the course of my work (to see a member of staff who works for hibiscus - a charity that aids people who are being deported and have no family/roots in the country they are going to).
I was told that special planes leave regularly to Jamaica, Nigeria, Warsaw and Pakistan with other people going on ‘normal’ flights.
I can’t work out why this specific flight is being publicised so much?!

 

[cupid_stunt]

I am uncomfortable about these deportations, I would agree that people who have come in recent years and committed the most serious of offence, such as murder & rape, should be considered for deportation, but not in a case like this one, 25-year-old Rohan McLennon:

The northwest London resident said he had been sentenced to two-and-a-half years over a drug offence committed after he was groomed by county lines gangs as a teenager while he tried to save to secure his immigration status. He added: “They want to send me back to a place I’ve not been since I was eight years old. The only thing I remember from Jamaica is brushing my teeth. I’ve got no one there.”

Court grants last-minute reprieve to dozens of Jamaican nationals

Home Office presses ahead with charter flight but detainees in Heathrow removal centres granted reprieve after court ruling

www.independent.co.uk

 

[ash]

I am uncomfortable about these deportations, I would agree that people who have come in recent years and committed the most serious of offence, such as murder & rape, should be considered for deportation, but not in a case like this one, 25-year-old Rohan McLennon:

Court grants last-minute reprieve to dozens of Jamaican nationals

Home Office presses ahead with charter flight but detainees in Heathrow removal centres granted reprieve after court ruling

www.independent.co.uk

I totally understand that but I’m not sure that these situations and stories have changed. It’s good they are being publicised but I am just wondering why this flight?

 

[skyscraper101]

The O2 phone outage thing is WELL dodgy. It's was all proving very convenient too until last nights appeal.

I don't understand how the initial ruling could've judged that they had anything close to fair representation with that going on.

 

[skyscraper101]

How is it these places are just relying on mobiles anyway, and one phone provider at that. There's something highly suss about it all. O2 are probably the worst network IME. I had loads of black spots in London when I was on giffgaff which runs on O2.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

BBC Breakfast saying the flight left this morning

 

[Pickman's model]

BBC Breakfast saying the flight left this morning

But with an uncertain number of people on board (r4)

 

[bimble]

Does anyone know why this current flight is being publicised and there are MPs fighting the removals. From my understanding the law has for some time meant that people who have had a sentence of 12 months with the immigration status described have been subject to deportation. I visited an immigration removal centre in the course of my work (to see a member of staff who works for hibiscus - a charity that aids people who are being deported and have no family/roots in the country they are going to).
I was told that special planes leave regularly to Jamaica, Nigeria, Warsaw and Pakistan with other people going on ‘normal’ flights.
I can’t work out why this specific flight is being publicised so much?!

Is it not the first deportation to ja since the windrush scandal came out? Thought that was why. They have resumed before report into that is complete.

 

[ska invita]

Does anyone know why this current flight is being publicised and there are MPs fighting the removals. From my understanding the law has for some time meant that people who have had a sentence of 12 months with the immigration status described have been subject to deportation. I visited an immigration removal centre in the course of my work (to see a member of staff who works for hibiscus - a charity that aids people who are being deported and have no family/roots in the country they are going to).
I was told that special planes leave regularly to Jamaica, Nigeria, Warsaw and Pakistan with other people going on ‘normal’ flights.
I can’t work out why this specific flight is being publicised so much?!

Have you missed the "Windrush" scandal? Thats why.

The Home Office's own report - when/if it gets published - will say these flights shouldn't be taking place.

No doubt lots of other deportations to other countries include the same outrages.

 

[Manter]

It’s the first Jamaican charter of the new government, the government has held back the windrush report (which recommends no deportations of windrush descendants according to a leak), loads of procedural cock ups (a number of people who are not serious criminals, short or suspended sentences, open legal cases, one convicted under a joint enterprise law that has been taken off the books but not allowed to apply to have his conviction scrubbed), been held in conventional prisons so lawyers and activists can’t get to them to help, the dodgy mobile phone outage.... and the fact that were it not for windrush-related issues many would have UK citizenship and not be subject to deportation.

Activists try and halt flights whenever they can, and get individuals off them, but this is such an egregious injustice it’s caught the public imagination.

the flight took off but the only detainees on board were Brook House- the others detainees were dragged to the airport in the dead of night, but then the HO appeal failed and they were returned to detention. None are safe yet though- the HO is still playing to their racist tory base, talking about ‘serious criminals’ and saying they will try again.

 

[Spymaster]

I am uncomfortable about these deportations, I would agree that people who have come in recent years and committed the most serious of offence, such as murder & rape, should be considered for deportation, but not in a case like this one, 25-year-old Rohan McLennon:

Court grants last-minute reprieve to dozens of Jamaican nationals

Home Office presses ahead with charter flight but detainees in Heathrow removal centres granted reprieve after court ruling

www.independent.co.uk

Agreed. Some deportations are necessary but there's some serious overreach going on here.

 

[Manter]

Also worth noting Warsaw flights don’t have the same energy/issues, generally. Poland is EU, anyone on that flight who isn’t taken into custody at the other end can exercise free movement to the rest of Europe, many ask to return. The African charters are always very contentious as the Home Office likes to deport people still working their way through the asylum process these days- there is a horrible law about out of country appeals which basically says if they refuse you asylum, then they can send you home and you can appeal remotely. It’s vile and subject to lots of court challenges and activist action- but also complex and the papers don’t report it much

 

[Manter]

If you are interested in detention and deportation (and stopping them) some of the best people to follow on Twitter IME are
May Bulman
Mini Rahman
Maxine Batchelor-Hunt
Toufique Hossain (Duncan Lewis public law)
Detention action
BAME lawyers for justice
Bella Sankey (Detention action)
BID
All share loads of info as well as campaigns and are followed by an extremely lovely and generous bunch of activists happy to discuss and explain what is a Kafka-esque part of the law

 

[Manter]

Oh! And Jacqui Mckenzie (windrush action)

 

[ska invita]

Agreed. Some deportations are necessary but there's some serious overreach going on here.

Not to get all language pedantic abut it but Hostile Environment is more than overreach, its a policy direction all of its own.

 

[Spymaster]

Also worth noting Warsaw flights don’t have the same energy/issues, generally.

How often are there deportation flights to Europe and to what other countries besides Poland?

 

[ash]

Thanks. I did of course know about the Windrush situation but had not worked out why this specific flight was so significant in relation to it You have put it into context. It was shocking how Pritti Patel left the commons yesterday at the start of David Lammy’s question.

 

[8115]

Could have been the sheer number of people scheduled to be deported on the flight yesterday, I think it was 50 people.

 

[8115]

It was 56, around 20 were eventually on the flight.

 

[dessiato]

Pritti Patel is an embarrassment to all decent thinking people.

Yesterday I watched an interview with a Labour MP. The cases to which she referred where, to me, impossible to consider as deportation crimes. She referred to one in particular where the deportee had done time for a drugs offence. Now had been a hardworking upright citizen. He's a father of two. Very "middle class." He'd been in the UK since being a small child. Now, five years after he came out of prison, it had been decided to deport him.

I'm really struggling to see the justice in this. It, to me, smacks so much more of Tory racism.

 

[The39thStep]

How often are there deportation flights to Europe and to what other countries besides Poland?

I remember deportation of foreign criminals being an issue under both the Blair government, he sacked Charles Clarke over it and then under the Lib Dem /Tory coalition.I went to a Home Office briefing on deportations following sentence when Clarke was Home Secretary Jamaica, Nigeria and I think North African /Middle east countries were the biggest contributors as I recall.

 

[editor]

It's the Tories following the racist lead of Trump and with their big fat majority, it's only going to get worse.

 

[not-bono-ever]

Appealing to their base here. Doesn’t matter if it’s been an issue for years, the hang em high crowd are loving it. It’s as if the ramping up of this issue to the front page is being pushed for the interests of the idiot toff junta now running the show.

 

[ska invita]

Extracted from this :

Cummings furious about Court of Appeal suspension of deportations to Caribbean | ITV News

He reportedly said the suspension of the deportation of criminals to the Caribbean is “a perfect symbol of the British state’s dysfunction”. | ITV National News

www.itv.com

"" Cummings described last night’s Court of Appeal suspension of the deportation of criminals to the Caribbean as “a perfect symbol of the British state’s dysfunction”.
He said there must be “urgent action on the farce that judicial review has become”.
The Tory manifesto promised a review of the judicial review process - a pledge that has unsettled some in the legal profession.

Cummings said to officials that the support for the court ruling among MPs and hacks “shows they still haven’t understood what the last few years has been about, the country outside London is horrified but rich London is cheering the lawyers”. ""


<<<<Make no mistake, these deportations are being played by the government to a "country" (side) audience.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Thanks. I did of course know about the Windrush situation but had not worked out why this specific flight was so significant in relation to it You have put it into context. It was shocking how Pritti Patel left the commons yesterday at the start of David Lammy’s question.

It's unlikely to be the last such flight but this one in particular marks the point at which the tories have officially shrugged off the scandal they created and returned to business as usual. They're basically immune to public opinion at this point, so any action to prevent these flights should be either legal stuff or NVDA, both have which have been successful at preventing dodgy deportations in the past. Trying to get press attention, writing letters, trying to shame a lunatic like Priti Patel; all of these are doomed to failure in the current climate IMO.

 

[GarveyLives]

Does anyone know why this current flight is being publicised and there are MPs fighting the removals. From my understanding the law has for some time meant that people who have had a sentence of 12 months with the immigration status described have been subject to deportation. I visited an immigration removal centre in the course of my work (to see a member of staff who works for hibiscus - a charity that aids people who are being deported and have no family/roots in the country they are going to).
I was told that special planes leave regularly to Jamaica, Nigeria, Warsaw and Pakistan with other people going on ‘normal’ flights.
I can’t work out why this specific flight is being publicised so much?!

Some of the issues of which you appear unaware are mentioned here:

​

 

[Pickman's model]

it's transportation to what's effectively a penal colony for these deportees, for a life in penury: i suspect ejection from the uk under such circumstances would erect a barrier to entry to many other countries.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Is Rolf Harris being booted out too?

 

[Spymaster]

Is Rolf Harris being booted out too?

He has British Citizenship (dual national) so can't be deported.

No reason why that shouldn't be stripped though.

 

[19sixtysix]

Surely the Jamacan Government can refuse landing to the plane.