Blog Archive

Showing posts with label immigration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label immigration. Show all posts

Monday, 9 May 2022

BARAC UK call to action: Jamaica mass deportation 18th May - model letter for MPs

 


Please use and feel free to adapt the model letter below and send urgently to your MP asking them to take action to stop the mass deportation flight to Jamaica scheduled for 18th of May 2022.


If you do not know how to contact your MP or who they are, use this link .

You just need your postcode to hand. 


Follow us on social media @baracuk on twitter and @baracukoriginal on instagram.


We are using the hashtags #Jamaica50 and #StopthePlane 


Model Letter to MPs 

Dear [Member of Parliament],

I am writing as a constituent to ask that you urgently oppose the mass deportation by charter flight to Jamaica, scheduled by the Home Office on 18th of May. Mass deportation flights are a breach of human rights. There is evidence that the Caribbean community has been targeted disproportionately for deportations in addition to the horrific impacts of the Windrush scandal.

Amongst those targeted for deportation on these flights are young people who have been victims of modern day slavery, people who have made their home in the UK for decades, , who came to the UK as children, who are parents of British born and young children, who came to the country as refugees, including people who have had to flee persecution. Most are the children and grandchildren of the Windrush Generation and they are their families have contributed to the UK economy and wider society over many decades. Invited here to help the UK recover post World War II.

 

Over the past two years there have been outbreaks of coronavirus in detention centres in and those detained have reported a woeful and unacceptable lack of PPE and wider safety measures. People being deported are transported in packed vans, often handcuffed to escorts, on long journeys to airports, where they then are chained to their seats and to two guards. Given that black and minority ethnic people have contracted and died of covid disproportionately, this is irresponsible to put people who are at high risk already, in this position. This has included people with serious medical conditions.

In addition, the vast majority have British children, partners and wider family here. Tearing parents apart from loved ones including children is inhumane and causes distress and trauma to children and is unlawful, breaching the human rights of children and families. 

The fast turnaround of deportations leaves inadequate time to access legal advice and representation which has been made worse because access to the computer rooms at detention centres have been closed or with limited and restricted access. There have also been reports of fax machines and computers not working meaning that people detained cannot communicate with legal representatives. Access to legal support is a fundamental human right.

Once deported, people face destitution, trauma and persecution, with some having fled persecution in the first place, this impacts severely on both physical and mental health. We know that some people have sadly been killed or taken their own lives subsequently. 

 I am asking that you take urgent action, including writing to the Home Secretary calling for this flight to be cancelled and to call for an end to charter flight mass deportations. 

 

 

Regards,

[Your Name]

 

 

Please add your full postal address to confirm you are a constituent. 

 

Find your MP here: https://www.theyworkforyou.com/






 

Saturday, 5 December 2020

Jamaica 50 campaign - opposing the hostile environment : by Donna Guthrie, BARAC Women's Officer




 Thank you for your solidarity in opposing the government's Hostile environment and the mass deportations taking place.


This Wednesday 2 December, in the middle of a worldwide Covid 19 pandemic, the Tory government carried out a racist inhumane deportation of 13 black men to Jamaica, a country they had not seen in some cases since childhood and ripping them apart from their families here in the UK. 

From the lives they have built, their loved ones and children just days before Christmas  despite huge opposition.


The same racist system that targets black people disproportionately with stop and search, delivers injustice in terms of harsher sentencing now under the hostile environment immigration controls revisits these black men to deport them. This is unjust, inhumane and racist and punishes them again due to the papers they hold. 


Men, who in most cases committed minor offenses have served their sentences and been rehabilitated and are living their lives only to be ripped away from their families and the only home that they know in the UK.


BARAC UK along with  BAME Lawyers for Justice, Detention Action and other race equality and migrant rights groups have worked tirelessly to build the campaign to #StopThePlane and highlight the plight of the #Jamaica50.

 
Black Activists have lead this campaign involving students, anti-racist activists, black celebrities and public figures, lawyers and barristers  and MPs to demand the cancellation of the deportation flight on 2 December.


Over 185000 people  signed the BARAC UK  petition online and wrote to their MPs. Many more put pressure on major airlines and the pilot union BALPA to refuse to fly the deportation flight.


BARAC UK and more than 90 high-profile figures, campaigners and activists urged airline companies to decline to operate the plane. Model Naomi Campbell, actress Thandie Newton, author Bernardine Evaristo, and historian David Olusoga and a host of prominent Black figures signed an open letter, addressed to airlines including Hi Fly, Titan Airways and TUI, also calling for they to stop the operation of future deportation flights to Commonwealth countries.


Lawyers worked tirelessly to gather details of cases and assist with urgent legal challenges brought right up until the plane left Stanstead  in the early hours on Wed morning.


Zita Holbourne BARAC UK co founder and national chair spoke throughout the campaign to those families affected, providing support and advice and shared reports and did numerous press interviews to get their voices out.


The Home Office has confirmed that 13 people were on board its chartered plane. This is far fewer than the 50 they had hoped.


Together we stopped 37 people being deported but the children of the 13 taken are heartbroken.


Thank you to everyone who took part in these actions. Your solidarity has made a real difference.


Deportation is a part of the hostile environment responsible for the Windrush Scandal and continues to impact on windrush descendants and wider.


With further deportation flights planned its clear that the racist backlash to our campaign has begun with the right wing media joining Priti Patel to target immigration lawyers and leading activist. Pushing out racist troupes  such as those from Nick Ferrari on LBC and from the Daily mail.
 
It's clear we must redouble our efforts to push back against racism. 
We must demand justice, reforms in the law and an end to detention and deportation.


We must demand that the Home Office implement the recommendations of the Windrush Lessons Learned review, t
hat they compensate Windrush victims and that they cease with their racist agenda.

I urge you all to support BARAC UK. Please follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter and sign up to our mailing list for campaign updates and together let's build the campaign to #StopThePlane and oppose racism.


Donna Guthrie National Women's Officer BARAC UK. 

To support our work please see affiliation / donation form and BARAC Humanitarian Aid crowdfunder:


BARAC AFFILIATION FORM

 

To affiliate to Black Activists Rising Against Cuts (BARAC) UK please complete and return this form together with a cheque or alternatively pay directly into our account bank account.

 · I wish to affiliate to BARAC UK annually;

£10 Individual concession

£20 Individual waged

 £50 Local organisation

 £100 Trade union branch or Trades Council

£200 National trade union or organisation

 

 · I wish to give a donation towards BARAC’s work; £250 £100 £50 £35 £25 £10 Other

 

 £ .….….….….….

 

· I enclose a cheque for a total of £ ..........

 

made out to BARAC UK or Black Activists Rising Against Cuts

 · I have paid the following amount £……….. into the BARAC Bank Account:

 

BARAC UK Bank details:

Black Activists Rising Against Cuts (BARAC) UK

Barclays Bank

Sort Code 20 67 90

Account No. 53317803

 

 

Signature:

 

 Date:

 

Name of Organisation (if applicable)

 

Name:

 

Position:

 

Address:

 

 Tel no.:

 

 Email:

 

 

 

 

Please return affiliation form (and cheque) to:

 

 BARAC UK C/O Zita Holbourne, National Co-Chair BARAC UK PCS HQ 160 Falcon Road, London, SW11 2LN

 

 Alternatively email to: barac.info@gmail.com


https://uk.gofundme.com/f/BARACHumanitarian

 

Black Activists Rising Against Cuts (BARAC) UK Web: www.blackactivistsrisingagainstcuts.blogspot.com

 Twitter: @baracuk

Facebook: BARAC UK

Instagram: BARACUKoriginal

 

 Thank you for your support


Wednesday, 11 November 2020

Sign our Petition opposing Warehouse K Immigration Centre in Newham

Please sign our petition here to oppose the Warehouse K immigration enforcement centre the Home Office want to move to Newham. 


 https://www.change.org/p/home-office-oppose-warehouse-k-immigration-enforcement-centre 


 Our statement  to provide background here: http://blackactivistsrisingagainstcuts.blogspot.com/2020/10/barac-uk-statement-on-proposed-home.html?m=1

Monday, 14 October 2013

MOVEMENT AGAINST XENOPHOBIA (MAX) LAUNCH IN PARLIAMENT 16TH OCTOBER

You are invited to…
MAX
(MOVEMENT AGAINST XENOPHOBIA)
LAUNCH MEETING


The Movement Against Xenophobia (MAX) is a new coalition of organisations who have had enough of the xenophobia, racism and intolerance that riddles the UK’s debate and policy making on immigration. At present there are 45 organisations, including BARAC UK, supporting the coalition (a number that is growing all the time). We have resolved to oppose the vicious new immigration Bill, which makes border guards of landlords, bank workers and many public sector works. We will be campaigning for a humane and informed debate on immigration in the coming European and General Elections over the next two years. We demand civilised treatment of all migrants, asylum seekers and refugees. WEDNESDAY 16 OCTOBER 7PM – 8.30PM COMMITTEE ROOM 10, HOUSE OF COMMONS, PALACE OF WESTMINSTER (ST STEPHENS’ GATE) NEAREST TUBE: WESTMINSTER
Speakers will include:
Jeremy Corbyn MP
Sarah Teather MP
George Galloway MP
Roger McKenzie, Asst Gen Sec, UNISON
John McTernan, former Labour advisor
Zita Holbourne, PCS & BARAC
Kingsley Abrams, Unite the Union
Dave Garratt, Chief Exec, Refugee Action
Habib Rahman, Chief Exec, JCWI
Get your organisation to back MAX! Put your name to the founding statement. Join the list of sponsors.
For more info check the website: http://movagxen.wordpress.com/
Email: guy.taylor@jcwi.org.uk
Phone 020 7553 7469