The failure of UK MPs to hold Border Agency to account

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Source: openDemocracy

‘Much of the delay in concluding asylum and other immigration cases stems from poor quality decision-making when the application is initially considered,’ says Keith Vaz, chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee (HASC) in their report on the UK Border Agency’s work.

Two cheers for Vaz and the HASC! It might be three if only they were clearer and more forceful in their criticism of an agency whose deficiencies are systemic and rooted in a culture characterised by denial and deceit.

The automatic disbelief that greets asylum seekers from their first moment of arrival, coupled with a shocking disregard for human rights, compounded by the lack of legal services that might check official incompetence have created a Kafkaesque nightmare for vulnerable people who come to these shores seeking sanctuary.

‘More consistent and rigorous scrutiny of applications would lead to fewer delays, fewer appeals, less uncertainty for the applicant, less pressure on the officials themselves, and probably lower costs for the UK taxpayer,’ says Vaz, noting mildly that this ‘is also likely to require more consistent and considered direction from those setting policy for the Agency than has sometimes been the case.’

The MPs ‘lack confidence’ in the Border Agency’s effectiveness in ‘making sure that its contractors provide adequate training and supervision of their employees in respect of the use of force,’ and add: ‘This is a fundamental responsibility of the Agency and is not simply a matter of clauses in contracts or formal procedural requirements.’

But Vaz and his colleagues must be aware that the failings go far deeper than that. Last March, when Dame Nuala O’Loan, investigating allegations that contractors’ staff had roughed up asylum seekers, found ‘inadequate management of the use of force by the private sector companies’ and made 22 recommendations for change, UKBA chief executive Lin Homer did something quite extraordinary. She attacked the doctors and lawyers who had brought the abuses to light, for, ‘seeking to damage the reputation of our contractors’.

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Border Agency whistle blower gives evidence to MPs

Via No Borders South Wales

As part of the oral session of the internal inquiry into the UK Border Agency, former UKBA employee Louise Perrett appeared before the Home Affairs Select Committee in the House of Commons on Tuesday 2 March and gave evidence of her experience of working in the agency’s Cardiff office.

Perrett, who worked for the Agency last summer, has said that there was a culture of racist discrimination within the office. She wanted to make clear what was not a focus of media coverage, which tended to highlight specific claims, that there was a culture of racism which meant that those professional and diligent staff felt unable to speak up against.

The committee questioned Perrett on the detail of her claims, with Conservative Monmouth MP David Davis arguing that the Cardiff office of the UKBA approves more asylum applications than many other branches. He argued that this was because they weren't properly considered.

As well as evidence presented by Perrett, later in the session John Vine, Chief Inspector of UKBA, and Lin Homer, chief executive of UKBA, also appeared in front of the committee.

Video of her testimony is on the House of Commons website. A full transcript should be available on the Committee website within about 2 weeks.

(video will appear here when uploaded)

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MPs to investigate Yarl's Wood removal centre abuse claims; Interview with a hunger striker

Denise McNeil's leg showing marks she claims were made during an incident involving Yarl's Wood staff

Source: The Observer - 28 Feb

By Mark Townsend

Senior Home Office officials will be questioned this week over allegations that women inside Yarl's Wood immigration detention centre were assaulted by staff using riot shields.

The Observer has gathered a series of testimonies from detainees inside the Bedfordshire centre who claimed they had witnessed women being beaten and injured during a disturbance this month.

One image, taken inside Yarl's Wood on a mobile phone, reveals extensive bruising to a woman's shoulder and legs allegedly caused by staff during the incident on 8 February, days after dozens of asylum seekers instigated a hunger strike over the length of their detention. Another image shows injuries to a detainee's finger after a guard had allegedly slammed a window on her hand.

On Tuesday, Lin Homer, chief executive of the UK Border Agency, and John Vine, the agency's chief inspector, are expected to be questioned by the home affairs select committee over the claims, which are denied by staff.

Keith Vaz, chairman of the committee, said: "This evidence is extremely concerning. If the allegations are correct, then it may be appropriate for a police investigation. We are eager to establish what exactly is going on in Yarl's Wood."

The hunger strike will enter its fourth week tomorrow. The allegations of abuse are being examined by London law firms Birnberg Peirce and Fisher Meredith.

Jacqui McKenzie of Birnberg Peirce said: "I have spoken to a client of mine in Yarl's Wood and she has seen the bruising herself from the incident on 8 February. There is an atmosphere of real tension there."

The images of the bruising show the injuries allegedly sustained during the incident by Denise McNeil, a 35-year-old Jamaican, who claims she was hit by staff and, since the disturbance, has been moved to London's Holloway prison.

A Home Office spokesman said that observers from the centre's Independent Monitoring Board had been present during the incident and had seen no evidence to support the claims. He added that CCTV footage had revealed nothing. It is also understood that Bedfordshire police were called to the incident and monitored the situation without taking any action.

A spokesman for Serco, the private firm that runs Yarl's Wood, last night dismissed the allegations as "unfounded and untrue". He added: "The incident on 8 February occurred because our staff intervened to prevent four women from continuing to bully other residents into missing meals."

Participants in the hunger strike claim to have been held in a corridor for more than six hours. Several women claim to have fainted and one to have suffered an asthma attack before several detainees forced open an window and tried to escape before being confronted by guards. Meme Jallow, 26, from Gambia, who has been inside Yarl's Wood for seven months, said: "A girl called Denise was by the windows. One officer took her and hit her by the face."

Another hunger striker, a 37-year-old from Nigeria who asked to remain anonymous for fear of her asylum case being unfairly reviewed, said: "The security went outside and used shields like they do when there is a war. That is what they used to smash one of the women who was outside."

Adeola Omotosho, 44, from Nigeria, who was released from Yarl's Wood three days after the incident, yesterday described how she had been injured during the protest. "The officers closed the window against my finger. It was very painful and I was really bleeding heavily, but they still refused to open the window. So I called an ambulance, but it was not allowed to come in."

Serco sources said that ambulance staff had been allowed on site during the protest but paramedics were not required because the most significant injury was Omotosho's fingernail injury.

A spokesman denied shields had been used to hit or move women and said they had only been placed against the open window in order to "secure the area".

The damaged finger of Adeola Omotosho, a former Yarl's Wood detainee

Many detainees also complained they have suffered racist abuse, which the centre denies. Omotosho added: "Black monkeys is what they call us. They don't like us at all. They tell us to go back to our countries."

Cristal Amiss from Black Women's Rape Action Project, which is supporting the detainees, said: "We have spoken to over 50 women and have heard entirely consistent reports of racist abuse, threats and other violence."

Frances Swaine, head of the human rights department at London law firm Leigh Day, said: "The situation at Yarl's Wood has been getting progressively worse over the past few months, and shows no signs of improvement - and the hunger strike has brought to the fore the real issues."

A number of the detainees said they had been traumatised by the incident, with a letter from one stating that three other women detainees had been caught trying to kill themselves.


Yarl's Wood: A History Of Controversy

Yarl's Wood opened near Clapham on the outskirts of Bedford on 19 November 2001. It is currently the major removal centre for women and families. It has 405 beds of which 284 are for women and 121 for families. The centre has been dogged by problems.

• February 2002: The centre was devastated by fire after a riot by detainees protesting after a 55-year-old woman was physically restrained by staff. Five people were injured in the blaze.
• March 2004: The Prisons and Probations Ombudsman published a report into allegations of racism, abuse and violence, based on 19 claims made by an undercover reporter for the Daily Mirror. The report found evidence of a number of racist incidents.
• February 2006: The Chief Inspector of Prisons condemned the quality of health care for detainees at the centre.
• April 2007: Serco took over the complex.
• May 2007: Reports of hunger strike involving more than 100 women.
• April 2009: The Children's Commissioner for England published a report revealing that youngsters were being denied urgent medical treatment and were at risk of serious harm.

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On Feb 24 Home Office Minister Meg Hillier wrote a letter to all MPs saying:

“The current misreporting, based on inaccurate and fabricated statements by those who campaign against our policy, is irresponsible as it causes unnecessary distress to the women at Yarl’s Wood, their family and friends and those who work at the Centre to ensure the detainees are treated with respect.”

• Diane Abbott MP: The real distress at Yarl's Wood: Meg Hillier may deny the extent of the poor conditions at the asylum detention centre, but I have seen them for myself 

Interview with a hunger striker

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Exposed: UK Border staff humiliate and trick asylum seekers

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Video report from a demonstration at the Cardiff UK Border Agency offices for Azerbaijani gay asylum seeker Babi Badalov on 17 September 2008

Source: The Guardian - 2 February

By Diane Taylor and Hugh Muir

Claims that asylum seekers are mistreated, tricked and humiliated by staff working for the UK Border Agency are to be investigated in parliament.

The home affairs select committee chairman, Keith Vaz, has called for an investigation following allegations that officials at one of the government's major centres for processing asylum seekers' claims express fiercely anti-immigration views and take pride in refusing applications.

Louise Perrett, who worked as a case owner at the Border Agency office in Cardiff for three and a half months last summer, claims staff kept a stuffed gorilla, a "grant monkey", which was placed as a badge of shame on the desk of any officer who approved an asylum application.

Perrett, 29, also alleges that one official boasted to her that he tested the claims of boys from African countries who said they had been forcibly conscripted as child soldiers by making them lie down on the floor and demonstrate how they shot at people in the bush. One method used to determine the authenticity of an asylum seeker claiming to be from North Korea was to ask whether the person ate chop suey.

Perrett, whose claims will become the basis for parliamentary questions from Jenny Willott, the Liberal Democrat shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Cardiff Central MP, said interviews were conducted without lawyers, independent witnesses or tape recorders. If a case was difficult, Perrett claims, she was simply advised to refuse it and "let a tribunal sort it out". Only cases raised by MPs appeared to be dealt with properly.

Perrett said she was given the power to make legally binding decisions on whether asylum seekers were granted or refused asylum after just five weeks' training. She also had the power to detain individuals and families for up to 28 days. Like her colleagues, she was obliged to sign the Official Secrets Act. She took legal advice before deciding to speak out publicly.

She claims the tone was set on the first day when one manager said of the asylum-seeker clients: "If it was up to me I'd take them all outside and shoot them." Another told her this was to be expected, adding: "No one in this office is very PC. In fact everyone is the exact opposite."

She told the Guardian: "I witnessed general hostility, rudeness and indifference towards clients. It was completely horrific. I highlighted my concerns to senior managers but I was just laughed at. I decided to speak out because nobody else was saying anything and major changes are needed at senior management level."

One of her cases involved a Congolese woman who had the right to remain in the UK. Perrett says a superior nevertheless decided the woman and her children should be removed, and asked officials whether there were any grounds to remove them. Frustrated, she approached a member of the legal department. His reply, according to Perrett, was: "Umbongo, umbongo, they kill them in the Congo."

Vaz said: "I am deeply concerned by a number of ex-UKBA workers who have spoken out about flaws in the points-based system and behaviour such as this. I will be writing to the chief executive, Lin Homer, to discover what steps are being taken to remedy this culture of disbelief and discrimination."

Willott said she was tabling a series of parliamentary questions. "Some of the cases which seem obvious to me are refused. UKBA has a responsibility to treat people as human beings, but from Louise's experience it seems that this does not always happen."

Matthew Coats, head of immigration at the UK Border Agency, disputed Perrett's claim that she raised concerns and the department declined to respond to her specific allegations. But he said the agency "expects the highest levels of integrity and behaviour from all our staff," adding: "We take all allegations of inappropriate behaviour extremely seriously."

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No Borders South Wales have commented on the Guardian's report:

We have been drawing attention to the fact their is something very rotten at the goings on at 31-33 Newport Road for some time. It comes as no surprise to us that the staff are prejudiced and abusive, there are countless examples of the result of the behaviour Louise Perrett describes. We hope her bravery in going public will lead to the wholesale dismissal of staff and fundamental changes in the operation of the agency, if not it’s total abolition.