Friday 11 December 2009

Well, We Haven’t Heard From The Open Borders Crowd In A While…

Jon Burnett (who we are told is a worker with ‘Medical Justice, which investigates medical negligence and mistreatment in immigration removal centres’) has a heart-felt plea in ‘CiF’ for children of refugees:
Roughly 1,000 children a year are locked up in Britain's detention estates without judicial oversight, and with no time limit. The majority are held in Yarl's Wood. Many of these children share a special bond in that they arrive at their new school having been snatched, along with their parents, in dawn raids.
The emotive language continues throughout the article.
As Medical Justice – an organisation facilitating the provision of independent medical and legal advice – has exposed, many have medical needs that go unmet.
Many people entitled to be in the UK have the same problems, Jon…
Others suffer developmental regression and revert to bed-wetting. Many lose weight and some children display signs of post-traumatic stress disorder and develop suicidal tendencies.
And none of that is related to the things they are allegedly fleeing from? It’s all of it caused by ‘internment’, and only caused by this?

Colour me sceptical…
The school at Yarl's Wood is probably the only one in the country where parents of pupils went on hunger strike this summer, in protest against the treatment of their children.
But they are responsible for bringing their children into the situation, aren’t they?
According to the contract director of Yarl's Wood, the new school has delivered a "transformational change to the daily lives of our children" and those invited to its opening were given an enthusiastic guided tour around the institution. It began with a euphemistic description of the rooms where families are held as "homes"; before attempting to mask the reality of what, in effect, is modern-day child internment behind a veneer of colourful, brightly painted pictures.
No points for the staff trying to make the best of a bad deal, then?
No mention was made of the secure walls topped, in parts, with razor wire. No mention was made of the CCTV cameras, microwave detection units, or other security measures normally reserved for prisons.
That’s because these children aren’t your typical pupil, and their parents are at-risk-of-flight refugees. If there wasn’t any precautions against flight, I’d be surprised…

But Jon can see horror in the simplest thing:
In one corner was a chilling series of children's hand prints, signed by child detainees, of whom it can be assumed some have since been deported to uncertainty, danger, and harm.
Or possibly not, their applications having been found to be groundless…
After the school opening, attendees were treated to a meal of "international foods" that, according to those detainees present, were nothing like that normally served.
They get gruel when the journalists leave, do they?
Next, they were made to perform for the benefit of their visitors.
‘Made to…’? Has Jon been reading a bit too much Dickens in anticipation of the festive season? When does Bill Sykes make an appearance?
A gospel choir going by the name of the Over-Comers performed Rivers of Babylon; a song about being in exile replete with the lyric "But the wicked carried us away in captivity".
The ‘wicked’ here, no doubt, to Jon, being the UK authorities. But it’s just as accurate a description of their parents, isn’t it?
In an unprecedented move, the Royal Colleges of Paediatrics and Child Health, General Practitioners and Psychiatrists has issued a statement calling for the immediate end of child immigration detention on the basis that it is "shameful", "damaging", and "permanently harmful to children's health". This statement comes from clinical expertise, and the belief that children should be treated as children, rather than on the basis of their immigration status.
And what do they think should be done with these families while they are awaiting processing? Nothing?

Yes. It seems that’s exactly what they think should be done:
It is a view shared by Medical Justice, which witnesses harms to such an extent that we suggest the only rational solution is to end the practice of administrative detention.
Yet another attack on the concept of national boundaries, disguised as mawkish and misplaced humanitarian concern…

11 comments:

James Higham said...

Obfuscation is the name of the game
And each socialist government plays it the same.

Quiet_Man said...

As predictable as no snow on Christmas Day, the cry of the lesser spotted lefty on discrimination, so long as it's the right discrimination of course. People who live here, are white and exude common sense, need not apply.

Angry Exile said...

Sure, open the gates, no problem with that. But make it bloody clear that everyone coming over the new and incredibly porous border is absolutely 100% on their own. No help from the state at all because the taxpayers no longer want to be forced to foot the bill. Anyone coming in therefore needs either a realistic plan to support themselves or a willingness to get by on whatever they can attract in the way of voluntary/charitable support (and not the tax paid fake kind either). There will be a lot of grief initially since some will think it's posturing and come in anyway thinking to call the bluff. When they're told in no uncertain terms that no really, this is how it is from now on because the country's broke, so sorry it's either work, starve, beg or try somewhere else there won't be a need for detention centers or the UKBA for long.

Won't happen of course. The main parties would prefer to continue hosing money into the twin black holes of border security and handing out other people's money to anyone who gets in having thought of a halfway convincing sob story. Psst, secret to any wannabe asylum seeker heading to Britain. Simply say "Oh, I just had to escape from Cafeteria. They had no smoking ban and we were being oppressed and I had to think of my chiiiiildren." But be ready to go seek asylum elsewhere when Britain really does run out of money.

Mark said...

Burnett will find CiF an accommodating perch from which to preach to the converted, emoting at will, while apparently lobotomised.

Mike said...

eat feral chiiiiiiiidren

sterilise incompetent parents

save the world

Laurence said...

"...the CCTV cameras, microwave detection units, or other security measures..."

Oh, so a bit like our high streets and shopping malls then.

Mark Wadsworth said...

"Buy Jon can see horror in the simplest thing..."

"But Jon...", surely?

Apart from that, what Angry Exile says.

JuliaM said...

"Obfuscation is the name of the game

And each socialist government plays it the same."


I think the hard-core left might disagree that this government is a 'socialist' one. But a lot of the policymakers certainly lean that way...

"...so long as it's the right discrimination of course."

Of course!

"Sure, open the gates, no problem with that. But make it bloody clear that everyone coming over the new and incredibly porous border is absolutely 100% on their own."

That would help, but there must be some limits, surely? Otherwise, you will eventually change the structure of the country completely...

"Oh, so a bit like our high streets and shopping malls then."

Heh!

""But Jon...", surely?"

D'oh! Fixed :)

JuliaM said...

"Obfuscation is the name of the game

And each socialist government plays it the same."


I think the hard-core left might disagree that this government is a 'socialist' one. But a lot of the policymakers certainly lean that way...

"...so long as it's the right discrimination of course."

Of course!

"Sure, open the gates, no problem with that. But make it bloody clear that everyone coming over the new and incredibly porous border is absolutely 100% on their own."

That would help, but there must be some limits, surely? Otherwise, you will eventually change the structure of the country completely...

"Oh, so a bit like our high streets and shopping malls then."

Heh!

""But Jon...", surely?"

D'oh! Fixed :)

Angry Exile said...

"Sure, open the gates, no problem with that. But make it bloody clear that everyone coming over the new and incredibly porous border is absolutely 100% on their own."

That would help, but there must be some limits, surely? Otherwise, you will eventually change the structure of the country completely...


Not necessarily, but my reasoning is a bit long for comments so I've put it over at my place. The short version is that limits are virtually certain to eventually keep out people you'd want and seem very unlikely to prevent change, and borders are almost fundamentally porous anyway unless you have a totalitarian madman in charge, or a chance geographical feature that helps maintain the border, or both. Even then it's not hard to think of examples where either or both have failed to be 100% secure. The best option is not to try to force people to stay out but to make them want to be somewhere else anyway. By making migration in and out as easy as possible and not lifting a finger to help anyone who shows up more or less on spec you make the country attractive to those who want to be there and have a plan to build their homes and lives themselves, and unattractive to anyone who's hoping to head to their local expat ghetto via the benefit office. There will still be change if you welcome everyone who wants in on the terms of the local population, but it will be pretty close to the natural pace that would have taken place absent migration.

Apologies if this appears twice. I could have sworn I'd posted it once already and I'm not sure if it's Blogger playing up or my brain.

JuliaM said...

"Not necessarily, but my reasoning is a bit long for comments so I've put it over at my place."

Excellent post!

"The best option is not to try to force people to stay out but to make them want to be somewhere else anyway."

Agreed. The problem being, most of the places they come from are far, far worse than anything the UK could ever be, aren't they?

"Apologies if this appears twice. I could have sworn I'd posted it once already and I'm not sure if it's Blogger playing up or my brain."

It'll be Blogger, because it only appeared once. Seems they are all playing up lately - live_journal, Blogger, RSS feeds going missing. Maybe the net can't take the strain anymore?