Not the Elephant in the Room Anymore: Direct Provision System and Deportations

by Memet Uludag
 
Do you remember the story of Somali asylum seeker Mohamed Sleyum Ali? Irish Times reported it: In March 2014 he was deported from Ireland, attacked and left to die within hours of his arrival in Tanzania…
 
One day he was in Dublin, soon after he was fighting for his life.
 
What do you think of this story?
 
Suspicious?
 
Horrific?
 
Sad? 
 
Unbelievable?
 
Whatever you call this story, it was definitely a preventable one.
In 2014, a young person didn’t need to die because of his immigration status or because of his nationality or the asylum regime in Ireland.
 
And if a person’s life (not just his/her standard wellbeing or basic safety, but his/her life) depends on immigration laws, the person’s nationality or immigration status then there is something else in this story: Institutional racism.
 
 
DEPORTATIONS
Whatever technical debates, some in the state bureaucracy and in the business of ‘immigration’ may hold on deportations, there is a lot more to it than just the cold jargon of legal technicalities and a state-centric view of the deportation system.
 
Deportation, the enforced removal of failed asylum seekers, is a “last resort”, according to the Department of Justice. It says that “more than 22,500 orders have been made since 1999, but just over 4,700 have been enforced”.
 
This seems like a positive situation where, looking at the numbers, four in 5 deportation orders were not carried out. But that’s not the full story at all. If numbers matter, one has to look at the wider picture and at great many sets of numbers before applauding the single and misleading deportation statistics above.
 
The whole end-to-end journey of seeking asylum, applying for refugee status, the process of dealing with refugee applications, the outcome, options for applicants based on the outcome, appeals and deportations are not just extremely complicated (as far as the humanitarian process  of seeking asylum is concerned) but also not transparent and not democratic.
 
There are many genuine personal, legal and logistical reasons to why not all of the 22,500 deportations orders were not processed, but the goodwill of the state doesn’t rank high in this list of reasons. Furthermore 4,700 deportations are not a small number to ignore and if you include the ‘Dublin II Regulation’ numbers (The objective of this Regulation is to identify the EU member state responsible for examining an asylum application and send the applicants to that member state if he/she entered EU via that member state before arriving to the country of asylum application) the ‘deportation’ numbers would be much higher. EU has also signed Readmission Agreements with Euro-peripheral countries, such as Turkey, to deport asylum seekers who arrive to EU from these agreement counties.
 
But the devil is not just in the numerical and secretive process of deportations. One has to appreciate the asylum-refugee application system as a whole to understand its truly inhumane and racist nature.
One also has to understand what happens to people who are deported back to their countries into to the hands of despotic murderous regimes. For many asylum seekers this means life or death.
 
 
ASYLUM-REFUGEE REGIME IN IRELAND: ALL ROADS LEAD TO DIRECT PROVISION SYSTEM
 
We all know too well the conditions in the Direct Provision Centres in Ireland and the inhumanity of the Direct Provision System (DPS) as whole. But the situation in Ireland is not limited to the horrors of the DPS. While the DPS is simply a holding/staging system for asylum seekers with the state having full powers over the lives of people, the process leading to DPS is even scarier.
 
According to the 2013 report published by Eurostat, the official European Union statistics agency, “Ireland comes last when it comes to granting refugee status to asylum seekers, below even Malta which has a population of just over 500,000”.
 
Some media reactions to the findings of this report were as follows:
 

Irish welcome doesn’t apply to asylum seekers or refugees, (Irish Central)

 

Cead mile failte – but not if you’re fleeing for your life (Irish Independent)

 

Ireland rejects more asylum seekers than most EU countries (journal.ie)

 

According to EUROSTAT in 2013 the EU average for granting refugee status was 25.2 per cent while Ireland scored a miserable low of 8 per cent for the first instance decisions. 
 
Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner (ORAC) is the state agency dealing with the refugee applications. Its role is “to investigate applications from persons seeking a declaration for refugee status and to issue appropriate recommendations to the Minister for Justice and Equality”
Surprisingly, ORAC has website has very detailed statistical details in their annual reports. It is evident from ORAC data that Ireland is indeed a mean host country when it comes to granting refugee status to asylum seekers.
 
A summary based on ORAC data shows us a bleak picture over the past 12 years and explains why the DPS has become such a critical entity in the wider asylum-refugee regime in Ireland.

With this absolutely huge rejection rate, many asylum seekers are left with no choice but to appeal the decision of ORAC. Appeals are processed by Refugee Appeals Tribunal and this process is not a very friendly one either.


IRELAND DOESN’T BELIEVE YOU!

A report published by the Irish Refugee Council (Difficult to believe: the assessment of asylum claims in Ireland October 17, 2012) has found damming facts about the refugee process and procedures in Ireland and is calling for an urgent review of the refugee application process.

The report examines the asylum process in Ireland with a systematic review of documents which form the basis of what is known as the `Refugee Status Determination' procedure in Ireland, in order to get a better understanding of why the majority of applications for refugee status in this country are refused. The UK acceptance rate is four times that of the average in Ireland. The evidence obtained in this study suggests that the process itself is responsible and, particularly where the Tribunal (RAC) is concerned, there are reasons to believe that there is a ‘culture of disbelief’ that informs the approach that some Tribunal Members take.

Sue Conlan, the CEO of the Irish Refugee Council said, “What disturbs me about our findings is the fact that many people who appear to have legitimate claims appear not to be receiving a fair examination of their claim and are as a result being denied protection [...]”.

Prof Rosemary Byrne, Director of the Centre for Post Conflict Justice, Trinity College Dublin said: “There is cause for grave concern about Ireland’s protection record for refugees. This research provides a critical insight into very straightforward and cost effective ways the asylum system can, and should be, strengthened to ensure that those coming to Ireland with a well-founded fear of persecution in their country of origin can be guaranteed a fair assessment of their claims”.


THE IRISH ASYLUM-REFUGEE REGIME CAN BE SUMMARISED AS

Ireland is not receiving a huge percentage of the European asylum seekers. This country is not sinking under the weight of asylum seekers!

The percentage of asylum seekers who are granted refugee statuses is extremely low, (The 2002-2014 average is just 6 per cent).

The very high percentage of rejections forces the asylum seekers into long/complex appeal process.

Many appeals are rejected by Refugee Appeals Tribunal due to an institutionally dismissive culture in the state.

The appeals process is not transparent.

As part of this high percentage rejection application and appeal regime Direct Provision System is used as a staging area where asylum seekers have no real control of their lives and their own future.
Direct Provision Systems functions as a locking mechanism for asylum seekers and it feeds the deportation regime. Asylum seekers live in constant fear of deportation.

The overall process of asylum-refugee system in Ireland is inhumane and state-centric rather than focusing on protecting vulnerable people.


WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE?

The Direct Provision System is beyond repair and has hurt enough people. It must be ended.
All Asylum seekers in Direct Provision System should be granted permanent leave and residency.
All Asylum seekers should be given the right to work and education, like all other citizens.
Ireland should declare an end to deportations and process all pending asylum applications and grant asylum seekers permanent residency.

The overall refugee application process must be changed completely and a humanitarian, open, transparent and care-oriented system should be put in place.

Migrants fleeing war zones, disasters, despotic regimes should have free-safe-legal passage into Europe and easy ways to apply for asylum.Ireland has the capacity, capability and the means to look after the suffering people. It must also use all platforms in the EU to change the current border control policies.

End the Readmission agreement.
EU to significantly assist Syrian refugees and accept greater number of Syrian refugees rather than shutting the borders and letting migrants die at sea.


You can find more of Memet's writing on http://minordetailsnews.net/ and on twitter @Memzers https://twitter.com/Memzers

Equality of Opportunity in Education

by Lorraine Lally

As a female immigration lawyer who is white from a working class rural family I am very aware of labels and the damage that we inflict by not looking beyond categorisation.  But we have a choice in how we treat others and the labels we carry are superficial and insignificant.

As an Irish emigrant child living in London I remember an article in The Gaurdian newspaper about a boy who came home from school and jumped into a bath of bleach. He was like me bullied in school. I did not understand and I cried he wanted to change the colour of his skin. Now I am older and I cry again for the community that permitted that child to be isolated within the education system. The Irish constitution provides for a right to education until the age of 16 years of age. I am proud of this provision.  We have an obligation to educate all children. We must respect all human beings by realising that we share commonalities that will bind us together for a better society. I was listening to the radio yesterday and I heard a woman I greatly admire Brigid Quilligan from the  Irish Traveller Movement speaking about the recent Court decision which permitted a second level school to give preferential treatment to the children of past pupils in their admission policy. Wait and think for a moment a school in Tipperary that positively discriminates in relation to the children it enrols to its school.

How many nationalitites will there be in that school? Will there be a clear non discriminatory representation of the local community? The answer is no and that is the truth.  There is a failure to realise the Europe wide struggle with issues  of equality in education for all children regardless of race,nationality and religious upbringing. surrounding the brutality in central Europe.  There is now a strong relationship between the  Irish Traveller Movement linking in with the Roma Community representatives in a common cause to prevent discrimination in Education.  There is a pattern in other States and Ireland would appear to failing to protect children from different ethnic,religious and cultural backgrouds.

The role of the State and the liability of the State in providing for children and their educational rights would appear to provide a glimmer of hope.  But the existing State policy is to fund schools that are run by Boards of Management that are not regulated by the State in the policies that they are implementing.  There is an obligation to provide for all the children in the State which is reinforced with there European Convention on Human Rights by there is a lack of case law illustrating  real success for the children concerned what we need is a clear change in policy to realise inclusive education where there is a chance at equality of opportunity.

It would seem that we will be waiting for the development of European Union standards on the area of protecting educational and cultural rights. The interesting aspect is that there is a long history of dialogue in the area which may lead to stricter changes to the provision of educational rights.

But the failure of EU law is that it often focuses on EU citizens and their families which will often not consider third country nationals or non-EEA nationals who need our protection most of all.

If you cannot receive reasonable access to schools then how do you have reasonable access to employment and then how do you manage in the State as a member of society. The answer is that the exclusion will not benefit the individual, the family or society. We need to draw attention to the inequality occurring in education and the reality that many are excluded due to a lack of opportunity.

    1. Supreme Court Rejects Challenges to School Admission Policy

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/supreme-court/supreme-court-rejects-challenge-to-school-s-admission-policy-1.2115378

 

     2. Maastricht Guidelines on Violations of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 20 Human Rights Quarterly , (1998), p. 691-704, para. 9. See also V. Dankwa, C. Flinterman, S. Leckie, Commentary to the Maastricht Guidelines on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 20 Human Rights Quarterly , (1998), p. 705-730, at 717.

 

 

 For more information about Lorraine check out http://www.helplink.ie/mediation/staff/  and  http://ie.linkedin.com/pub/lorraine-lally/53/a47/538  alternatively you can contact her on twitter at @lorraine_lally https://twitter.com/lorraine_lally 

The Universal Language

by Jayne Olorunda (Author of Legacy and publisher at Excalibur publishing NI)

Barely a day goes by when we are not confronted with a headline story about racism. I confess I have a habit of dwelling on these, as I’m sure anyone who has experienced racism first hand does. It is especially easy to do so when some of these headlines are on your doorstep. Yet as all of us dwellers know, such ruminating doesn’t get us anywhere. Certainly today's relentless stream of appalling racist incidents needs to be highlighted, just as those responsible need to be exposed and challenged. Yet for every bad news story some good news examples must exist, right?  In writing this, the first of my monthly blogs for ROI against Racism I searched for some of these good news examples. I was ideally looking for a headline story promoting inclusion and diversity. I struggled with this, especially in finding the headline news examples. That’s because where racism is concerned it’s very rare that we see the good news stories. But they do exist and in such times when the extent of racism in our society is so topical it is becoming imperative that a balance between the good and bad is struck. If for no other reason than to reassure those people who feel vulnerable.  The good work being done across Ireland North and South must be recognised, for without recognition of positive work I fear the momentum will be lost. We cannot afford this.

It just so happens that last week yet another despicable news story made European headlines. Even worse, it later emerged that this story had a direct link to Northern Ireland.  This affected me profoundly. I am sure anyone reading this won’t need any prizes for guessing that the story I am about to mention is the Chelsea train incident. As I watched a man being denied the right to board a train because of the colour of his skin, I imagined how I would feel if that was my Dad, my sister or even me. How would anyone ever recover from that? To think that a group of grown men could publically intimidate and harass a lone man with such bravado and confidence is as frightening as their words. If you need reminding of these words, here they are again, “We’re racist, we’re racist and that’s the way we like it”. Their threatening behaviour even shook witnesses, some of whom looked on stunned. Incidents such as this would have been out of place in a schoolyard yet alone on a capital cities train system. Mercifully the man at the centre of the ordeal had no idea what the Chelsea fans were shouting, he couldn’t understand English. Yet even with no knowledge of the words, he still knew he had been subject to racist abuse. You see the language of racism is international.  It is universal. Nowhere is immune and no interpreters are needed.

As it transpired the Chelsea incident was a little closer to home than I had initially thought. One of the alleged suspects caught on camera was from Northern Ireland. Not only that but he was a former police man and worse (for my family anyway), he worked in the victims sector. You see this story rang home for me on another level in that it resonated with part of my family history. My father, a black man, died on a train in Northern Ireland.  The suspect works with victims of NI. He is being investigated for his alleged part in an act of racism towards a black man on a train. This could have been the same worker that any one of my family could have approached. Thankfully we didn’t.  As I said earlier nowhere is immune, but situations like this can cause a crisis of trust. It cannot be assumed that because someone works with certain groups of people or is involved with humane causes that they don’t have racist tendencies.  

The Paris train in question involved football supporters and that is disappointing.  Because I know and have seen first-hand how hard the sporting world, in particular football strives to combat racism. I have seen the plethora of initiatives to stamp racism and indeed any type of prejudice out of the game. In the words of Nelson Mandela ‘sport has the power to break down barriers where nothing else can’. Many sporting bodies and officials recognize this and regularly use the power of sport to unite.

That said, would I be comfortable going to a football match? Yes. It’s no longer the game that concerns me, if it ever did. Instead it’s the supporters, despite footballs efforts I just can’t shake off the images of my childhood where football supporters were portrayed as violent far right thugs.  The Paris incident has simply compounded and reinforced that line of thought. Yet it isn’t just football that I would avoid, there is also rugby. The difference being with rugby my avoidance isn’t due to the supporters but the players.  I have lost count of how many times I have been asked to watch Ulster play this year and have declined. Since some of the team’s top players felt it was appropriate to ‘black up’ for fancy dress, the idea of rugby, well to be more precise Ulster rugby is now repugnant to me.

You see players in any sport are key to changing, creating or maintaining the reputations of their game.  If the players choose to make a mockery of a group of people then they give the impression that it is ok for their supporters to do so as well.  If players condemn something then their influence alone would have a huge impact. Many of the government, team and community initiatives fail to capitalise on the players enough. Players are sports best asset, they are role models, idolised and for the most part respected. Yet they just don’t speak out enough, they may condemn individually but to speak out as a team how much more powerful would that be? For example Chelsea was fantastic in condemning the events of last week, they immediately expressed their outrage. I can’t help thinking how much better it would been if the players had collectively spoken out to?  

I don’t want to dwell on or totally blame the sporting arena for what I have come to see as selective racism, because selective racism is widespread.  The notion that black people are acceptable if they are the surgeon saving your life, the banker, the boss, the president, the singer the actor, the footballer is part and parcel of our society. For some black people are ok when they have a purpose, if they look nice, have money, have power or they possess one of any number of desirable variables and dare I say they are far enough away? They are no threat, you can select to like or admire them, they benefit you in some way.  What some fail to realise though is if you strip away the trappings, the titles and the fame then those apparently acceptable black people possess the same attributes that some take great offense to in everyday life. They are black, just like the black person that is pushed off a train, removed from their home, jeered at or even attacked.

Racism today is selective. People pick and choose who deserves it. Racism, one of the biggest inequalities of humanity in itself has become unequal. It is our society’s illness, our new plague. Thankfully some in our society are immune but not all. Racism if not dealt with correctly can be contagious, it can spread unless preventative measures are taken. The right influences, the right attitudes, the right information can keep racism at bay.

Across the UK and Ireland perhaps even globally great efforts are being put into eradicating racism and stamping out prejudice. Yet sometimes these efforts despite the best intentions can inadvertently perpetuate the problem. Our politicians and media in particular spring to mind here. They consistently talk of promoting ‘tolerance,’ but here’s the thing I don’t want to be tolerated, for that matter does anyone? I want to be accepted. We tolerate a cold, we tolerate the Irish weather. In my experience we tolerate people, things or the status quo because we know we have no other choice or because if we don’t we will be in trouble. I for one tolerate paying tax and I am sure I’m not alone!  In our vernacular ‘tolerate’ implies putting up with something, we tolerate things we don’t like.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could see a change in the approach of our politicians and our media in how they speak about racism? For them to offer some constructive words by talking more about inclusion and acceptance and a little less about tolerance. As our pasts have shown you can only ever tolerate something for so long, before it becomes intolerable. If we could only move beyond a society based on ‘tolerance’ and selection towards one based on acceptance and inclusion then I believe we would see real change.

To find out more about Jayne, check out her twitter @jayne_legacy  https://twitter.com/jayne_legacy