‘He hasn’t been to Jamaica in 25 years’

A psychotherapist in Britain was a picture of frustration as she spoke to The Gleaner five hours before the charter flight with deportees, including her partner, was due to take off at Birmingham Airport in the United Kingdom (UK) for Kingston, Jamaica.

She has been working tirelessly to get a T4A3 application submitted to cancel her 40-year-old partner’s ticket.

The number of deportees scheduled to arrive in Jamaica today, on the second flight in three months and the fourth since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, remains uncertain.

Her partner of five years came to the UK at age 14 and had indefinite leave to remain.

“He started to develop himself and focus on his education. He did hospitality and catering, he was very good at construction and he also worked alongside his family members – renovating homes, painting, decorating and carpentry,” she said.

The woman explained that her spouse played the role of father to her 15-year-old son, as his father had undergone double bypass heart surgery, became a double amputee, and they eventually separated.

“He helped my son to develop and they bonded well. He took him swimming and to football and helped him to socialise. My son is very, very, shocked that he is being deported. We went to see him on Sunday,” the woman said, adding that he was detained at Brooke House.

In 2018, the prospective deportee was sentenced to three years and a month for Class A drugs worth £10 and served 18 months.

“When he went inside 2018, it triggered his indefinite leave to remain, where the Home Office wanted him out,” she said, adding that he had no prior offence.

The woman said that that following a rejected court case in December, an immigration lawyer submitted representation for her partner in January and again by a barrister this summer.

“We were waiting on a date for a hearing, so how did it go from that to being deported in five hours? The Home Office confirmed that they never received the representations which are pending for a court case. He went in last week Thursday to sign on and they held him and detained him,” she explained.

CONCERNED ABOUT CARE

The 40-year-old is schizophrenic, and his partner is concerned about the mental health care he will receive in Jamaica.

“I don’t think he is gonna do well. He hasn’t been to Jamaica in 25 years. His mom is in the UK and all his family members are here,” the frustrated woman said.

“He has no one to go to. I would have really loved for his case to be heard in a proper way.”

She lamented that the Home Office has failed to properly examine matters on a case-by-case basis.

“They have no idea of how much it uproots people’s lives and their families. Someone who is vulnerable like him can easily go down in a breakdown because he’s being thrown from one place to the next without due process,” she bemoaned.

Chairman of the Windrush National Organisation, Dr Desmond Jaddoo, told The Gleaner that the passenger numbers on the flight have been cut, as has happened with previous deportations.

“As far as we are aware, people have been removed from the flight. I know for a fact that a couple of my cases have been removed and I know that others have also been removed.

“We are also receiving reports of COVID-19 at Colnbrook Immigration Centre. Someone detained has been reportedly diagnosed with COVID-19,” he disclosed.

Jaddoo said that one of the persons removed arrived in the UK at age four, while another man was hospitalised and deemed too ill to travel.

“Although they don’t go on the flight, they still remain detained until they are granted bail.

UK civil and immigrant rights group, Movement for Justice, tweeted on Tuesday that it has been in contact with 33 detainees, 23 of whom have been taken off the flight, including four without convictions.

In early August, a similar flight left the UK with only seven persons deported out of a planned 90 as last-minute legal challenges and vigorous campaigning by human-rights groups won reprieve for the majority of detainees.

Meanwhile, Jaddoo is urging Jamaicans in the United Kingdom not to get involved in criminality.

“They get longer sentences and then they try every single opportunity to deport, even if people have leave to remain, they try to deport them and they revoke their leave to remain in some cases and deport them,” he said.

In July, the UK Guardian reported that data suggested that Jamaicans were being disproportionately targeted for deportation from the UK.

“This society in the UK has never been friendly towards Jamaicans, as the people believe. We know that with the experience of the Windrush Generation,” Jaddoo said.

judana.murphy@gleanerjm.com