Deportation victims pen open letter to Jamaica to stop next charter flight

New expulsions come just weeks after the Home Office denied claims deportations would resume after William and Kate's visit

HUMAN RIGHTS: Charter flights have been heavily criticised by refugee groups (Pic: Getty)

THE FAMILIES of Jamaicans facing deportation have signed an open letter to the Jamaican High Commission calling for them to refuse deportation flights from the UK ahead of another charter flight.

Campaigners are furious that Priti Patel is gearing up to rip apart more British families just weeks after the Home Office strongly refuted claims that deportations to Jamaica would resume shortly after Prince William and Kate Middleton had finished their Caribbean tour.

DENIAL: Home Office previously said that claims that a deportation flight to Jamaica was being delayed due to the Royal visit was “not true.” (Pic: Pool/Samir Hussein/WireImage)

The expected deportation flight to Jamaica comes only months after the last attempt by the Home Office to tarnish Jamaican nationals as violent criminals was foiled and saw three detainees taken back to the Caribbean island last November. 

Movement for Justice (MforJ), a campaigning charity supporting individuals and families at risk of being deported, have labelled Priti Patel’s signing off of mass deportations to Jamaica as “racist” and “unjust” and are supporting the open letter signed by 51 people.

“We are individuals and families in the UK who have been suffering under this government’s racist hostile environment for years. Our fathers, brothers, sisters, mothers, partners, grandparents and children have been subject to racist demonisation, torturous detention and unjust deportations,” the letter reads.

“There has been no justice for our Windrush Generation, only pathetic apologies and promises that have led nowhere. People have died waiting for compensation. We are forced to jump through hoops like performing animals to prove our right to compensation, our right to be here.

The deportation flight to Jamaica is believed to be scheduled for 1am
STANDING UP: Protesters rally against charter flight to Jamaica in November 2021

“The descendants of the Windrush Generation, children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, brought here as children or born in the UK suffer racism at every stage of life. We face discrimination in schools, we are criminalised from childhood, we are stereotyped and degraded, we are treated as animals. The open, blatant racism and stereotypes of our community in the early 00’s have not gone away, they’ve just been absorbed into government policy.”

Karen Doyle, a campaigner organiser at MforJ, believes that the open letter was triggered after hundreds of locals demonstrated against William and Kate’s recent Royal visit to the Caribbean.

“Families were inspired to see the protests in Jamaica during the royal visit, the demand for reparations and the words of the prime minister Andrew Holness,” she said.

“That’s what drove this letter, a belief that if the Jamaican government can throw off the final shackles of colonial rule, they can also stand up to the UK over these deportation charter flights which are steeped in racism. It is a call to action here and in Jamaica, for humanity, justice and an end to these unjust deportations.”

“My son was deported to Jamaica in 2008, he was murdered just 5 months after he was deported.”

Eulalee Pennant

The open letter is calling for the Jamaican government to refuse to accept any more mass deportation charter flights from the UK and that the Jamaican High Commission and Jamaican Government reinstate and make permanent their previous agreement that people who came to the UK as children should not face being deported.

Signatories on the letter are also demanding for the opening of an immigration amnesty to support families affected by charter flights.

Eulalee Pennant, one of many who has signed the letter, accused the Home Office of discrimination and torturing Jamaican nationals.

“My grandfather fought for this country, I’ve been here for 21 years. I was detained in Yarl’s Wood in 2018 and they told me I would be put on a charter flight; it was a nightmare. I was really sick, vomiting blood, it was terrible in that place, they treat the women like animals,” she said.

“My son was deported to Jamaica in 2008, he was murdered just 5 months after he was deported. I couldn’t even see his grave until recently when I finally got 30 months leave to remain (with no recourse to public funds). My leave recently expired and I am still fighting for my status after 21 years. 

“It shouldn’t be this hard, our forefathers built this country with their sweat and blood, their generation and their descendants receive oppression, discrimination and torture by the Home Office. No one should be put through this torture. We need the Jamaican government to stand up for us. An immigration amnesty would lift thousands of us out of this torture.”

A Windrush victim and signatory, only known as “BS,” said that dealing with the Home Office had been a struggle in order to stay in Britain. 

“I came to the UK when I was just 9 years old in 1965, I had to get my status sorted out through the Windrush Taskforce after real struggles with the Home Office. My father died in 1979 after being wrongly refused returning residence status a year earlier,” they said.

“My son is facing deportation because of a crime he did many years ago now. He has children and a partner here. It’s not fair what they are doing to our children and grandchildren. 

“It makes me angry when I see the government deny these flights have anything to do with Windrush. My son might not have come here in the 60’s or 70’s but he is my son, he is the son of the Windrush Generation. 

“The racism our children and grandchildren face now is not so much the landlords denying housing or even the open racism we faced in the streets, but you can see it in what the Home Office does to our community.”

Ahead of the suspected charter flight in May and published letter, MforJ have organised a demonstration to take place outside the Jamaican High Commission in London on 27th April in an attempt to bolster the Caribbean country’s involvement in charter flights.

The campaign group are calling on his Excellency Mr Seth George Ramocan, the Jamaican High Commissioner, to join protestors and to speak with families impacted by mass deportations. 

“Our lives are here, our families are here, we are proud of our Jamaican heritage, we are proud of the role our communities have played rebuilding Britain, bringing hard work, music, culture, love and joy,” the letter goes on to read. 

“We are Jamaican and we are British in all but the colour of our passport. But every day this government and the Home Office treat us as less than human.

“The Jamaican people and government have taken a clear stand to further throw off the shackles of colonial rule, have demanded reparations for slavery; we praise all those who have fought for this moment for decades. This country enslaved us, stole our labour, they broke our backs then told us we were one with them that we were British. Our elders came to rescue the ‘mother country’ in its time of need, they worked hard, they faced down the racists and now this country throw their descendants out like rubbish. Enough.”

The letter added: “We know you are aware of this injustice; we know you have stepped in to try and stand up for the people who came here as children. We know the UK government and Home Office has treated you appallingly by sending a flight even when you have explicitly called for it to be stopped because of COVID risk.

“We also know that the Jamaican government CAN refuse to accept these flights, CAN make permanent the agreement that no one who came to the UK as a child should ever be deported. We know our closest neighbour; Ireland has introduced an immigration amnesty so we also know this is possible.  It’s time for change. We hope to see you on the 27th April.”

Comments Form

3 Comments

  1. | Chaka Artwell

    It is difficult to read of Ms Eulalee Pennant’s Home Office directed and authorised oppression; abuse and detention in Yarl’s Wood privatised detention Centre: after enduring years of having her Bank Account frozen; Employment terminated & Benefits and NHS Treatment Suspended all on instructions from the Home Office who challanged Ms Pennant’s English status.
    The Home Office’s refusal to accept that Her Majesty’s Caribbean-heritage Commonwealth Subject’s entry into England in the 1960s & 70s was entirely acceptable; legal and lawful as England’s Empire Subjects.
    The Pennants of the Caribbean have a 500-year relationship with Her Majesty and the English aristocracy firstly as slave of the English Empire and latterly as colonial Subjects of Her Majesty: who demonstrated their fealty by offering their lives in defence of England during both of England’s European wars.
    The wealth created from England’s enslavement of African people in the Caribbean provided the finance that propelled England into becoming the first industrialised nation.
    As Ms Pennant said, her ancestor were part of the 90,000 Caribbean men and women who volunteered their life in defence of Her Majesty and the people of England during England’s Second European War.
    Despite all of this demonstration of commitment and loyalty to Her Majesty and the people of England, Caribbean-heritage people need to understand that Her Majesty’s “diverse” Government and Cabinet continues to treated Caribbean-heritage Subject with extreme skin-colour prejudice; discrimination and racism.
    The message is clear, the Cabinets of the Conservatives and former Labour Party wishes to divest England of its African-skin Subjects of Her Majesty.
    Caucasian skin-colour has proved to be thicker than England’s 500-years of intimate association with African and Caribbean people as Slaves and then as Colonial Commonwealth Subjects.
    42,000 English families have applied to host and welcome Caucasian Ukrainian families who have no historical; political financial, cultural or commonwealth links to England; other than their Caucasian skin-colour: whilst African-Caribbean people with a 500-year historical; financial political theological and cultural relationship with England are persecuted and illegally exiled.
    The lack of a self-funded national agency in England for Caribbean-heritage people is the reason why the Movement for Justice and other Caribbean heritage people are forced to ask the Jamaican High Commissioner to advocate on behalf of England Caribbean population.
    A political lobby for Caribbean-heritage people is desperately required in England.
    However, instead of asking the Jamaican authorities to refuse to accept the Home Offices deportation flights. The Home Office should instead be asked by the jamaican authorities to provide the deported with a £1m.
    The Home Office has given the French authorities £54m to stop boats crossing the English Channel.
    The Home Office is providing undisclosed millions to Rwanda to host asylum seekers.
    If the Home Office offers £1m to the deported it would help them establish themselves in the Caribbean whilst helping the Home Office achieve its clear aim of reducing African-Caribbean heritage people from England.
    Despite England long historical and cultural association with Caribbean people; especially during the two European wars. Caribbean people never received the welcome currently being displayed by the government and people of England to the Caucasian-skin people of Ukraine.
    The unmistakable lesson that all Caribbean-heritage men and women need to understand clearly is that Caucasian-skin-colour is thicker and of more significance and meaning to England’s Parliament and the English people than the Caribbean people’s 500-year intimate historical and cultural association.
    I believe the time has come for Her Majesty’s Subjects of African-caribbean heritage to seek a home on the continent of Africa that will welcome Caribbean-heritage men and women with a £1m deeportation gift from Mrs Patel’s Home Office.

    Reply

  2. | Eulalee Pennant

    Absolute facts

    Reply

  3. | R chapman

    They came here looking for work for a better pay they were not asked by the government to come or to be offered jobs ,the ship had many spare seats so to get a full ship they sold cheap tickets hoping to fill the empty seats, none of them didn’t even know if they would find work

    Reply

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