Breaking a Person’s Spirit at Detention Centres

On September 20^th, I flew into London Heathrow Airport with the intention of catching a connecting flight to Edinburgh. My travel plans were to visit my heritage for a few days in Scotland, meet up with some professional contacts I had made during my PhD studies and visit a friend in London. This did not happen as I was refused leave to enter the United Kingdom. Instead the United Kingdom Border Agency (UKBA) intended to immediately deport me back to New York, the port that I flew from but not the start of my travels. I stayed with the intentions to either convince the UKBA officials that my intentions were true and that I was only coming to the United Kingdom to visit; or if refused entrance to the United Kingdom to continue on to another European or African port, or if both these requests were not possible than at least to deport me to my home city, Seattle, and not New York. After 22 days, several interviews with immigration officials and a public defender, and 93 documents passed on to me the UKBA deported me to Seattle, Washington, USA.

The photo is of a detainee’s asylum case at Harmondsworth. At the time of the photo the immigration office had already given him over 500 pages.

On September 21^st, the UKBA had me detained at Harmondsworth, a detention centre no more than a fifteen minute drive from London Heathrow’s Airport. I remained here until October 12^th. Driving into this centre is much like a prison, where the van shipping those detained drives into an inspection garage, and then through gates that are over 20 feet tall with 3 feet of razor wire dangling on both sides. The detainees are then walked by the guards upstairs where it takes hours to check each detainee in, partially because the detention centre is understaffed but also because the guards at the detention centre are not motivated to work diligently. Each detainee goes through a quick round of medical history questions, every detainee’s item is itemised and locked up, each detainee is patted down, and a general set of questions regarding a detainee’s dietary restrictions, faith, marital status are asked and recorded. It is at this time that a detainee is assigned to Fir House of the detention centre, a temporary holding area. Each detainee is given a mobile phone and SIM card. Each detainee also earns 71 Pence for each full day spent at the detention centre, which is very much needed as there is not enough credit on the mobile phone SIM card to even send a small message text to the London area.

The 3^rd Floor of Fir House, Harmondsworth Detention Centre.

When walking into Fir House wing of Harmondsworth, it continues to look like a prison with several perks. These perks, however, slowly melt away the longer a detainee spends here. The rooms are intimidating; they very much resemble a cell with the exception of a flat screen television and basic cable. Detainees in Fir House are locked into these cells at night from 22:00 to 7:00. There are two to three computers that allow for limited surfing over the internet. Social networks are blocked. In my own experience both of my Blog sites were blocked most of my detainment, starting on the 24^th of September when I submitted a Blog to the neocon-nightmare site until my departure on October 12th.

View from the foosball table on the 3^rd Floor of Fir House, Harmondsworth.

There are foosball, billiards, ping pong tables, and board games but use of these are restricted from 9:30-12:30, 14:00-17:30 and 19:00-21:30. Football and cricket can be played between the hours of 14:00-17:30 and 19:00-21:00 if there are guards available to oversee the use of equipment and detainees. All of these activities are at the discretion of the guards and can be withdrawn at anytime.

Harmondsworth can house up to 1000 detainees at once, with an average occupancy rate of 95%. It is one of the largest immigration detainment centres in Europe. Since there is a large volume of people here, the food is prepared in bulk and is often average to poor in quality, the only advantage being many of the dishes are prepared by South and Central Asian men who do a fair job in preparing curry and rice dishes. Such cooking, however, is alien and not desired by immigrants coming from the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia. Efforts at other cuisines are overcooked and not popular with the detainees. The portions detainees receive are only one plate per meal and the size of the portions given is dependent on the detainees working in the kitchen (some receive more or less than others). Most detainees abstain from breakfast as the offerings amount to only porridge or corn flakes.

Detainees queuing for food at the cafeteria in Dove House, Harmondsworth.

There is no argument comparing the Harmondsworth Detention Centre to that of Her Majesty’s Prison System. There are more perks and freedoms in Harmondsworth compared to prison. But when being housed at Harmondsworth a detainee learns quickly how superficial these perks are. They are limited not only by a strict set of hours but also by the guards and the detainees that work in the detainment system. They can be cut off at the discretion of one person. Politics certainly comes into play here. Unlike prison a detainee does not know how long he/she will be housed at a detention centre or if they will be released or deported. The longer they remain in a detention centre, however, the sooner they learn that the United Kingdom does not uphold and champion human rights. Instead, the immigration service turns a blind eye to those throughout the lower ranks of the detainment system to abuse their positions of authority in order to break the spirit of every detainee. By the time the immigration service has made a decision regarding releasing or deporting a detainee, that detainee is ready to concede to any decision in order to leave what is a hopeless and meaningless purgatory.