In preparation for the Immigration, Residency and Protection Bill, the Department of Justice has re-floated the idea of bringing forward proposals, including legislation, for holding asylum seekers in detention centres while their applications are being ‘fast-tracked’. Det-ention, the Government says, is aimed at preventing the evasion of deportation orders by ‘unsuccessful’ asylum seekers. Under such a plan, claimants would be held while their cases are considered within days.
It all seems logical, doesn’t it? ‘Fast-track’ humans attempting to seek asylum in this country, incarcerate them while their cases are being considered, and then get rid of them, like the human waste they are considered by our Government to be. Indeed, the Government boasts that its hard line on asylum is bearing fruit, using the reduced number of applications as ‘proof’, but forgetting to mention that this reduction of applications is due, above all, to the high numbers of refusals to land to present applications in the first place.
The use of detention, according to the department, is “recognised internationally as a tool in deterring unfounded claims for refugee status”, quoting similar measures in Denmark, the UK and the Netherlands. The Government also insists that if detention is introduced, “the same high standards of processual fairness”, including access to legal services and interpretation, would apply. Again, this neglects to account for the appalling standards of many of the existing accommodation centres – where poor maintenance levels, poor food and hygiene drive some asylum seekers to compare their lives to those of farmyard animals.
Despite the Green Party’s opposition to the proposal (it would be interesting to see if it would quit the coalition if these measures are introduced), the way the Government has couched its plans has gained a lot of popular support. In an Irish Times poll asking voters ‘Would you welcome the holding of certain asylum seekers in detention centres while their applications are processed?’, 55 per cent voted for such a measure, opposed to 45 per cent against. This poll will, of course, serve the Government’s purpose as it could argue that its plan has the electorate’s support. Meanwhile, right-wing websites publish opinions such as “makes total sense... let in a asylum seeker... they will disappear... or he will find the first Irish woman he meets and get her pregnant... then he says he has to stay because of an Irish-born child...”
I believe that detaining asylum seekers is a step backwards. Asylum seekers are here because they are desperate, and their plight is ignored in the face of Ireland’s new wealth. Asylum seekers are racialised in new ways; as Arun Kundnani of the Institute of Race Relations says, asylum seekers are not seen as ‘white’ in a cultural sense. The perceived ‘alien cultures’ of Roma, Kurdish, or African asylum seekers are seen as threatening ‘our way of life’.
If, like me, you are uncomfortable with detaining humans who have done nothing wrong, apart from legally seeking asylum, we should organise a campaign in preparation for the new Immigration Bill, galvanising around this crucial issue of detention centres for asylum seekers.
We should remember those asylum seekers still in accommodation centres, living on a paltry ‘comfort allowance’ of 19.10 euro per week, and campaign for their right to work while their cases are being determined.
Dr Ronit Lentin is head of the MPhil in Ethnic and Racial Studies at the Department of Sociology at Trinity College Dublin. Her column appears fortnightly in Metro Eireann
