We throw them in prison but asylum seekers arriving in Jersey are not criminals
Don’t we owe them our compassion, to let them be heard and to be able to tell their story?
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: “Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.”
How much clearer and all-encompassing can that be? But lets look a little deeper. What is the definition of persecution? “To pursue with harassing or oppressive treatment, especially because of religious or political beliefs, ethnic or racial origin, gender identity, or sexual orientation.”
So imagine you live in Grouville, and the government brings in a law which says that people from St Ouen, St Peter and St Brelade are better than people from St Martin, Grouville and St Saviour and they don’t have to pay rates any more, while yours have doubled. The bus to Gorey will only run twice a day now but buses will actually be more frequent to and from St Aubin, and there’s a new road tax in the East but not in the West.
You feel so strongly about things that you write to your deputy. A couple of days later, there’s a knock at your front door. It’s the police. They ask you to accompany them to the police station, and when you start to get a bit annoyed about it, they get forceful, and you end up handcuffed and bundled into a waiting police car. Maybe they push you around a bit or hit you over the head once or twice.
At the police station things get worse. They don’t even tell you why you’ve been arrested. They put you in a cell. It stinks of excrement, and there’s some blood on the floor. You’re sure that once you get to speak to a lawyer, you’ll just have to tell them what happened and they’ll get you out of there, and then you’ll sue the police for brutality. But you’re not allowed to call a lawyer. You’re not allowed to call anyone. In fact you’re kept for 6 months in the end, without charge or trial, and you’re tortured for good measure. You don’t get any visitors. Some days you aren’t given any food. When you are beaten (and worse) your cries of agony are ignored, even laughed at, and you don’t get any medical attention for your broken bones. The day before you get released, you are transferred to the General Hospital who patch you up as if nothing had happened and send you on your way. You’re so traumatised you can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t work, and you feel constantly haunted by your experiences and the fact that you can’t do anything to make the memories go away.
Even though this example is far fetched for us in Jersey, we can all agree that its horrifying and deeply disturbing. This is equivalent to what many asylum seekers have experienced. And worse.
And when I say many, I mean thousands, hundreds of thousands maybe. If they haven’t experienced it themselves, its happened to their brother, best friend, husband, girlfriend, or uncle — many of whom didn’t come out alive.
So they thought they’d better run before it happened to them. Sometimes alone, sometimes with wives or husbands, and children or parents. Sometimes its the underage children, or the grandparents who make the journeys alone.
Quite a big difference between this and an economic migrant, I think you’ll agree. Although there’s clearly a spectrum, and all migrants fall along it somewhere. A country retains the right to assess an asylum seeker to try to find out where upon this spectrum they lie, and how deserving they are of its protection. Like it or not, we have borders in our world and there is not always freedom of movement across them. And in truth, some people will use the cover of refugee flows to try to travel somewhere where their quality of life will be better than it was in their home country, and where they stand a chance to earn more money, or even some money.
So, the question would then be, if someone arrives in a country requesting asylum, how should they be treated? Someone arriving in a country is usually without much, if any, money (they have often paid smugglers extortionate amounts of money for the journey) or belongings. They may have fled their country at speed, or in fear. There is no doubt that they are vulnerable. Anyone standing trial in Jersey is deemed innocent until proven guilty.
Shouldn’t an asylum seeker be deemed an asylum seeker until proven to be otherwise?
In at least two of the instances of asylum seekers entering Jersey in recent years, the people in question have been incarcerated at HMP La Moye. Although the UK does allow detention of asylum seekers, UK Home Office guidance specifically dictates that if an asylum seeker is deemed ‘at risk’ — which is defined as an adult who has a ‘condition’ or who has experienced a ‘traumatic event (such as trafficking, torture or sexual violence)’ which would ‘be likely to render them particularly vulnerable to further harm if they were placed into detention’ then they should not be detained.
Where is Jersey’s alternative to imprisonment for these people? And why hasn’t they found one by now, following the experience of three years ago when a physically disabled vulnerable asylum seeker arrived here and was inappropriately imprisoned. Maybe the Jersey authorities thought that if they ignored it, the problem would just go away and we’d never see another asylum seeker here ever again.
Jersey was caught off guard with the arrival of this asylum seeker in 2016 in the boot of his sister-in-law’s car from France. He had experienced ‘oppressive treatment’ in his home country of Iran, and during the course of his travels, had ended up in the Calais Jungle. I went to the Calais Jungle and I can tell you right now, it was a harsh existence for an able bodied person, let alone someone with a disability, as he had. Jersey cannot claim to be caught off guard a second time.
Which highlights another factor about most asylum seekers — they are desperate. In ways which we cannot imagine. I’m pretty guilty of declaring at 9.30 am on a Monday morning that “I’m desperate for a coffee” or at 5.30 pm on a Friday afternoon that “I’m desperate for a glass of red” but in the same way that saying ‘I’m starving’ in Jersey doesn’t really mean ‘I’m on the brink of death through prolonged lack of food’, ‘I’m desperate’ doesn’t really mean ‘I’ll do anything to be somewhere safe, even if its physically painful or dangerous, illegal or causes me mental suffering and anguish’.
In 2015, then Chief Minister, Ian Gorst, said that:
“Jersey does not have its own procedures for asylum seekers but is a signatory to the relevant Conventions and Protocols. The 1951 Refugee Convention was extended to Jersey in 1955 and the New York Protocol in 1996. These conventions stipulate that people should claim asylum in the first safe country they reach. As we do not have processes in place to hear asylum claims, anyone eligible to claim asylum who reaches Jersey would be referred to the UK Home Office, where their claim could be processed.”
It has become apparent that the UK Home Office will not accept referrals from Jersey and will not process the claims of asylum seekers arriving in the Island. So, its time for Jersey to ‘get with the programme’.
An asylum seeker is not a criminal and must not be treated as such.
Often, the only way for an asylum seeker to gain access to a country they deem as safe is to travel illegally. They cannot cross borders legally and often are not in possession of their identity documents or passports. Indeed, the 1951 Refugee Convention specifically states that:
“ . . . refugees should not be penalized for their illegal entry or stay. This recognizes that the seeking of asylum can require refugees to breach immigration rules. Prohibited penalties might include being charged with immigration or criminal offences relating to the seeking of asylum, or being arbitrarily detained purely on the basis of seeking asylum”.
Do we not owe people with this bravery and resilience a chance to tell their story? Do we not owe them an opportunity to be heard? Do we automatically imagine the things they would tell us would be 100% pure fabrication and that they only want to take advantage of the global refugee crisis in order to make a few extra bob in this beautiful, safe and peaceful Island we call home?
Really?
