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Asylum-seeker accomodation centres scrapped

Bicester Refugee Support (posted by richarddirecttv) | 14.06.2005 17:10 | Oxford

The government announced the stopping of the accommodation centre building programme last Friday (June 10th). The only centre which had gained planning permission was Bicester. Now the pressure is on to make sure that Bicester is prevented from continuing at the public inquiry from July 5th.

Plans for national network of accommodation centres have been scrapped

In a written answer to Parliament, given on Friday 10 June by Tony McNulty, the Immigration Minister, stated that the government is abandoning its plans for a network of accommodation centres.

It is as yet unclear whether the Home Office still intends to push ahead with the planned centre for Bicester, but this announcement will clearly have an impact on the local situation and may mean that the plans are abandoned at the eleventh hour.

This reversal of government policy will mean that the Bicester centre can no longer be presented as a 'trial' for a planned national network of similar centres but will be a one off experiment with people's lives. Its uniqueness will have significant economic implications as it will now be a matter of investing in a hugely expensive prototype that is never intended to be replicated. It will no longer have any claim to be part of a national integrated approach to processing the claims of asylum seekers, and this will certainly increase local resentment by those who are unsympathetic to the plight of asylum seekers - they will feel furious that they are to be uniquely 'dumped on'. As for BRS and all the other refugee support organisations who are opposing the Bicester centre on purely humanitarian grounds, we will be empowered by the knowledge that the Home Office is so clearly in retreat and has at last admitted that this policy was mistaken and unworkable. Maybe all we need now is one last big push for the Bicester plans to fall too.

If you would like to read the Hansard report yourself, the link is  http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm/cmhansrd.htm

Meanwhile, BRS will continue to work on our submission for the forthcoming public inquiry as if the centre is to go ahead, with our main message being that the government has applied to build an accommodation centre but has now submitted detailed plans for a detention centre or prison, with multiple security barriers such as barbed wire fences, prison-style perimeter lighting and a gatehouse far inside the centre, a completely secure area for direct removals of failed asylum seekers, the notorious GSL to run the centre and no means of transport for the asylum seekers and therefore no realistic hope of integration with local people. You can read the full details of our objections on our Website  http://www.bicesterrefugeesupport.org.uk

Report in the Times
 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1649746,00.htm

Report in the Guardian
 http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,11026,1504346,00.html

(written by Kathleen Graco)

Bicester Refugee Support (posted by richarddirecttv)

Comments

Hide the following comment

Bicester may be converted into another Campsfield

22.06.2005 14:54

It was announced in the indymedia screening on Sunday that Minister Tom McNulty has stated the government's intention to convert the Bicester site from an accomodation centre into a "removal centre" *, like Campsfield, with 450 places, instead of the 750 proposed for the accomodation centre. This would basically be another prison for people who have committed no crime. Amnesty International this week declared the British government's policies towards asylum-seekers to be illegal. It is unclear whether they would need planning permission for the changed use yet, as it is MoD land, and they said they went through planning permission for the accomodation centre as a kind of courtesy to local residents, as I understand it.
Anyone who has further information, please post an article.

* "removal centre" is the government's inaccurate and Orwellian term for "detention centre", implying that all the people incarcerated there are awaiting deportation, when in fact they are having their asylum claims assessed, and may just as well gain refugee status and be released into the community.

richarddirecttv


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