a blog
In collaboration with Self Organised London, the Anti Raids Network will be giving a short ‘know your rights’ workshop at 3pm, Eileen House on Saturday 9th March. Come along to share experiences and learn more about how we can build the resistance to the intensifying UK Border Agency operations in the area – and beyond… The workshop is free and open only to those interested in challenging immigration checks and raids.
Yesterday at around 1.30pm approximately 10 UKBA and police officers stopped and questioned people in the area around Elephant and Castle.
They were first seen stopping people outside the shopping centre, near the red elephant statue at the entrance at 1.30pm.
A call out was made for people to go to the area. Anti Raids activists turned up around 2pm. The UKBA and police were at the opposite side of the road to the shopping centre and were stopping and then surrounding people. Those being stopped were made to stand against a wall and answer their questions.
The UKBA had one van and two cars.
Activists alerted others in the area to the presence of UKBA. They explained that people didn’t need to answer their questions and as a result many people just carried on walking.
The police became violent towards the activists, pushing one man to the floor, one into the side of a bus and threatening another with pepper spray. Activists were told they were ‘not allowed to film’ and to ‘let them do their job’!
After 10 minutes or so, the police and UKBA officers came together to discuss what was happening. Immediately after, both the police and UKBA decided to leave the Elephant and Castle area in the cars and van.
No one saw anyone being taken, and it didn’t seem like anyone had been put in any of the vans or cars.
February 2nd: UKBA raid West African Restaurant, Old Kent Road, near Elephant and Castle.
On Saturday night, approximately 6-7 UKBA officers and around 4 police officers rushed into a West African restaurant at 8.55pm. The raiding party arrived in one white van and one silver van, licence plate BP55DCU. But this time the operation wasn’t going to take place in silence.
About 20 people from the Anti Raids network entered the restaurant hot on their heels and informed everyone present of their rights in the face of immigration checks: you do not have to answer any questions, and you are free to leave at any time. Many people immediately got up and left – presumably not wanting to spend their night out being interrogated by UKBA thugs.
Unfortunately, UKBA had managed to surround three people before supporters could get to them. One group of immigration officers questioned the three women, while others physically blocked supporters from getting near them to inform them of their legal rights. Some police officers assisting the operation refused to show their badge numbers and tried to intimidate supporters into turning off their cameras. UKBA officers held their victims in the restaurant for approximately half an hour before leaving, supported by extra police back-up.
Sadly, they managed to arrest one Nigerian woman and took her with them to their base at Beckett House, near London Bridge (60-68 St Thomas Street London SE1 3QU). Arrested people are often imprisoned at the “short term holding facility” at Beckett House before being moved on to detention centres. Still, they had probably expected a much bigger catch. People from Anti Raids were there to show solidarity with the restaurant workers, customers, and the many people who are regularly subject to these racist immigration controls in London. While the UKBA were still in the restaurant, activists also went to visit other restaurants and businesses on the street to inform everyone of what was happening.
This raid was not in isolation
Racist migration raids take place every day in London, but are rarely reported on. At 2am on the same night, UKBA also attacked a house in the Peckham/Dulwich area, arresting 4 people from Bolivia and 2 from Pakistan. They were held in Beckett House for the night and have now been moved to detention centres in Dover and Bedford. Raids were also reported in the Elephant and Castle area every day last week. In one operation UKBA blocked off the entrances and exits to the main shopping centre, catching people as they left. Several people were detained and one person has already been deported.
Building the resistance
Following the wave of UKBA activity over the past couple of weeks, members of the Latin American Workers Association (LAWAS), Precarious Workers Brigade, No Borders London, and other individuals working together under the banner of the Anti Raids network have been active in the Elephant and Castle area. On Saturday afternoon, a few hours before the raid, about 40 people held a demonstration on Old Kent Road to show solidarity with communities being attacked and harassed on a daily basis. We spoke to local shop keepers and passers-by about our rights in the face of a raid or a stop, and distributed hundreds of ‘Know your rights’ cards in Spanish, Arabic, English and other languages.
By creating networks of resistance and mutual aid, we can fight racist controls and checks. Solidarity with all migrant communities. No one is illegal.
If you are interested in getting involved in Anti Raids, send us an email at antiraids [at/] riseup.net (replace the [at/] with @).
Seven people were arrested in a raid on a home last weekend. We have withheld some details here to protect their anonymity.
These friends were living together in one flat, forced to share a tiny place as their ‘illegal’ immigration status meant that they had little money between them.
As they were standing outside the house in the evening and were having a loud discussion, some neighbours decided called the police. Police and UKBA officers then raided the house in the night, arresting all seven residents. One was transferred to a detention centre and is already facing deportation on the next mass charter flight to Afghanistan, scheduled for 14th of January. He had claimed asylum many years ago, but like the vast majority of Afghan asylum seekers, his case was refused.
The other six were able to claim asylum, and are now awaiting a decision. The landlord of the flat faces a criminal charge in relation to having undocumented people in his house, the details of which we are still trying to ascertain.
At dawn on Thursday 18th October, Cardiff residents Fariman Saleh and her two children were dragged from their beds to be put on board the 15.00hrs Egypt Air flight to Cairo. The family sought refuge in the UK following 15 years of domestic abuse at the hands of Ms. Saleh’s husband, but their initial claims for asylum, as is routinely the case, were refused.
These videos show the callous nature of the raid, the lies told by UKBA staff (for example, that members of the public are not allowed to film the officers – you can and should!), and a clear sense that UKBA officers are used to acting with impunity. You will also see one person lying beneath the car in an apparent attempt to stop the family being taken away, while the remaining daughter can be heard weeping. Sadly, these raids are taking place all the time but this is a rare instance for which we have footage of the event.
View the footage here and here.
Throughout the day, friends and supporters called Egypt Air and spoke to staff at Heathrow Airport in a bid to persuade the airline not to deport the family. Thankfully, the family’s deportation was cancelled at the last minute for ‘technical reasons’, although they remain in the capitivity of G4S & Barnardo’s Cedars family detention centre and are likely to be subject to another deportation attempt.
Why not give Cedars or Barnardos a call?
Cedars
Phone: 01293 844900
Fax: 01293 844945
Barnardo’s Head Office
Telephone: 0208 550 8822
Fax: 0208 551 6870
See this blog for more on how you can support Fariman and her family: http://savemrssalehandfamily.blogspot.co.uk/
And for those of you who do Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/givehersanctuary?ref=ts&fref=ts
Officers from the UK Border Agency raided the Tiendas del Sur shop in Elephant and Castle at 3.45pm, which resulted in the arrests of 3 people.
More information will be posted here shortly.
Witnesses report that at least 4 men were arrested by the UK Border Agency (UKBA) during night raids on houses in Haringey, North London.
Over a dozen Immigration Officers wore stab-proof vests and used unmarked vehicles to operate in residential areas after 10pm on Wednesday 2nd May 2012. When angry residents confronted the Officers about their actions, they claimed to have warrants from a judge which authorised their raids. The Officers said they were part of a north central London ‘local immigration team’ based out of Islington, and that the arrested men would be taken to Beckett House, a UKBA reporting centre near London Bridge. All the Officers were equipped with walkie-talkie radios and handcuffs. They drove 3 silver Ford Galaxy cars and a white Mercedes van with a cage inside (Registration number: LX56 DKV).
The Immigration Officers were uncomfortable when residents began to film them. They followed the arrest van back out onto the main road to make sure no more homes were being targeted. Afterwards, an upset resident commented: “How can the Border Agency claim that this country is full? There’s a property on the street they raided that’s been empty for the last 6 months – covered in metal sheets to prevent anyone from living inside”.
These raids are particularly provocative in a borough where immigration police have a legacy of brutality. On 28th July 1993, immigration officers and police dawn raided a flat in Crouch End to deport a Jamaican woman, Joy Gardner. Her mother described the incident: “She was in her bed in her flat with a five- year-old kid. They put her on the floor, put tape on her mouth and on her feet. They sat on her stomach and damaged her kidneys and her brain”. Joy later died in hospital from her injuries. The officers were never bought to justice.
Immigration raids like this happen frequently in London, but are rarely reported on. The UKBA sometimes publish their version of events online. Thankfully, some community activists have spoken out about recent raids in South London. In February, dozens of Latin Americans were caught in a trap by Immigration Officers at a music concert in Elephant & Castle. In April, UKBA agents targeted Ghanaians at a bus stop in New Cross. In Haringey, UKBA arrest teams have been seen in Tottenham Hale, Wood Green and Seven Sisters.