Deterred or Detained?
Former Bexhill Prison Site to House Cross-Channel Arrivals
HUGH SULLIVAN
The former Category C prison of Northeye, on the western fringe of Bexhill, was one of three sites publicly identified last week by the Home Office for the future mass accommodation of asylum seekers who cross the Channel on small boats.
There were more than 45,000 such arrivals in 2022, a number which has risen exponentially over each the past four years despite a succession of government measures on both sides of the Channel intended to stem the flow. The cost of providing residential hotel accommodation for these arrivals has soared, and capacity is increasingly stretched. Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick told Parliament on 29 March that the Government had, effectively, a dual purpose in finding alternative solutions – reducing costs, but also “deterring” people from making the passage.
“This Government remains committed to meeting our legal obligations to those who would otherwise be destitute, but we are not prepared to go further,” he declared. “Accommodation for migrants should meet their essential living needs and nothing more, because we cannot risk becoming a magnet for the millions of people who are displaced and seeking better economic prospects…
“We have to suffuse our entire system with deterrence, and this must include how we house illegal migrants… So today the Government are announcing the first tranche of sites we will set up to provide basic accommodation at scale.”
Adult males only
It is understood that up to 1,200 adult males will be accommodated at Northeye. Females and minors under 18 – who have together constituted less than 20% of the small boat passengers since 2018 – will be placed elsewhere.
Responses to the plan to reopen the site for asylum seekers has been mixed.
Local MP for Battle and Bexhill, Huw Merriman, himself a junior government minister, was making further enquiries earlier this week on how they would impact on local services.
In a joint statement from Rother District Council and East Sussex County Council, a spokesperson said people in the community were likely to have “many questions” about the plans and the councils would work together “to understand and assess in more detail the impact this would have on local communities”.
Campaign groups critical
However, Mary Atkinson, of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, reacted with scorn and anger: “It beggars belief that the government is seriously considering housing people, many who have escaped awful conditions in their own countries, in a former prison.
“Robert Jenrick says that accommodation for migrants should meet their essential living needs and nothing more, but re-traumatising people who may have faced unlawful imprisonment, oppression and torture by the state by placing them in similar facilities is utterly inhumane.”
Alex Kempton, Director of Operations and Campaigns at the Refugee Buddy Project for Hastings, Rother and Wealden, struck a similar note:
“We are very disappointed by the Government announcement that it plans to use the Northeye site in Bexhill to house up to 1,200 people seeking refuge. We have been campaigning for months about the poor treatment of people kept in detention hotels both in Hastings and across the country, and this plan to use poor quality mass accommodation sites will only exacerbate the issue. People seeking refuge deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, and to be housed in community accommodation where they can live alongside their neighbours. Isolating and segregating people in this type of camp is horrific, and we will campaign with our partners and volunteers in Bexhill to stop this camp from opening.”
Home Office dilemma
There’s a basic dilemma for Mr Jenrick and the Home Office in meeting these objections. On the one hand, he maintains that the facilities being offered meet the requisite minimum standards.
“The sites will house asylum seekers in former barracks and modular accommodation in an orderly manner with healthcare provision in place, catering facilities on site and 24/7 security”, he told Parliament.
“Not only are these sites more affordable for taxpayers than hotels, but they are more manageable and orderly for communities and offer significant employment opportunities in the broader area.
“We will work closely with local authorities and key partners to manage the impacts of using these sites, including liaising with local police to make sure appropriate arrangements are in place.
“This approach also brings the UK in line with European partners, including Germany and Greece, who also successfully use military sites.”
Less deterrence, more detention?
On the other hand, for people desperate enough to make the dangerous Channel crossing after spending a winter or longer in a makeshift shelter in the Pas du Calais, reliance on a concept of “deterrence” seems at best unrealistic, and arguably disingenuous.
The more pressing question is what happens if, or when, the government’s Illegal Migration Bill, currently working through Parliament, is enacted and put into effect. The express aim of this legislation is to remove the right of anyone entering the country “irregularly”, including those making the passage by small boat, to make an asylum claim here, and to give the Home Secretary power to detain and then deport those that have thus barred themselves.
Detention is one thing; deportation another – there is no current prospect of finding a country, apart from Albania, willing to accept any significant number of such deportees from the UK (even the legally controversial scheme of transportation to Rwanda has never been envisaged as a large-scale system – it’s really another of the Home Office’s “deterrence” notions, with no evidence of effect on significant numbers). So it’s likely that tens of thousands of people will continue to arrive in the country by small boat, be detained and be declared inadmissible for asylum in the UK, but with little prospect of removal from the country.
Hitherto, the majority of these small boat passengers have eventually succeeded with asylum claims, giving them the right to work and to integrate into the social and economic life of the country. What’s the end game now?
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