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The Home Office deported 13 men to Jamaica on a controversial charter flight that departed in the early hours of Wednesday morning, but a significant number of other offenders were granted a last-minute clemency following a legal challenge.
Documents filed in high court by the Interior Ministry indicated that it intended to remove up to 50 Jamaican citizens, but only a fraction of that number boarded the flight, according to ministry sources.
Home Office Immigration Compliance Minister Chris Philp said the flight had removed 13 “serious foreign criminals” from the UK. Several others who were supposed to be on board are said to have received clemency after the ministry acknowledged that they may have been victims of modern day slavery.
Mass deportation became a high-profile issue after a series of campaigns that included one of 82 black public figures, including author Bernardine Evaristo, model Naomi Campbell, and historian David Olusoga, who urged airlines not to operate the Interior Ministry flight.
Several NGOs, dozens of lawyers and attorneys, including 11 QCs, signed a letter saying that the deportation flight was illegal, unfair and racist. More than 60 MPs and colleagues signed a letter to Home Secretary Priti Patel calling for the flight to be canceled, and a petition from BARAC UK and BAME Lawyers for Justice attracted more than 180,000 signatures.
In the days leading up to the flight, a series of legal challenges began, many of which were successful.
Charter flights to Jamaica are particularly controversial because of the Windrush scandal and because some people destined for deportation came to the UK as children or have lived in the country for decades with established families.
A final legal attempt by two children to avoid the deportation of many of those who were supposed to be on the flight failed. The two brothers brought the case on behalf of their father, arguing that the Interior Ministry had not adequately assessed the best interests of the children whose parents it sought to deport.
The children hoped to obtain a court order preventing the flight from leaving until an assessment had been made in the cases of all children about to be separated from their parents. Your request was unsuccessful but the case will continue.
The Guardian saw a letter and a drawing of a 10-year-old boy addressed to a judge who was waiting for him to take his father off the flight. The boy wrote: “People are making decisions about my dad. When they grew up they probably had a father. The decisions they make mean that I won’t have a dad with me. ”
No one who arrived in the UK under the age of 12 was put on the flight, after the Home Office and Jamaican authorities quietly agreed to an agreement not to remove people who arrived as children, according to Jamaica’s high commissioner. , Seth Ramocan. Documents seen by The Guardian have confirmed the arrangement.
Bella Sankey, Director of Detention Action, said: “This cowboy operation was stopped in its tracks by judges who stepped in to defend those whose lives are at risk in Jamaica. But the tragedy of this story is the many devastated children who have been forcibly ripped from their lives by a loving father without consultation or without being able to make his voice heard. This is plain and simple child cruelty and it will not stand. “
Karen Doyle of the Movement for Justice said: “While there are many families who have been desperately relieved this morning, there are also many children who have just lost their father before Christmas at a time of pandemic when the mental health of the children are already suffering. “
The Interior Ministry has been contacted for comment.
