The Role Of Covid-19 And Brexit In Changing Dynamics In The Selection Of Migrants In Detention In Northern Ireland: A Call For An Abolitionist Politics Presented by: Mrs. Degenhardt Date: 15 November 2022 The 'Crim Migrant Other' In A New Border Area - Form of penal power beyond the state: bordered penalty (Bosworth, Franko) - Katja Franko 'Crim migrant other' - as the border of society - which translated issues of global inequalities- supported by the regulatory regime of citizenship- into issues of moral worth and public order - Focus on the local: penal practices change character in different context (van der Woude et al, 2017; Melossi) - Q: #how does this process work in Northern Ireland- by looking at the people who are detained in the only detention center in this land at the time of Brexit? - Q: # and during Covid-19 as a syndetic (Horton, 2020) Reveals the strategic focus of the system? Situating Immigration Detention In Northern Ireland - Contested state/Traces of Colonial History: More than one sense of belonging/ British or Irish passports, or both + growing population who do not identify as either - Peculiar geo-political position as result of Brexit-outside Europe (yet still inside) - Border question is back!- revitalized CTA (free movement for Irish and British) cooperation between the two states- special relations - Larne is a STHF - What happens during the COVID-19 Syndemic? - Who are the people detained in immigration centers? Covid-19 in the UK: - Flexibility' of the system (Bosworth, 2020) - Covid-19: UK selective decarcerating (700 people by June) - Small boats arrivals - Re-organization of detention facilities - barracks, use of STHF, hardened situation - Asylum seekers in hotels or precarious accommodations What Happens To Those Who Are Released In The UK? (Brief Study In July 2020) - "Our initial thought was 'Yay they're going to be released, great!' But actually, they're more vulnerable now than they were in the center because they were released very quickly and not necessarily with anywhere secure or safe to go." - "What I have never fully appreciated was, if you live on the fringes of society, you are invisible. To get a GP, to get a bank account in particular in the time of Covid, it seems trivial but I had no idea ... in the shops now they do not want cash. The person I support does not have a bank account so can only use cash, which limits the shops to go to." - "We've very quickly realized that we really needed to help people who'd been released to get access to what they needed, whether it was food, clothes, accommodation, signposting to organizations that could help them... it became massive... it became something that was even more important than what we had been doing before, which was generally just emotional support." - Decarcerating as Protection? Vulnerability, invisibility, fear, lack of support Who Is Not Released In The UK? - People whose release is judged as dangerous for the "public good" are not released - People with criminal sentence (97%) - What happens to those who are not released? • "it's more difficult to make contact with people who are in the center." • "A number of people who have been granted bail but can't be released because their bail address isn't deemed to be acceptable." Those Inside - "There is real frustration about things being slower... not being able to get in touch with lawyers...to determine whether bail addresses are appropriate" - "Those inside are afraid of the virus spreading in detention centers and they are living with a degree of anxiety: they have very little control." - "There's been a lot of people I've spoken to who've been very down and quite suicidal, which ties in with this kind of perpetual waiting, with being in a cycle with bail in principle been granted then after a couple of weeks it runs out." - Sense of Abandonment - Lack of care- Information- Mental Health- People entering detention in UK - General decrease since 2015 Dramatic decrease in 2020- now back to 2019 levels: 24,004 entered immigration Detention in 2022 - During covid-19: most entries were from small boats - General trend in decrease effectiveness but militarization/harshness Type of Return: - - General Decrease In returns (FNOS) • Enforced return (+) • Voluntary Return (-) • Port Return (+ 12%) Change in mode of bordering- access passengers documents COVID-19 Highlights Continuum With Previous Practices: - General trend in decrease in detention, containing through port returns, returns mostly for FNOS- - Practices of invisibility, abandonment and increase vulnerability for those in detention- and decarcerated - Immigration control is tightly linked to criminal justice control (Bosworth, Franko) - Secretariat logics underpinning the system (Campesi & Fabini; Brandariz) What Happens In The Republic Of Ireland? - Detention place in Dublin airport: no available data (FOI rejected)- - People detained in Prisons - People contained in Direct Provision: effectively in detention Common Travel Area agreement (CTA) an the rot of Empire that remains? - Franko (2020) Hard on the outside? Soft on the Inside? • Different degrees of 'Outsider Ness' in British Empire- race a big component • Currently different degrees of Whiteness- EU- West and East • Different ways of bordering inside- to keep subordinate position- extracting labor - CTA effectively legislation allowing freedom of movement in this aera- pre-dates EU law • Joined statement & Memorandum of Understanding (2019) on IRE&UK -resume CTA -UK and El citizens can travel freely • Reciprocal rights- framework of cooperation-rights to move, to reside, to work, to education, to health care, to social protection, social housing, voting. • - Linked to Immigration Act (1971) 1971 Act- 'Britishness as partiality as whiteness' (El Enany, 2020)- 1981 citizenship and internal bordering of alien culture-as post-colonial Britain- Who is the Crim migrant other at the new EU border in the North of Ireland? - Who is in detention? - Result of processes of selection -reveals the function of the system - "Crim migrant emerges as a result of specific focus of police suspicion and attention" (Franko, 2020: 97) What happens in NI, and in Larne Detention Centre? - Short-term holding facility (STHF): small - run by private contractor Care and Custody (Mitie) -follows the ethics of care in detention (see Canning, 2018) but also possible allies (Bosworth, 2021)? People under immigration power in Prison - From March 2020- March 2022 (FOIs): • 132 (9 females) detained under immigration power & 74 were deported (52%) - all FNO • Extra time in prison: 1 person over 4 months (135 days), 3 people over 50 days, 1 over 40 days, 10 people over 30 days, and 13 over 20 days, many more over 10 days or less - HARM due to Lack of knowledge of release: disregard for people's rights Ancillary role of im-det to prisons- Harshness of the system- People At Risk Of Poverty Or Social Exclusion In The EU Member States - Criminalization is directed at sanctioning inequality as a moral issue (Franko, 2020) - Now focus is on Romanian (M+F) - yet females is color of the skin that is problematic: color of the nation? - Criminalization works as disciplining technique for those who are escaping current lines of exploitation at global level ? Recap: Patterns of criminalization in NI - Before Brexit: the relevance of the color of the skin: male and female from Africa were mostly detained - After Brexit: the relevance of gender--geo-politics and skin color- Easter EU males, and mostly females of color were detained- - During Covid-19, the relevance of geo-politics: the main nationality is constituted by Romanians (males and females)- possibly FNOs- due to lack of travel - As Franko argues 'the 'Crim migrant other' in NI in influenced by the geopolitical position- it signals a break with EU and Eastern Europe in particular, for females it shows relevance of color and the East - Yet, the banishment may no longer be primarily linked to CJ- but more traditional forms of bordering Tentative Remarks: Brexit & Covid-19 Syndrome - Harsher treatment of migrants in detention- enhanced the role of prison- both first detention, and extra detention as added to sentence, decrease level of support, both legal and welfare - Relevance of geo-politics: East/West distinction within the EU context--Focus on Romanians as the Crim migrant others- produced as the border, linked to issue of 'moral worth'- as bad- their citizenship renders them Alien within this part of the world- an issue of global inequality translated into a moral issue - Emergence of forms of banishment more traditional: port return? - Relevance of Gender: female bodies of color more problematic than others - Empire legacy: whiteness as belonging, and different degrees of 'outsider Ness' - Need to look at the cross-border element of the analysis- migration in relation to different countries of mobility