A new immigration removal centre will be opened today (Wednesday) - just 24 hours after a protest erupted outside another centre on the same site.
Brook House, near Gatwick Airport, will be the largest of the UK Border Agency’s network of secure facilities built to detain illegal immigrants before deportation - with the capacity to hold at least 426 men.
Security at the centre is equivalent to that of a Category B prison - one level below maximum security - and designed to be “very difficult” for detainees to escape.
It was due to be opened today by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, according to information placed on the UK Border Agency’s website yesterday.
Expanding the number of removal centres is said to be a “critical part” of the Agency’s plans to increase the rate of removal of failed asylum seekers and illegal immigrants, and to allow the fast removal of those who come to the UK and “break the rules”.
But Brook House has also sparked opposition, with hundreds marching in protest at the Government’s plans to build the facility in 2007, and arguing that such centres are “brutal and dehumanising”.
The House is situated close to the existing immigration removal centre at Tinsley House, which holds up to 146 men, women and children, and was yesterday the site of fresh protests against moves to deport Iraqi refugees.
A group of protesters chained and superglued themselves to the gates of the centre, where the Kurdish Iraqi deportees were being held.
They said a special deportation charter flight was scheduled to leave Stansted Airport to Northern Iraq, the latest in a series of similar flights in recent months.
One of the deportees said: “I’ve been in the UK for nine years. I have a partner and an 18-month-old son. If I am deported, all this will be gone. I’ve made a life for myself here, living as everyone else does in this country, but I’m now being treated like I'm a criminal, imprisoned then deported.”
Protester Brian Arcola said: “Charter flights like this are the latest step in the Government’s macabre immigration policy. Aside from the ethical implications of handcuffing and deporting innocent people under the threat of the baton, by not telling them when they’re going to be deported, they deprive many people from adequate legal representation.
“If there’s to be any truth in the claim that Britain is a tolerant, fair country, this has got to be stopped.”
Sussex Police, who were called to the protest, said yesterday: “Around 15 protesters are staging a demonstration over the deportation of some Iraqi detainees from Tinsley House immigration removal centre at Gatwick Airport. Sussex Police are dealing with the situation.”
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