Dawn raids and detention- are they neccesary?

Under Section ---- of the ---- Act, refused asylum seekers may be liable to be forcibly removed, sometimes in the form of a dawn raid.

Dawn raids are usually unannouced, occur early in the morning and involve at least six immigration officials.

The Home Office claim they are neccesary due to the evasion of refused asylum seekers remaining in the UK illegally.

"A stranger comes into your room and tells you to pack your things"

Agnesa was fifteen in 2005 when her family were dawn raided in their council flat in Glasgow.

Listen to Agnesa recalling what she calls a "terrifying" experience:

 

While Agnesa and her family were detained for three weeks in Yarl's Wood Detention Centre, a group of her school friends were busy campaigning for her release. They are known as the 'Glasgow Girls' and continue to campaign against dawn raids and detainment of children.

The Home Office withdrew their decision to detain the Murselaj family for their imminent departure back to Kosovo, after the campaign led to a United Nations declaration that Kosovo remained an unsafe country to return to.

"The Home Office made a mistake..."

"The Home Office said they made a mistake in my case. They phoned and said that the United Nations said it was not safe enough for us to go back. They shouldn't have taken us in the first place.

"I don't think they should take children into detention centres. They look just like jails," she said.

To Agnesa's knowledge, there was no officail apology from the Home Office.

The Home Office refuse to comment on individual cases.

Dawn raids: an important part of the system?

An ex-employee of the Home Office's Immigration services who wishes to remain anonymous, insists that dawn raids are an important part of the system.

He explains why they might be conducted on the weekend: "Because a lot of people work, it is normally the case that people have the weekend off and are at home, that is, if they given the right address which is very rare."

" We have tried to give notice first: 'Right, these are your removal directions' but they fail to turn up at the airport and guess what, when we turn up at the given address, there isn’t nobody at home.

"Experience dictates that this will happen in the majority of cases," he said.

The claim that dawn raids are performed on a weekend to ensure solicitor's are not contactable is also contested: "Solicitors can be called on the telephone available at all of the detention centres," he added.

Are detention centres just like jails?

Under section --- of --- detention is stipulated to be ------

The ex-Immigration official also refutes the idea that 'detention centres are like jails' and maintains that women and children are not kept in the same place as foreign criminals.

Generally, families, he says, should only be in detention for up to one week.

He believes delays are not usually the Home Office's fault: "Where this has taken longer is when a solicitor or someone has jumped in with a reason why they should stay or the flight has been changed.

"Sometimes the asylum seekers have made themselves irremovable through their actions. For instance, they might strip down- take off all their clothes and refuse to move. Or make their child go onto hysterics or feign a sudden illness so that when it comes to removal, you cannot remove them," he said.

Listen to Leah Deial, a volunteer form Bail for Detainees (BID) about what she thinks is the difference between detention centres and prisons: