Immigration Bill 1999 - Racist Act to Deport
BY ROISIN DE ROSA
Just one of the supposedly 90 percent of asylum seekers that Dublin Justice
Minister John O'Donoghue' believes to be bogus, `Sophie''s application for
asylum was turned down. A D. Rothwell gave it as his opinion that he had
serious doubts as to the Somalian woman's credibility, because ``there was
an absence of detail concerning how her husband had died, and she didn't
show fear''.
Sophie came from a large Muslim family who were merchants and she married a
son of a friend and associate of her father's. They had a shop, and he was
an import-export merchant. He had trained in Uganda, where he learned
English, which he needed for business. Her husband taught her a little
English. They had four little children.
In the Somalian civil war there was terrible violence in villages, often
for no other end than robbery. Her husband was collecting goods from the
port when he was killed and his truck robbed. Sophie was left alone with
her four children. She lived in the back of the shop. One evening, with a
terrible crashing, marauders broke through the shop and came into her
house. She pushed her children out, telling them to run to safety. But she
herself couldn't get away. She was attacked, brutally raped, the house
ransacked.
When she recovered consciousness, she went to find her children. No one had
seen them. No one knew where they were. She couldn't find their bodies. She
went to her family. They too had disappeared. Perhaps all dead.
In strict Muslim families, if a woman is raped she is ostracised, often
beaten or killed. After rape she is worthless. Afraid, Sophie and a friend
managed to escape on an open-air ketch to Kenya and a refugee camp.
Terrible conditions. Sophie was very ill, unconscious for many days. People
were dying in the camp. She was continuously sick. She thought it was the
smell of the dead. There was little food, terrible mosquitoes, malaria,
diarrhoea, dysentery. Then her friend advised Sophie that her sickness was
because she was pregnant.
Sophie was pregnant from the rape. She gave birth in the camp to a
daughter, who will be six next month, a beautiful child who has cerebral
palsy. Little Aisha can't speak or move her limbs. She must be carried
everywhere.
``I wanted to die. But then my baby was born, and I knew I had to survive.''
Then her friend died. Sophie was left alone. Mohammed came into the camp.
He said that for the gold she had with her he would get her a passport and
a ticket to where she would be safe. They flew to Dublin, where Mohammed
took Sophie and Aisha to the Muslim Mosque and left them there.
Sophie got accommodation in Dun Laoghaire. She speaks with gratitude of the
people there. Aisha never slept for the first two years in Ireland and
could not swallow solid food. Last year, she had an operation and
afterwards Sophie herself could get a little sleep at night time. ``My baby
is going to school. Now I am happy. And then this: will they let me stay?
When will they let me know of my appeal I am waiting at least six months''
In the letter rejecting Sophie's application for asylum, the official found
it altogether dubious and most unusual for someone from Southern Somalia to
speak some English, a point supported by a Steve Wolfson, Senior UNHCR
Liaison Officer in Ireland, whose `expert' opinion was quoted in a letter
``that it is not common amongst South Somalians to speak English with
proficiency''.
The expert seemed not to know that Somalia was colonised by the British and
that English was the spoken language in trade, and that in any case
Sophie's submission had been copied out from a translation made by friends
from Swahili, which is Sophie's own language.
Supreme Court judgement
Sophie has not heard the result of her appeal because only last week,
Laurentiu's case finally came to the Supreme Court. Laurentiu, a Romanian,
successfully appealed a deportation order to the High Court. In the
judgement last week, the Supreme Court upheld the High Court's ruling that
his deportation was illegal because the Act derogated all powers to the
executive (the minister) without reference to any principles and policy,
which it was the role of the Oireachtas to lay down.
The 1935 Act had given complete discretion to the minister to deport
without reference to any principles or policy laid down by the legislature.
And the Court found this unconstitutional. All deportation orders made to
date under the 1935 Act have to be scrapped following this important
Supreme Court judgement. It means that the 53 deportees last year have been
deported illegally.
In most unseemly haste, however, before the 1996 Immigration Act has even
been implemented, the government, at the first whiff from the High Court
that deportations might be declared unconstitutional, introduced the
Immigration Bill 1999, which lays down some considerations for the minister
to take into account before ordering a deportation. The 1996 Act lies
dormant.
At present, the bill is in committee stage, though the government has said
that they hope to enact it before the summer. So far, the Select Committee
on Justice, Equality and Women's Rights has dealt with 8 of 72 amendments.
If the government should decide to speed up the process, then they may
impose a guillotine, which will mean that government amendments are
accepted and all the others fail, and then the minister is empowered to
send people like Sophie out of the country with 24 hours notice.
Pat Guerin of the Anti Racist Committee calls it a deportation bill, not an
immigration bill. It has been widely criticised as a monstrosity of racist
legislation. It offers scant protection to refugees. It makes no provision
in hearings of asylum seekers for interpreters, for adequate legal aid, or
for protection of human rights in what amounts to a quasi-legal hearing
without due process or procedures of law.
The bill will allow the Minister for Justice to deport before the full
appeal hearing is heard; to exclude people on grounds of national security.
The minister can base a deportation order on the character and conduct of a
refugee, evidence taken from outside of the state, from the very government
from which the refugee seeks to escape. Deportation can be on the basis of
an indictment (not proven guilt) of any (unspecified) offence. Under the
new bill, a person can be deported if ``in the opinion of the minister his
stay would not be conducive to the common good''.
FAS to `import' 10,000 workers
Last week, FAS went to a trade fair in Koln, Germany, looking to build up a
database to `import' 10,000 workers to fill vacant jobs here. One has to
presume white workers. Yet there are 7,000 asylum seekers in this country,
80% of whom, according to a recent survey, have third-level qualifications,
who have been denied the right to work and are promised only deportation.
When the people in Kerry came out to welcome the first Kosovan refugee, on
their arrival in the middle of the night at Farranfore, they showed the
spirit of the Irish of the céad míle fáilte. The irony of Minister
O'Donohue's welcome cannot be missed by the 200 Kosovans already in this
country who have been denied status, nor by all those seeking asylum, 90%
of whom O'Donohue considers to be bogus.
``It is not the people of Ireland who are racist. It is the government,''says
Sophie. The officials' so-called proof' that Sophie was ``bogus'' was that
Department officials could not understand why Sophie did not show fear or
cry at all in her interview .
``Why should I cry? We cry every day and night.''
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