| Comment | If these people had committed any actual crimes, then this wouldn't be immigration officers, it would be dealt with by the police in the same manner as any other crime.
So they will be being 'removed' to a detention centre because their asylum claim has been denied.
The issue is, essentially, that doing this via dawn raids is disproportionate and dehumanising, and massively disruptive to the communities who have been housing asylum claimants as their neighbours. This is all theatre as part of the UK's 'Hostile Environment' policy, it's entirely unnecessary from a practical point of view and exists only to win votes with a certain part of the electorate. Registered asylum seekers going to ground is not a problem here, and even if it were these folk would not still be at their registered address, they'd be long gone by now.
There's also a broader civil liberties issue here. What the Home Office can legally do today to asylum seekers who have committed no crimes, they might be able to do to you or I tomorrow. Accepting the practice of government vans swooping in to residential areas to forcefully remove people is one end of a very, very long wedge. |
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