The directors of the cookie company, Beverly and Carl Scheib, protested that they had thoroughly screened job applicants. “We have carried out all the checks we could do,” said Carl Scheib to the local Esher News and Mail. The raid was “an excellent example of the work the immigration service does every day to tackle illegal working, and demonstrates the government commitment to dealing with the issue,” said Home Office minister Fiona MacTaggart. The immigration cops brought along newspaper and BBC television reporters to cover it. Shots of workers being taken away have been repeatedly used on national television to illustrate immigration stories.  
 
Attacks on rights of asylum seekers
At the same time, two immigrant workers—convicted and sentenced to four years in prison for their role in a rebellion at a jail for immigrants awaiting deportation—are appealing their convictions. Henry Momodou and Behar Limani are two asylum seekers who were convicted of “violent disorder” for allegedly leading a rebellion last year at the Yarl’s Wood detention center in Bedfordshire. They argue that their sentences should be ruled invalid because two members of their trial jury expressed hostility toward immigrants during the trial.

Three national newspapers—the Observer, Guardian, and Times—have applied for the lifting of a court order banning the reporting of the incident, in which a member of the jury informed the judge that fellow-jurors said that asylum-seekers come to this country to take state benefits and “our” jobs.

The two defendants cite this jury bias in appealing their convictions. Momodou, who has a wife in this country, arrived in the United Kingdom in the mid-1980s. Immigration officials seized him on his return from a funeral in his native Nigeria.

The trial of the men exposed the abysmal treatment of immigrants held in the so-called detention centers. Agron Kastrioti, one of nine defendants acquitted in the case, said that he had been in five young offenders institutions since his arrival. As he left the courtroom, immigration officers pounced, putting him in a police cell for five days. From there he was sent to a high security prison in Milton Keynes. After being finally granted bail, Kastrioti said that he would continue his legal fight to stay.  
 
Potential witnesses are ‘lost’
A number of potential witnesses were deported or “lost” in the system during the trial. One called by Limani’s defense team was deported back to the Ukraine. Despite the judge’s protests, he was denied entry back into Britain to take the stand.

The Yarl’s Wood rebellion in February of last year, three months after its opening, highlighted the draconian immigration policies of the Labour Party government of Prime Minister Anthony Blair. Built to hold 900 refugees, it was the largest immigration jail in Europe. Fire reduced half the facility to ruin during the outbreak. A Channel 4 news investigation reported that the center had neither safety procedures nor working fire protection.

The 2002 Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act provided the rulers with new legal weapons in the drive to criminalize asylum seekers and other immigrants. For example, a section of the law states that applicants will be denied help if they do not immediately file their claim for asylum. Although most do so within a few days of arrival, a significant number hold off through ignorance of the procedures or fear of the consequences of reporting to immigration officials.

Since they cannot legally work while their claim is being considered, these immigrants are dependent on the meager government aid and face destitution if it is refused. Benefits for the average recipient, including the elderly and disabled, total £36.54 a week (£1=US$1.58). Pregnant women get a maternity grant that is £200 less than a UK resident.

The impact of the new law’s restrictions was underlined August 8 when 28 refugees from Africa, who had been refused benefits, set up a makeshift refugee camp on the streets of Brixton, South London. Charities and local residents offered them food, water, blankets, and cash. Four were hospitalized with dehydration. The camp was erected outside the offices of the Refugee Council, the main organization dealing with refugees. Officials said they were powerless to help under the new law. A spokesperson for the government’s Home Office told the local paper, “We believe denying state support to asylum applicants who do not claim asylum as soon as possible is a valuable part of a package of measures which has already helped us to reduce asylum applications.”  
 
Conditions in immigration jail
A deportation in Scotland highlighted another aspect of the law, which states that families with children can be imprisoned indefinitely. Kurdish immigrant Yurdugal Ay and her four children were shipped to Germany after losing a four-year legal battle for asylum. The eldest child, Beriwan, told reporters that she was terrified German officials would send them on to Turkey where their father Salih had disappeared after being deported last year. None of the children have lived in Turkey or speak Turkish.

The five had been incarcerated for more than a year at the notorious Dungavel detention center in Lanarkshire. The chief inspector of prisons, Anne Owers reported August 15 that this immigration jail held 18 children at the time of her inspection. They were locked into a 62-bed family unit with limited access to outdoor play areas and education.

The jail is run on behalf of the Home Office by Premier Detention Services, a private company. A spokesperson complained that the media had portrayed the place as “some sort of Guantánamo Bay or concentration camp.” Aamer Anwar, the Ay family’s lawyer, commented, “The government has known for the last two years that they are in breach of international law. Their treatment of children is barbaric.”

At present some 790 asylum seekers are locked up in the United Kingdom. Last year 13,335 were forcibly removed from the country, the highest total on record. Of the 85,865 asylum applications, only 10 percent were granted, while 66 percent were refused outright. The government has announced plans for three new large-scale jails for immigrants. They will be built in rural areas and will hold 750 beds each.

Under a blueprint drawn up by European Union officials, failed asylum seekers in Europe can be deported from the continent by bus, train, plane, or unmarked police car. The “escort” proposal “reflects an increasing determination among EU governments to step up the pace of deportations,” reported the August 8 Guardian. The officials also plan to set up an EU-wide annual quota for the number of successful applications for asylum.

Meanwhile, Militant reporters who went to the Cookie Man factory gate to talk to workers about the August 11 raid encountered interest in a September 7 meeting in London featuring Róger Calero, who recently defeated the U.S. immigration authorities’ attempt to deport him from the United States (see report of the event in this issue). While we were there, factory director Carl Scheib came out and stated that the raid a week earlier was “dead news.” He didn’t say if he was claiming to speak for the 100 workers who have suffered, or face, deportation.  
 
 
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