JAMAICAN CHARTER FLIGHT: HELP PEOPLE FORCIBLY REMOVED ON THE JAMAICA CHARTER FLIGHT 07/09 APPEAL THEIR HUMAN RIGHTS/ASYLUM REFUSAL AND REMOVAL

Roots to Return, an organisation set up to support people pursuing extremely complex and overwhelmingly unsuccessful "out-of-country" appeals after deportation, is calling on people to donate to raise enough money for the 42 people deported on the charter flight to Jamaica 07/09 to pay £140 each to lodge their appeal before October 5th (the 28-day limit). The Home Office's 'Deport Now, Appeal Later' policy is unjust; raising money in this way is unsustainable and shouldn't be resorted to, but these unjust policies mean that people's only hope to lodge and prepare appeals and have their human rights arguments heard.

If you or someone you know has been deported and want to pursue your “right” to an out-of-country appeal, or would like to know more, you can contact Roots to Return at:rootstoreturn@gmail.com . We are also looking to make connections with people with legal knowledge and volunteers in the UK & receiving countries such as Jamaica, Nigeria, and Pakistan – get in touch if this is something you may be interested in getting involved with. We also call upon lawyers to take on these cases and apply for legal aid as is supposedly possible to pursue an out-of-country appeal.

**To keep up to date with deportees' appeals and the Jamaican charter flight sign up to the Roots to Return mailing list: send an email to rootstoreturn@gmail.com with the heading 'SUBSCRIBE' or subscribe via the link on our website.**

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As has been widely reported, the UK Home Office scheduled a mass deportation charter flight for Jamaica departing 7th September 2016, forcibly removing individuals 4,500 miles from their children and families in the UK – the first to do so since 2014. One message on Facebook from a partner of someone deported said: “My partner was on that plane this morning, he had access to a phone, i heard screaming crying.one young man shouting murderers all of u, over and over again shouting he was british. my partner described people being strapped to chairs by there head and body unable to move...”

The Unity Centre has been in contact with over 50 individuals issued with tickets for the charter flight, all who had arrived to the UK as a child: went through the UK education system and built communities in the UK, often unable to save up enough money to pay the expensive fees for obtaining British citizenship. Every individual they spoke to but one has children in the UK; the Home Office assert that people forcibly removed are able to maintain strong relationships with their children and grandchildren via “modern methods” such as Skype.

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Many on the charter flight were issued with the “right” to appeal after being deported to Jamaica. Home Office guidance states: “When a person brings or continues an appeal relating to a protection claim from outside the UK…the appeal is to be treated as if the person were not outside the UK.” As members of Roots to Return, with many years of experience supporting individuals facing deportation and witnessing the beginning of the ‘Deport Now, Appeal Later’ policy, we can state that in no way can an out-of-country appeal be considered and treated as though the person was appealing from within the UK.

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One example of this is the way in which out-of-country appeals are conducted through video-link through the receiving country’s embassy; Roots to Return has heard from individuals who are unable to appeal through this due to wishing to avoid the country’s embassy as they are themselves in hiding, whilst lawyers and groups such as The Aire Centre in the UK have already recorded the difficultly of participating in an appeal in court via video-link.

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Once removed, people often find themselves destitute, with little or no money, job prospects – and a complete lack of connections or resources to be able to pursue an out-of-country appeal, which requires a UK based lawyer or representative, £140 to lodge an appeal claim within the 28-day limit, and access to evidences supporting a human rights claim – which, if it is family-based, resides in the UK – and thus evidence cannot be gathered by the individual in the country they are removed to. The majority of lawyers we spoke to across the UK made it clear that they had little capacity to take on appeals from outside of the UK, noting the clear complications when compared to in-country appeals and legal representation; the ones that had capacity charged at least £2500 and were reluctant to apply for exceptional legal funding for a client outside of the UK.

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This is clear too from The Unity Centre’s experiences supporting individuals pursuing out-of-country appeals. One man from Bangladesh attempted to pursue an out-of-country appeal; upon being forcibly removed, he found himself street homeless and severely ill – meaning that he was unable to even afford enough phone credit to contact a lawyer in the UK – let alone pay the £140 fee to lodge an appeal. Roots to Return experienced how another man, forcibly removed to Nigeria, was unable to pursue an out-of-country appeal due to the fact that he was in hiding from state officials he previously fled from to the UK; finding it too dangerous to even use a phone, he was forced to communicate with us through his mother, whose health was rapidly decreasing due to the stressfulness of the situation.

Both Roots to Return and The Unity Centre are unaware of a single instance in which someone has been successful in appealing from outside of the UK, with appeals taking up to 18 months to be heard. The success rate for appeals was just 13% in the year up to August 2015. However, in the year to April 2013, before ‘Deport first, Appeal later’, the success rate was double at 26% - demonstrating the alarming levels of poor Home Office decision-making that are overturned by the court afterwards. This suggests that appellants are much less likely to succeed on appeal once they are removed from the UK, despite the fact that there is no evidence to suggest that the basis of the appeals brought would have materially changed or that their cases would be weaker than those brought previously from within the UK.

Rather, the explicit process and procedure of an out-of-country appeal creates the conditions for appeals from outside of the country to be unsuccessful – let alone be lodged in the first place, with from July 2014 to August 2015 only 426 (25%) appealing against their deportation, a marked drop from the 2,329 who appealed in the previous year (to April 2013) – thus severely damaging the role of appeals as a vital part of accessing justice in the UK.

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Roots to Return has been set up to support individuals pursuing out-of-country appeals, whilst monitoring and documenting the ways in which the UK’s obligations to the Refugee Convention may be breached, by identifying factors that ensure that individuals are unable to access the resources or support to substantially appeal from outside of the UK. We do not seek to support or fill in for the Home Office; we directly oppose their racist and unjust policies, and aim only to help individuals challenge these policies and return to the UK – not make deportations more bearable.

We have an online handbook to support those navigating the complex and largely unknown out-of-country appeals system, which can be found on our website. We support with identified barriers such as access to legal representation, video-link from the country of removal, organising witnesses, liaising with families and legal representatives in the UK, and submitting and preparing documents within the time limit.