Even coronavirus won’t stop the Home Office from deporting people at taxpayers’ expense

The response to the Windrush scandal was unexpected and unusual. Remarkably for a story about immigrants, the newspaper coverage deliberately humanised the victims. The coverage gradually generated widespread public concern. The public outrage, in turn, produced endless crocodile tears and hand-wringing amongst the British political class. But what we are now learning about the level of deportations by the UK government at the height of the lockdown illustrates the fact that our immigration policy is as cruel and arbitrary as it has ever been.

These deportations took place at a time when there were travel bans all around the world due to the coronavirus pandemic. So, the idea that the Home Office was prepared to spend over £1m on deportation flights is extraordinary. It seems that maintaining draconian immigration practices was more important to the government than public health. The Independent understands that no coronavirus testing was undertaken for the 285 deportees on the flights. It is as if the government does not accept any responsibility for the health of the deportees.

We don’t know whether the deportees were tested at their destination and what the eventual health outcomes were. If only one deportee had coronavirus, deporting them in this way put their health at risk. In my view, the Home Office seems to have the fixed opinion that, if you are an immigration detainee, they have no responsibility for your health and wellbeing. Even if you are a convicted prisoner, the Home Office will accept nominal responsibility for your health and medical care.

It is very sad to contemplate how, over the decades, immigrants have been dehumanised in a way that makes this attitude not just possible but completely unremarkable. Tabloid news media, which will cover the health issues of celebrities and their pets in minute detail, have apparently no interest in health issues or even death if it concerns immigration detainees.

It might be comforting to think that the Tories were responsible for this state of affairs. But the truth is that successive Labour governments played their part in building a cruel, chaotic and dehumanising immigration regime. It is a relatively minor point, but Labour leaders routinely appointed immigration ministers who knew nothing about immigration. What I think they did know was that they would not advance their careers by seeking to liberalise or humanise the system. So Labour immigration ministers never seemed to challenge the system that they were in theory responsible for.

But not only did Labour governments play their part in propping up a racist and dysfunctional system. As far as I can see, it was always the firm conviction of Labour Party leaders up to and including Ed Miliband that only by being “tough” on immigration could they earn the right to be heard on other issues. Things were briefly different under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. But it remains to be seen whether Keir Starmer, anxious to appeal to so-called “red wall” voters (lost to the Tories the past election), will revert to illiberal and conservative policies on immigration of Labour in the past.

These deportations in the middle of a global pandemic are a scandal. But is a scandal that will not get the concern it deserves from the political class. So, until people realise that Windrush was not an aberration but typified the whole immigration system, events like these deportations will continue to happen.

Diane Abbott was shadow home secretary between 2016 and 2020, and is Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington

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