An Asylum Seeker Was Deported to London Days Before It Went Into Lockdown

A Sudanese man who had been seeking asylum in Ireland was deported to London just days before the UK capital went into the highest levels of COVID-related restrictions.

The man, who is in his twenties, was deported last Thursday despite Irish government assurances to halt such removals during the pandemic. Due to travel restrictions currently in place, he is unable to return.

He is also now homeless and without support as London shuts down under Tier 4 lockdown restrictions, in the face of a new, rapidly-spreading mutant strain of the coronavirus.

His supporters in Ireland say the man, whose name is being withheld due to his ongoing asylum claim, is in ill health, suffering from a liver infection and hepatitis B. He had medical treatment in Ireland scheduled for March.

Louise O'Reilly TD, a Sinn Féin politician representing Dublin Fingal constituency raised the case in Ireland’s parliament last week. She told VICE World News that the deportation was “cruel”, and that she is “gravely concerned about his health and wellbeing.”

“He is in London now, he is homeless. He was sent from this state to a city which has a much, much higher rate of COVID, into a place where the services are already severely restricted,” she said. “It must be terrifying for him.”

While he was deported to England days before London went into Tier 4 lockdown, his supporters have flagged that the new COVID strain had already been identified, and cases were rising in London. UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock spoke of a new strain in the South of England and the need to raise London up a Tier a few days before the man was deported.

The Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin had made a statement on the 9th of December saying that deportations would be paused during the pandemic. “As far as I can see he made the commitment and then he broke it a few days later, when the young man was deported to London,” O'Reilly said.

However, while the Irish government has said that deportations have been paused, it later clarified that “transfers” – which it claims are different to deportations – of asylum seekers to other EU states had been continuing.

The Irish Department of Justice told VICE World News that a total of seven “transfers” have taken place since March, almost all to the UK.

Ireland has currently banned travel from Britain due to the new COVID variant, but repatriation flights are being allowed on compassionate grounds. O’Reilly said the young Sudanese man should be allowed to return to Ireland, where he has support. 

Migrant rights groups received distressed messages from the Sudanese asylum seeker last week when he said he had been taken to Dublin airport.

In messages he sent to a group and later posted online, he says he was “about to be deported to Sudan. Please help me, if I go back to Sudan that is the end".

Fingal Communities Against Racism (FRAC), a campaign group that has been highlighting his case, said it was out of contact with him for over 48 hours, during which time they believed he may have been in Sudan.

He finally made contact with the group on Saturday – he was in London, homeless and vulnerable.

FRAC says it has been frantically trying to arrange any support, but many charities are at capacity, closed over Christmas, or facing new restrictions since London went into Tier 4, the highest level of coronavirus restrictions in England. Hosting groups say they are unable to make new placements for guests in Tier 4 or lockdown areas.

“He has extremely bad health,” said Lucy Michael, a member of FRAC who has been trying to help the Sudanese man. “We don’t know exactly where he is sleeping now,” she told VICE World News.

Michael said his removal to London at this time was “so deeply unjust, in picking people up after the services have already started to close at Christmas, in the middle of the pandemic, to put somebody at the epicentre of a new aggressive strain of the virus at the highest level of lockdown, where they have no family, no friends, no support.”

The situation is especially bleak: Under new powers that came into force in December in the UK, rough sleeping is grounds to deport non-UK nationals. UK detention centres, including in London, have been dealing with COVID outbreaks.

The Sudanese man had been seeking asylum in Ireland and had been living in Bray, outside of Dublin, for two years. The Irish government told him they planned to move him back to the UK, where he had previously claimed asylum, at the start of 2019 - but since then there had been no movement.

While the timing of his deportation has made it difficult to secure any support in London, it also makes things difficult in Ireland, his supporters say. The Irish courts closed on Monday, many solicitors are on leave, and parliament is in recess.

“Both the Taoiseach & Minister [of Justice] have acknowledged that deportations should not be taking place during a pandemic except in exceptional circumstances,” Alice-Mary Higgins, an independent Irish Senator who introduced a Bill to put a moratorium on deportations for the duration of the pandemic earlier this month, told VICE World News.

“It was therefore very disappointing to hear reports of what might have been a removal under Dublin 3 rules last week”, she said, referring to what are known as “Dublin regulations,” a system whereby one EU member state can deport and asylum seeker to another state if the person had previously claim asylum or been in the state.

“My office has also heard of some others who had received letters indicating they might be subject to imminent removal to the UK under Dublin 3. We have contacted the Minister to express our hope and expectation, that, particularly in light of the rapidly deteriorating public health situation in the UK, no further such removals will take place this year.”

However, the UK’s participation in that system is due to end at the end of the Brexit transition period on 31st December. The UK has been accused of rushing to deport asylum seekers to other EU countries in recent months. Politicians questioned on Friday whether Ireland was doing the same, with one saying it was “particularly cold and callous that it would happen during Christmas week”.

Deportations during the pandemic has been a live issue. The situation received international attention in November, when CNN ran an article on undocumented health workers facing deportation. Many asylum seekers and undocumented migrants work in essential services in Ireland, including around 160 in the health services.

"The Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland is appalled by the cruelty of issuing over 400 deportation orders in the middle of a pandemic. Some of the people affected by this have risked their own lives working in essential services during lockdown,” Bulelani Mfaco, a representative of the Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland (MASI) told VICE World News. Mfaco called on Ireland’s Minister for Justice to revoke the deportation orders.

While the Irish government has issued over 450 deportation notices since July, there has been a commitment to pause on deportations actually being enforced. Only four people have been deported since the pandemic, of which three had been issued before March, the government said. The Irish Minister of Justice Helen McEntee said earlier this month that this low number “reflects the discretionary approach” her department was taking.

However, while the Irish government has said that deportations have been paused, it later clarified that “transfers” to  other EU states had been continuing.

A spokesperson for the Irish Department of Justice told VICE World News that one “transfer” to the UK under EU rules had taken place this month, bringing the total to seven since March, but that “There are no further transfers to any country planned under the EU Dublin III Regulation for the remainder of 2020.”

They stressed these are not deportations.

“The EU Dublin III Regulation involves the transfer of the applicant to the responsible European country to have their international protection claim examined there. No deportation order is made in these cases and the person is not returned to their country of origin,” they said.