The centre ground of Irish politics lurched towards the right in the recent elections, with anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric emanating from mainstream parties. Among other tactics, the government has sought to deflect attention away from their failed policies by raising the issue of deportations. In this article, Joe Moore highlights the horrifying, often violent, and fundamentally racist nature of deportations in Ireland.
The majority of Irish people, with the exception of a miniscule number of racist bigots, celebrated Rhasidat Adeleke’s triumphs at the recent European Championships in Rome. All the talk now is about what she might achieve at the Olympics. Rhasidat is Irish. She was born in August 2002, was raised in Tallaght and worked in An Post for a while. These facts are important. If Rhasidat was born after January 1st 2005, she would almost certainly not be representing Ireland at the Paris Olympics.
Voters in the 2004 local and European elections were also asked to vote in a referendum. The Citizenship Referendum resulted in the 27th amendment being inserted into the Irish constitution. This referendum changed how citizenship was defined. In the pamphlet, Citizenship and Racism: The Case against McDowell’s Referendum, Kieran Allen pointed out:
The Irish Constitution has one progressive article. Article 2 states that:
“It is the entitlement and birthright of every person born in the island of Ireland, which includes it’s islands and seas, to be part of the Irish nation.”
It means that citizenship and the rights that go with it, are bestowed on anyone who is born here.”
As a result of passing that referendum, citizenship was now determined on jus sanguinis – citizenship based on blood,rather than on jus soli, based on soil (i.e. where people were born). In other words, a racist clause had been inserted into the constitution.
Harsh and violent
Since the 2004 referendum, Irish born children are now liable to be deported. How many Rhasidats have been deported in the past 19 years?
The Irish state has a reputation of deporting large numbers of children. Many of whom were born here, went to school here and never lived in any other country. Some were removed from school classrooms by members of the infamously racist Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB). Others were taken in the early morning when GNIB officers entered their bedrooms and gave their parents 20 minutes to pack hand luggage.
Any opposition was harshly dealt with. One particularly violent deportation took place, ironically, on World Refugee Day June 20th 2012. A Nigerian mother and her three young sons living in the Montague Direct Provision Centre were the targets. The case of the youngest boy was in the High Court and was not finalised. The mother made this point with the GNIB. She was beaten and pepper-sprayed, and taken for deportation half-naked and bare-footed. This is only one of many cases.
Family separation of this type by the state has a long history going back to the transatlantic slave trade. It was common practice to have children torn from their enslaved parents and sold to pay for debts and make gains. In 1824 the British government tried to outlaw such actions in their colonies. Two years later, the Jamaican Assembly, made up entirely of slave owners and their allies, formally passed a motion forbidding the separation of enslaved families, but left numerous loopholes, resulting in the practice of family separation continuing.
Almost two hundred years later, in 2003 the Irish Supreme Court, in the case of Lobe and Osayande, ruled in relation to the rights of migrant parents of Irish citizen children “the Minister for Justice has the right to terminate the residence in Ireland of non-national parents of Irish citizens, leading to either the breakup of the family or the constructive deportation of the child citizen” if “the common good “requires it. The ruling was delivered by Justice Susan Denham who went on to become Chief Justice.
This ruling was in relation to Irish citizen children, non-Irish citizen children have even less rights. As a direct result of the 2003 ruling, many families have been separated by deportation. Not since the days of slavery have families been forcibly separated like this. As in the days of slavery, the victims here are Black, the perpetrators white European. This writer knows six such families. In all cases the fathers/partners were taken, leaving behind the mother and children.
State violence
Activist and author Harsha Walia, states that “every deportation is an act of state violence.” Her book “Border and Rule” published in 2021, makes the case against deportations and borders.
On May 15th 2024, far-right agitator Derek Blighe stated “deportations & welfare cuts for illegitimate migrants, Everything I was called “racist, far right, nazi” for 2 years is government policy now. If I was listened to then, none of this would be needed now.”
Unfortunately, this is true. In an attempt to appease the far-right, the three government parties – Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party – are now sticking the boot into the most vulnerable cohort of people in the state – asylum seekers.
Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee, boasts in the Dáil about the number of people stopped at the border and returned to the six counties. The government also speaks about tendering for an aircraft to carry out mass deportations.
All current government parties are committed to deporting people. Every government since 2002 has carried out deportations. This includes the 2007-11 government, of which the Green Party was a member. In fact, the first deportation carried out by that government was of a five-year-old autistic boy, Great Agbonlahor. Great, together with his twin sister Melissa and his mother, Olivia, was deported within an hour of losing their judicial review in the High Court.
Dog whistle politics
What is most concerning today is the fact that the main opposition party, Sinn Féin, has also made concessions on this, no doubt, to try to win back supporters they have lost to the far-right. In an interview in the Irish Daily Mail on December 22, 2023, party leader Mary Lou, referring to Ukrainian refugees, stated that “those without key jobs should be made to apply for asylum” and “for deportations to be expedited”. In relation to asylum seekers, she said, “there is a rules-based system and this needs to be efficient”. Asked if this meant she would like to see deportations expedited, she said “yes.”
The interview was under a headline claiming that McDonald also called on the government to “Speed deportations to ease homes crisis”. And the Sinn Fein leader, stating that housing is the number one issue, went on to say of people she talks to,
“They say, well, I’m on a housing list, or my daughter or my grandchild can’t get accommodated. So how is this going to work, when more people are coming to the country?”
This is dog whistle politics at its basest. Immigrants, whether refugees or asylum seekers, are not the cause of the housing crisis. First, because refugees/asylum seekers are not housed in council or social housing – they have no impact on those waiting on the housing list. Second, the housing shortage is the result of failed neo-liberal policies implemented by all governments for the past thirty years. Houses were built for profit and not for need, and under these policies, houses became unaffordable commodities not homes.
Inhuman and Degrading
Deportation is an extremely traumatic experience for those removed and for their families, especially their children. Deportations are inhumane and degrading. People on deportation flights are continually monitored, even when they use the toilet. Doctors on deportation flights are there to sedate anybody who attempts to resist, not to offer medical assistance. People who receive deportation orders but who subsequently successfully appeal them also suffer. They experience high levels of anxiety and depression.
Somebody once described receiving a deportation order as being like standing on a chair with a noose around your neck but not knowing when the chair will be kicked.
Deportation is inhuman, and a violation of an individual’s human rights, especially the right to seek and receive protection, the right to family life and freedom of movement, it must be ended immediately.
Who lives here, belongs here.
Joe Moore is a member of People before Profit and Socialist Workers Network in Cork. He is a long-standing activist against deportations and works to uphold basic rights for the migrant community.
