Illegal Muslim Migrants in U.K. Detention Complain: No Hair Salon and Slow Wi-Fi

Decades ago, I read a story by the historian Tibor Szamuely about prisoners in a Soviet camp, laughing hysterically when they read in Pravda about Soviet solidarity with “the political prisoner” Angela Davis, then serving time in an American prison, who had complained about the quality of steak served as part of her prison fare. Their fare, of course, as Soviet prisoners, was always the same: watery soup and rotten cabbage. And none of them would have dared to complain.

I was reminded of that story when I read the recent complaint of illegal migrants, all of them women, held in detention by the U.K. government while awaiting removal from the country, that they had visits by a GP (General Practitioner) only twice a week, nor did their facility have a hair salon. What’s more, the Wi-Fi connection in the detention center was “slow.” This led British government inspectors to label the detention center “inhumane.” More on this infuriating story can be found here.

Inspectors have declared that a new migrant detention centre is ‘inhumane’ – because the wi-fi is slow and mobile signal unreliable.

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Prison watchdog the Independent Monitoring Boards (IMB) also complained that Derwentside removal centre, set in picturesque countryside in County Durham, does not have its own hair salon and a private GP visits only twice a week.

How many small towns in Britain, with populations in the thousands, also have no hair salons, and the Wi-Fi connections are maddeningly slow or intermittent, and visits to a GP need to be made months in advance, yet no one thinks of calling the conditions of their inhabitants “inhumane”?

And it said the women-only facility is a long drive from the South East, a journey that may leave illegal migrants ‘tired, disorientated or stressed’.

Oh dear. The detention center is placed far from “southeast England” – that means London – which leaves these illegal migrants “tired, disorientated, or stressed” when they visit the capital. I thought the whole point of being “detained” as an illegal immigrant was that you could not leave the detention center, and visit distant cities whenever you felt like it. I see that I was wrong.

And what would those prison watchdogs of the IMB, echoing the detainees’ complaints, and so quick to label current conditions at Derwentside “inhumane,” have the government do? Possibly buy a bunch of apartments in central London for those 19 detainees awaiting deportation, where they would have access to a GP seven days a week, the fastest and most reliable Wi-Fi connection, and of course, a hair salon. How terrible of the British government to have placed their detention center in rural, quiet, altogether delightful Derwentside.

Inspectors have advised the Home Office to ‘reconsider its suitability’ despite admitting the accommodation is good. Staff at the centre outnumber migrants almost six to one. Last year, there were 97 workers looking after 17 migrants.

Think of that: six people on staff for every one of the detained migrants, taking care of their slightest need. Ninety-seven: housekeepers, cooks, waitstaff, laundry workers, groundskeepers, therapists – all serving just 17 illegal migrans held at the Derwentside Detention Center. Can Claridge’s, or Brown’s, or the Savoy, or the Goring Hotel, offer such a ratio of staff to guests?

In its report, the IMB said: ‘We consider that the location of Derwentside, plus the inadequate communications infrastructure, is unsuitable and leads to treatment of detained women that is in some respects inhumane.

“Added to the difficulty with the physical location is the unreliable mobile phone reception.”…

Dear me. Unreliable “reception” for the detainees’ mobile phones? Would those be the same expensive iPhones that many British citizens can only dream of possessing? And isn’t “unreliable reception” a problem all over the Western world? I have frequently had to endure “unreliable reception” with my own phone – haven’t you?

The IMB went on to say that ‘once they arrive at Derwentside women are treated with respect and kindness by staff’. It added: ‘The accommodation is in good condition and is kept clean and tidy.’

Another complaint was that a GP supplied by private healthcare company Spectrum visits only twice a week, but nursing staff are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It also complained that a salon and shop had not yet opened at the 84-capacity facility, which cost £18.7 million to build and opened in November 2021.

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The centre is run by private firm Mitie on behalf of the Home Office at a cost of £100,000 a year for each detainee….

Think of the cost to the government of the care and feeding of those 19 illegal migrants as they awaited a final ruling on deportatiion. The cost to build the detention center was close to 20 million pounds. Each detainee costs British taxpayers the fantastic sum of100,000 pounds a year, or about two million pounds a year for the 19 currently being held. Why not shorten all the legal rigmarole, fast track all cases involving illegal migrants in courts devoted to nothing else, and deport them ASAP, perhaps giving each one a parting payment of 3,000 pounds to keep them from complaining. The savings would be tremendous.

IMB chairman Jane Leech MBE said: ‘Given the concerns we have highlighted about Derwentside’s location, we are asking the Immigration Minister to reconsider its suitability as an immigration removal centre. We feel that long and frequent journeys, combined with difficulties in maintaining family contact, are damaging to the women concerned.’

Jane Leech of the IMB is saying this: the detainees want to be closer to, or ideally even in, London, not just for meeting with officials about their cases, but to enjoy themselves. Derwentside is far too provincial. And those “long and frequent” journeys to London are just too taxing for the poor detainees – can’t they be placed closer to the capital? Just because they are illegal migrants in detention doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have their every desire fulfilled. As for those “difficulties in maintaining family contact,” that presumably is a reference to the quality of their telephone reception, when they try to keep in touch with their families in Pakistan, North Africa, and the Middle East.

Thank god for the IMB, doing what it must to expose the “inhumane” treatment – no hair salon, poor mobile phone reception, a GP visiting only twice a week – which these illegal migrants in distant Derwentside have been made to endure and about which, just like Angela Davis about her steaks, they deserve all our sympathy.