Deportation Death Coverup

Last week asylum seeker Jimmy Mubenga died while being deported from the United Kingdom and flown back to Angola.

Upon boarding an October 12 British Airways flight in the custody of G4S, a private security group which has a contract with the UK government to escort deportees out of the country, Mubenga's guards restrained him in a manner so brutal that according to several witnesses they appear to have suffocated him.

To make matters worse, the UK Home Office and G4S shamefully tried to obfuscate the cause of Mubenga's death, claiming that he became ill while on the flight.  One witness found this lie so outrageous that he contacted the Guardian, giving the newspaper his account of three physically imposing security guards holding Mubenga down as he called for help and said he could not breath.

It is imperative that Mubenga's death be investigated and those responsible for it held accountable. It is just as important to understand that immigrants suffer abuse at the hands of those charged with their well-being every day all over the world.  In the UK, groups like the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture and Medical Justice have issued damning reports on excessive force used against deportees, and the inhumane treatment endured by many detained immigrants in Britain.  In the United States, Human Rights Watch, the Massachusetts ACLU and Just Detention International have documented widespread abuse against detained immigrants.

These reports are a chorus of horrors:  Sexual abuse, beatings, failure to provide medical care, transfer of detainees to remote facilities as punishment for complaining, deprivation of basic necessities, indefinite detention, denial of due process rights and a seemingly endless list of injuries sustained at the hands of security guards while in detention or in the process of deportation.  They tell us two things:  First, that Jimmy Mubenga is one of many, and second, that our immigration systems are in desperate need of reform.

This tragic case also underscores the dangers of contracting private security firms to care for vulnerable people like those in immigration detention facilities and those awaiting deportation. Governments must cancel all contracts with private security groups that provide guards for immigration detention facilities and the deportation process. There are far too many reports of abuse to permit this system to continue and government oversight of these guards is imperative.  All reports of abuse must be investigated and, if substantiated, measures to compensate the victim and punish the abuser must follow.

Photo credit: JD Mack / Flickr