Cardiff Zimbabwean Activist Speaks Out

Finally, a bold step is taken by Mr Brown, as it would seem, but lets pick up on the obvious: Halting deportations to Zimbabwe. What about those in detention? What does that mean for them? Nothing at all.

What does it mean for a suffering Asylum seeker? It means continue suffering while we try to get you back to Zimbabwe to a life you escaped 10 years ago. 10 years that you will never get back, to a home that is now foreign to you.

Basically, Mr Brown is not going to do anything positive for the Asylum seekers, the exit route has already been mapped out, keep them in Limbo, as long as it takes, until we can send then back.

But Mr Brown picks out the positives in all this. Failed asylum seekers get accommodation and shopping vouchers to keep them from being destitute. Some of the accommodation I have seen would not be suitable for a dead dog and this accommodation is not pro families. If you were single when you applied no consideration is made when you now have a family, thus you are forced to stay at a specified address while your family stays else where; with most abandoning the accommodation because partners can be forced to live in different cities. No one cares to address the family issue.

As for the shopping vouchers, let's see what one can do with £35 per week: buy food, clothes and all you need with just £140 per month? Because the shopping voucher is used in very specific shops and you have no actual money for local travel, all those asylum seekers walk because they can't afford to catch the bus. Imagine braving the cold and rainy weather on foot, well we are African so we must be accustomed to suffering even in places where things are meant to be easier.

The LEFT Alternative fights for unity between all workers - legal or 'illegal', migrant or 'native', locally and internationally. We support ALL anti-deportation campaigns.

Immigrant Workers - More State Harrasment

Immigration officers in late-night raid on restaurant
Nov 29 2007 by David James, South Wales Echo

NINE people were arrested by immigration officers in a late-night raid on a city restaurant.
Several police officers and staff from the new Borders Agency cordoned off the Hawaiian Restaurant, City Road, Roath Cardiff, at around 9.30pm yesterday.
Two of the men arrested are believed to have been failed asylumseekers from Albania.
A spokesman from the Immigration and Borders Agency said that officers had been acting on intelligence. He said: The agency, supported by South Wales Police, carried out an enforcement operation acting on intelligence that a number of immigration offenders would be present at the premises in Cardiff.
As of 9.30pm, two men suspected Albanian failed asylum seekers “have been arrested and taken to a police station in Cardiff forquestioning.
The restaurant did not want to comment last night.The raid happened on the same night as Immigration Minister LiamByrne visited South Wales to attend one of a series of events aimedat hearing the publics reaction to the Government's proposed immigration shake-up.
The new Borders Agency has already been separated from the HomeOffice and has carried out a series of raids on takeaways andrestaurants in South Wales. But the Government is planning to go further and introduce an Australian-style points system to control migration better in thewake of a series of scandals that revealed the lack of informationheld by the authorities about the number of migrants in Britain. Inspector Paul McCarthy of South Wales Police confirmed fourofficers had attended the raid last night and that dog handlers had been requested.

The rich are free to move to whichever country will give them the biggest tax break, but when poor people migrate they face racism, demonisation and state harrassment. Cardiff RESPECT stands shoulder-to-shoulder with immigrant workers and utterly condemns the actions of the border agency, we say: "One Race - The Human Race!".

Big business asks no questions when it comes to the source of their profits. So we, in Cardiff RESPECT, make no distinction between native-born and other workers, living in Wales, when it comes to fighting for rights, or to winning support for a socialist future. We see ourselves as the representatives and organisers of that section of the international working class living and working in Wales. We only recognise ‘illegal’ worker status in order to combat it. The fight to unite our class internationally, and to oppose all attempts to divide us, is as important today, as past heroic struggles to free and abolish slavery, to liberate women and to enforce workers’ rights. Indeed, the fight, to prevent the imposition of outlaw status on millions of workers, shows us that all three of these great campaigns still need to be re-fought.