The following letter was sent to the Jamaican High Commissioner in the UK by 51 individuals and families affected by the UK's mass deportation flights to Jamaica. They call for three things...

1) That the jamaican Government refuse to accept the UK's unjust mass deportation flights

2) That the Jamaican High Commission and Jamaican Government reinstate and make permanent their agreement that no one who came to the UK as a child should ever be deported.

3) Support our call for an immigration amnesty

Your signature lends strength to the voices of these families.

Open Letter: To His Excellency Mr Seth George Ramocan 
 
We are individuals and families in the UK who have been suffering under this government’s racist hostile environment for years. Our fathers, brothers, sisters, mothers, partners, grandparents and children have been subject to racist demonisation, torturous detention and unjust deportations.
 
We need you to stand up for your citizens facing racism & injustice in the UK. We need you to refuse to accept charter flight deportations and reinstate your agreement that no one who came to the UK as a child should face deportation. We are asking you to support our call for an immigration amnesty, so that we can live free and equally.
 
On 27th April 2022 at 4pm we will be coming to the High Commission with Movement for Justice, to speak out about these injustices, to make our voices heard. We invite you to come out and speak with us, to accept our letter in person, to listen and make a stand.
 
There has been NO JUSTICE for our Windrush Generation, only pathetic apologies and promises that have led nowhere. People have died waiting for compensation. We are forced to jump through hoops like performing animals to prove our right to compensation, our right to be here.
 
The descendants of the Windrush Generation, children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, brought here as children or born in the UK suffer racism at every stage of life. We face discrimination in schools, we are criminalised from childhood, we are stereotyped and degraded, we are treated as animals. The open, blatant racism and stereotypes of our community in the early 00’s have not gone away, they’ve just been absorbed into government policy.
 
Many of us and our children, were groomed into criminal activity in childhood, never treated as victims, only as criminals. Then we face deportation to a country that is no longer home, where we are demonised and stigmatised by hostile media coverage and where we face destitution and murder.
 
Our lives are here, our families are here, we are PROUD of our Jamaican heritage, we are PROUD of the role our communities have played rebuilding Britain, bringing hard work, music, culture, love and joy. We are Jamaican and we are British in all but the colour of our passport. But every day this government and the Home Office treat us as less than human.
 
The Jamaican people and government have taken a clear stand to further throw off the shackles of colonial rule, have demanded reparations for slavery; we praise all those who have fought for this moment for decades. This country enslaved us, stole our labour, they broke our backs then told us we were one with them that we were British. Our elders came to rescue the ‘mother country’ in its time of need, they worked hard, they faced down the racists and now this country throw their descendants out like rubbish. Enough.
 
The UK government keeps on with their unjust charter flights, spending tens of thousands of pounds to deport a handful of people. The charter flights are by their nature brutal and unjust. We are swept up in a racist dragnet of our communities, we are imprisoned and given just 5 days to find representation and build a case. The majority of us are not put on that plane because we have lawful grounds to remain, yet every year, twice or three times a year we are put through this torture. Immigration officers and police barging into our homes, terrorising our children who are left with nightmares and mental health difficulties.
 
Thousands of children across the UK go through this, the constant fear their father will be taken away from them, the despair of knowing this country does not want us, does not care for us. Then there’s those who have been deported, barely surviving in Jamaica, unable to work, at risk of exploitation and murder, living in fear. Desperately searching for working Wi-Fi so they can see their children over a shaky connection, trying to comfort their children and partner without being able to put their arms around them.
 
So many of us have to survive without the right to work, unable to care for our families, deepening our depression and despair. The Home Office want us to commit crime, they want us to give up hope, that’s what the racist hostile environment policies are designed to do – force people to leave. But in all this horror we have found hope and strength in each other, in organisation and community. Every time there is a charter flight we stand together; we organise with Movement for Justice and we have made the truth of this injustice known. We need our Jamaican government, our people back home, to stand with us in this struggle.
 
This government have shown they have no regard not only for decency and human rights but for the law. They routinely breach peoples Human Rights and when called out on that by the courts, their response is not to act more humanely, but to change the law. That is what they are doing with the Nationality and Borders Bill, which will deny us even the smallest legal protections such as trafficking/modern day slavery protections. A Bill which has been roundly condemned as breaching international law and treaties. Judicial Review is our only means of having our voices heard in the courts at these desperate moments yet this government is working on limiting those rights. They are criminalising asylum seekers and view us all as no more than “red meat’ to throw to their racist voter base. Immigrants & asylum seekers are not human beings to this racist government, we are seen as scapegoats for a failing government.
 
We know you are aware of this injustice; we know you have stepped in to try and stand up for the people who came here as children. We know the UK government and Home Office has treated you appallingly by sending a flight even when you have explicitly called for it to be stopped because of COVID risk.
 
We also know that the Jamaican government CAN refuse to accept these flights, CAN make permanent the agreement that no one who came to the UK as a child should ever be deported. We know our closest neighbour; Ireland has introduced an immigration amnesty so we also know this is possible.  It’s time for change.
 
We hope to see you on the 27th April.
 
 
All of the 51 signatories below either directly experienced detention and the risk of charter flight deportation to Jamaica or they are a family member of someone who has faced that trauma:
 
1. JP
2. FS
3. AF
4. NRP
5. MM
6. PJ
7. MS
8. FM
9. EP
10. NS
11. IH
12. SR
13. LR
14.BS
15. MR
16. SB
17/18. M & AB
19. DJ
20. TM
21. GB
22. MW
23. AW
24. LP
25. TT
26. WH
27/28. C & DB
29. LR
30. LP
31. CB
32. RG
33. AV
34. MW
35. WF
36. LPL
37. AC
38. LS
39. LRS
40. SE
41. NR
42. RB
43. RH
44. TH
45/46. KF & PD
47. AM 
48. SRR
49. RS
50. PD
51. SS