TREATED LIKE ANIMALS
The fact that people were detained while signing on, in different parts of the country, suggests the operation was well planned in advance. It seems that the Home Office conducted a wide sweep of Jamaican nationals who were liable to removal. People who had been signing for months, complying with Home Office regulations, found themselves detained in the weeks running up to the flight. With charter flights, the Home Office wants to fill as many seats as possible, and more Jamaicans were detained and served with flight directions than actually made it onto the plane."It was my stepdaughter's birthday, I brought her up all my life, met her when she were one, and it was her fifth birthday that day. I went that morning to sign on, early that morning, before she woke up, and I've never seen her again. I had bought loads of presents to give her." – David, 29
The night before the flight was due to depart people were rounded up in their cells. Up to eight security personnel came to retrieve them:"I stayed up on the phone to her all night that night, and she was just crying, crying, saying, 'Please try and contact me as soon as you get there.'" – Andrew, 21
"They put a belt on us, tied round our waist, tying our hands together so you couldn't really move, and then they had hold of you and dragged you, pretty much carried you onto the coach. We were waiting in the coach for hours, then it set off. We couldn't get up, we weren't allowed to use the toilet, so there was no point drinking. We drove for half an hour, and then waited again from probably 12 midnight until 5AM before they took us onto the plane. We just sat there… that's when you start to realise you are getting on the plane, you aren't getting off." – David, 29
"They strapped us up, zipped us up, in a body belt so we could hardly move. They made sure they moved everyone under the cover of darkness. We were gone. We were in the air before anyone could make any noise. Even by the time my mum got hold of the solicitor, I was in Jamaica, man." – William, 38
Each deportee had two escorts for the duration of the flight, and I was told that only the lucky few were allowed to have their body belts removed. The Home Office deny this and insist that "waist restraint belts are used based on an individual assessment of the risk presented by each detainee".I literally thought they were going to kill him.
"We were treated like animals, we were strapped up, thrown from one cage to another in the dark; we didn't have a say. The big guys there, just waiting for you to kick off, and then they could fuck you up. We were like animals." – William, 38
"You know what they looked like? You know bounty hunters, like some special forces." – Darel, 32
"There was one guy – he was distraught, because he was leaving his baby mum behind, and his child, and he was emotional. There were like seven or eight real big, wrestler-looking guys, like people you would see on WWF; they were massive. He was screaming, cursing, saying what they were doing was illegal or whatever, and the force they were using, I literally thought they were going to kill him. At one point they held him round his head, fingers in his temples, and they held him, held him so tight that after a while you heard nothing off him." – Michelle, 27
For most people, resistance seemed futile. Some managed to sleep. Some watched films. Others cried. When people went to the toilet they had do so with the door open so the escorts could keep an eye them.The Home Office insists that force is used as a last resort, but overwhelmingly people spoke of the escorts as violent, racist and smug. It was only Michelle who spoke warmly of her escorts:"I was one of the two people kicking off. I told them they were murderers. I was going on one, I was losing my mind. And then the plane started moving, and then we were in the air and I didn't have any energy left. I was wiped, so I stopped kicking off. I just thought, 'Hopefully when we land…' I still had faith that I might be able to come straight back. My wrists were bleeding from the handcuffs being on so tight." – Omari, 24
"So yeah, she managed to borrow a phone and let me phone my partner and kids and spoke to them before the flight lifted off. And when we landed she also gave me the phone to phone them, just to let them know that I landed safe. You can tell they've got kids themselves. So they sympathised with that. I spoke to my step-kids before we took off, and the escorts were a bit heartbroken because they heard when the baby started crying on the phone, and then I started crying, and she put her arms around me and was rubbing my back, and saying, 'I know it's hard, but you have to stay strong,' you know."
PROCESSING
For some, escaping the heat of the barracks was an ambivalent prospect, given they had no idea where they would be going:"Basically, they were trying to push us in a corner, and we were dying. Everyone with their shirt off, we're sweating, so we're trying to go to the door. We can't go outside – they have officers by the door so we can't go outside, we're prisoners. It was punishment." – Glen, 35
Most people were collected by family members, although not necessarily familiar faces. A few were offered accommodation in a homeless shelter in downtown Kingston."I was shitting myself. Listen, I've never been in a situation where I've been this scared. The most scared I've ever been in my life. It was madness. A completely alien place for me, innit. I don't know no one, I don't know nowt…" – David, 29
DEPORTING BLACK BRITONS
There were others on the charter who moved to the UK as young children. Not all of them had custodial sentences.Some did not apply for British citizenship simply because they did not know they had to. Naturalisation is not cheap, either, costing over £1,200. For many, the reason they were not able to naturalise was because they had a criminal record. Only persons of "good character" can naturalise, but some received criminal records as children.A few people I spoke to grew up in the care system, and this is common among deportees – perhaps unsurprisingly given the disproportionate number of care-leavers in the criminal justice system."I've lived in England since I was three," he says. "The furthest I've been is Skegness. Whatever happened to me, to my family and my father, back then, I didn't choose that. I didn't decide to come to the UK, I didn't make the choice. And now I'm paying for that, and they've sent me back to Jamaica. I'm a fish out of water."
"My older offences were anti-social breaches, from when I lived in a care home. We weren't allowed on the street that we lived on. The four boys from the care home were never allowed to walk together, so if the police saw you together you would be arrested for breach of ASBO. I normally got community service. I also got done for possession of weed. All of my convictions were from having a rough childhood. All of them are from growing up in care. They took me from my mum, which hurt me, because of certain abuses and stuff like that, but they took me, and I wouldn't have committed those offences if I was still with my mum." – Omari, 24
OPERATION NEXUS AND THE PROBLEM WITH GANGS
Darel was deported under Operation Nexus, despite having lived in the UK consistently for 24 years, since he was seven. The only convictions Darel received were for possession of marijuana. He was charged with one offence, but was able to prove his innocence and was NFA'd (no further action)."They said that I was in the Queen's Road gang. But it wasn't a gang – we all just grew up together on the same estate, you get me?" – Darel, 32
BACK IN JAMAICA
"Yeah, I just stay in the house, like. I think that's the fourth time I've walked up the lane to meet you… yeah, it's worse than prison. At least in prison I'd be eating and stuff like that. It's been like, what, two days now since I've ate anything. I've lost so much weight." – Andrew, 21
"My family is in England and America. These people here, most of them I've never seen in my life [laughs]. I hear them, I hear them all the time – they say, 'Why doesn't he just go back?' I hear them, but I just laugh. You're not my family." – Glen, 35
Once people have found shelter, however uncomfortable, they tend to spend as much time as possible talking to loved ones in the UK:I can't cry. I ain't got nothing left to cry.
"Every night I talk to my kids, they're crying every minute. My missus is stressed, and I'm stressed. The other day I was so depressed I couldn't get up; I had aches and pains all over. Sometimes I just feel like I wanna kill myself right now. Being away from my family, everything. I'm sleeping on the floor, when I had my nice house and my kids and my routine." – Darel, 32
We speak like 100 times a day. We spend most of our time speaking to each other, on Whatsapp, trying to find money for solicitors. – Omari, 24
"My wife, at the moment now, she's not coping. She's not herself at this moment. And my son is not himself, either. I'm just telling it you as it is. It's ruining his lessons in school. He is wetting his bed. Having nightmares, crying in the night and waking up." – Everton, 48
It's not always easy to communicate with people back home in the UK. Internet signal varies greatly on the island, and credit can be expensive. The Home Office regularly say in their decision letters that deportees can keep in touch with loved ones using "modern forms of communication" , but as one deportee told me, "You can't be a Skype dad."I was surprised by how many of the people I spoke to had claimed asylum, or left Jamaica because a family member was murdered or attacked. Many of the people quoted in this article returned to Jamaica scared, concerned for their safety after having fled the country years ago. Denzel left Jamaica in the late-90s after he became the subject of political revenge and had his hand nearly chopped off with a machete. He feared for his life then, and he still does: "If mi come a Jamaica, mi is a dead man, dat mi a tell ya… Mi nuh feel safe here, because my past is not pretty in Jamaica.""I ain't really got credit all the time. And when I do speak to my partner, all she does is cry… I can't cry. I ain't got nothing to cry. I can't cry. But I can understand she's crying for me. She understands my frustration; obviously she's frustrated as well. She's struggling. She's been struggling since I went jail." – Andrew, 21