The politics of anti deportation campaigning:

A contentious social movement in Sheffield

Stuart Crosthwaite and John Grayson

Please Do Not Cite or Reproduce without the Author’s Permission

‘Nongovernmental organizations stretch the boundaries of citizenship set

by nation-states, by recognizing non-citizens as members of their polity,
by representing them in their struggle for greater labor and social protections, and by
extending some forms of social protection to them. By engaging in these initiatives, these
organizations de facto transform non-citizens into citizens at the grassroots level.’ (Basok
p 265)

‘You may need a campaign when the law is not enough to stop deportation or removal. If
the law was enough then you would not be in the situation you are in now. A campaign
means fighting back politically. It means becoming active – not relying on a few emails or
standard letters or even a good legal representative. It means organising and working
with other people. It means demonstrations and pickets. Most of all it means publicity
and going public.’ (NOII 2007 Campaigning against Deportation or Removal)

The most recent development of a social movement around anti-deportation

campaigning in the UK dates from the late 1990’s.There was campaigning in the 1980’s
(Farrar p 238) but by 2002 ‘it would be hard to claim that a mass social movement was
still in operation’ (ibid p 239). A national coordinating organisation, the National Coalition
of Anti Deportation Campaigns (NCADC) had emerged in 1995, the Committee to
Defend Asylum Seekers (CDAS) a little later and there were sporadic campaigns around
individuals threatened with deportation. Legislation in the 1993 Asylum Appeals and
Immigration Act, the 1996 Asylum and Immigration Act and the Immigration and Asylum
Act 1999 opened up an unprecedented deluge of legislation perhaps culminating in the
current (2009) Immigration Bill. Legislation, in Steve Cohen’s words, aimed at ‘anyone
fleeing war poverty and mayhem’ (Cohen p. 29).

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We will argue that from a Sheffield perspective the development of a significant social
movement around anti-deportation campaigning can be seen to be a response to the
social and political effects of this legislation, in particular the punitive and at times brutal
operation of the legislation creating in Cohen’s memorable phrase ‘the Orwellian world of
immigration controls (Cohen 2006).The reactions to these state policies in places like
Sheffield have, as one of our interviewees put it, built a social movement around the
‘politics of outrage’.

Current roots of campaigning in Sheffield

Sheffield campaigners against homelessness saw the ‘dispersal’ of asylum seekers to

‘spread the burden’ from the South East of England as a likely recipe for destitution
amongst arriving refugees. Dispersal targeted areas had empty or ‘low demand’ housing.
These areas were also of course towns and cities which were only slowly recovering
from deindustrialisation and the mass unemployment of the 1980’s and 1990’s. Between
2000 and 2006 Yorkshire and the Humber received between 20 and 22% of the national
total of dispersed asylum seekers.

Sheffield had rehoused and resettled dispersed refugees before – particularly Chilean
families fleeing from Pinochet’s regime from 1974 through a Trades Council Chilean
committee. ‘Ugandan Asians’ arrived in 1972 and Vietnamese from 1979 – 83, Somalis
after war broke out in 1988. Yemenis came after the civil war in 1995 to join existing
communities which had been in Sheffield for 35 years having filled a post-war labour
shortage at local steelworks.

Local welcomes, central harassment

In 1999, many local people rallied to transform Folkwood School into reception
accommodation for Kosovan refugees. Hundreds of people provided furniture and fittings
for the building, with many businesses donating TVs, video recorders. Research (Craig
et al 2005) found that the Kosovan evacuees were overwhelmingly positive about this
initial reception offered by local people but had real reservations about the areas and
quality of accommodation they were then given.

Thus dispersal and resettlement was not a new process for Sheffield. In fact the major
refugee and asylum seeker agency in the city the Northern Refugee Centre (NRC) was
founded to support Vietnamese refugees. The city was also one of only two areas
nationally to respond to the Gateway Protection Policy in 2004/5 with the arrival of
Liberian and then Burmese refugees from UNHCR camps.

What changed in the dispersal policy after 2000 was the centrally directed ‘punitive poor
law’ policies towards asylum seekers at a local level with poor housing and vouchers,
linked to a growing regime of forced deportation and detention, and intimidation of ‘failed’
asylum seekers reducing them to destitution.

Local activists, asylum seekers and students from the Sheffield branch of Student Action
for Refugees (STAR) had by 2002 organised ‘Conversation Clubs’ for informally teaching
English and as drop-in centre for migrants. The conversation clubs model proved to be

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an important safe space in which asylum seekers started to decide to organise their own
supported campaigns taken up then by CDAS.

In August 2003 ASSIST (Asylum Seeker Support Initiative – Short Term) was established
to provide emergency accommodation and financial support. ASSIST estimates that
there are around 1000 destitute asylum seekers in Sheffield. The organisation is
dependent on a large number of volunteers (around 70) including refugees and asylum
seekers. It has access to four houses and two caravans, and around 24 places in
‘hosted’ accommodation.
ASSIST is a campaigning as well as a ‘welfare’ organisation supporting individuals and
other organisations in anti-deportation campaigns.

Labour’s forced removal and deportation policies: the response in Sheffield

A local Sheffield branch of CDAS was formed around 2000 and in 2007 the South
Yorkshire Migration and Asylum Action Group (SYMAAG) was created. The campaigns
of these, and other organisations, have focused both on opposition to particular
deportation threats and against general policies of exclusion, destitution, detention and
mass deportation. With a wide social and political base, campaigns against forced
deportation and for the rights of people seeking asylum are now a visible and integral
feature of Sheffield political life.

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Experiencing a War – Iraqi Kurds in Sheffield

From an Iraqi asylum seekers’ perspective and those working in solidarity with them
government policy was seen as another dimension of ‘War’, with various stages from
2003 to the present

1. Creating an Enemy.

‘To ensure that living illegally becomes ever more uncomfortable and constrained until
they leave or are removed’
Home Office 2007

‘Get tough on illegals’

David Blunkett Home Secretary quoted in ‘The Scotsman’ 13/11/2003

In the first quote the enemy are those ‘living’ illegally: those with an ‘illegal’ life. The
second is even less ambiguous: the UK Government is to get tough on those people who
are ‘illegal’ An adjective has been transformed into a noun, an enemy group thereby
created and a ‘culture of xeno-racism and Islamaphobia; the asylum seeker at the gate
and the shadowy Muslim within’ (Sivanandan 2006). Those seeking asylum in the UK
have been identified as ‘aliens’ to whom different sets of rules apply compared to UK
‘citizens’.

2. Re-arming for War

There has been the creation of a privatised and therefore unaccountable deportation
industry. Since 1997 there has been the privatisation of detention centres, used prior to
deportation; and of security organisations to physically deport people, with contract
bonus payments on result, described as “outsourcing abuse” (Medical Justice Network
2009).

Since 2005 there has been the increasing use of the deportation charter flight in order to
avoid the problems arising from use of commercial flights where passengers protested at
the brutal treatment of deportees, and pilots refused to fly. The expense of charter flights
results in pressure to fill all seats and therefore reduce opportunities for legal challenge
by giving no notice of deportation and the operation of a gruesome version of an airline
‘stand-by’ system where any successful legal challenges mean quick replacements from
a pool of those detained and previously served ‘removal’ notices. At the extreme was a
proposal for an ‘Asylum Airlines’ by an Austrian security company in 2007 – involving
dedicated facilities.

There has been the rapid growth of an information-gathering network: People seeking
asylum have long carried ID cards and from 2008 were also fingerprinted. Currently
(November 2009) there are proposals to introduce genetic testing to determine…
nationality!

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3. Laying Siege

Iraqi Kurds see the Governments long term policies as a kind of ‘siege’ because to
forcibly deport every person without leave to remain is financially impossible. In 2004
Tony Blair established a deportation formula based on the ‘monthly rate of removals’
exceeding ‘the number of unfounded applications’ (Fekete 2009 p137). In February 2004
the Home Office announced that for Iraqi Kurds the ‘formula’ would mean ‘thousands’
deported at the rate of 30 per week.

In Sheffield there were around 1000 Iraqi Kurds who wanted asylum. At this time even
the Home Office recognised that Iraq was not safe, nor was there a safe route of return.
Attempts to encourage ‘voluntary return’ through the International Organisation for
Migration (IOM) failed (even with the offer of payments of £500 ‘relocation grants’). Most
received ‘Section 4’ support (£35 per week food vouchers and accommodation). Letters
were sent to every traceable Iraqi Kurd in August 2005 stating that unless Section 4
recipients agreed to ‘voluntarily’ return to ‘safe’ Iraq they would be ‘required to leave
accommodation and will not be entitled to any other form of support’. A member of the
local Kurdish Community Association described it as ‘an invitation to sign your own
deportation order’. Around 30% of the Iraqi Kurds refused to sign and went underground
leading to widespread destitution.

4. Direct Attack

Those who signed this agreement lost their legal right to contest deportations and were
required to report at police stations or Immigration Service offices to qualify for food
vouchers. Many were detained (‘kidnapped’ as one described it) when they did so. This
was the next stage in the execution of the war with deportation by military charter flights
in 2005 and 2006. The Immigration Service also stepped up raids on places where
people might have been working in the ‘underground economy’.

5. Resistance

The result was spontaneous resistance. A main road into Sheffield was blocked by 50
Iraqi Kurds and one man went on hunger strike by sewing his lips together. An
organisation called the Campaign Against Detention and Deportation of Iraqis (CADDI)
was formed, drawing 100 to its first meeting and organising demonstrations – the largest
was of 200 people marching through Sheffield. The campaign was broad and united the
local Kurdish population, including representatives from various Kurdish political
organisations; the Stop the War Coalition; far left political organisations; Sheffield No
Borders; representatives from local Yemeni and Afro-Caribbean communities and
Sheffield Trades Union Council. New alliances were made, between church groups and
local squatters movements who created semi-official ‘safe houses’ for those trying to
avoid detection: between a local Tenants and Residents Association and the Kurdish
Community Association. Pressure was great enough for all three local Labour Party
councillors for the area to write to the Home Secretary protesting against the policy of
enforced destitution and deportation. Local Labour MP David Blunkett tried to argue that
‘troublemakers’ had persuaded the man to go on hunger strike.

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This resistance to deportation had national and international dimensions. Sheffield
became the focus of national opposition to these deportations: members of the
International Federation of Iraqi Refugees (IFIR) spoke there and reported from Iraq
about the fate of those previously deported.

Soon after this attack, Kurdish community representatives withdrew from regular national
meetings about the position of Kurdish asylum seekers in the UK hosted by the Home
Office between themselves, Iraqi embassy officials, representatives from the Kurdish
Regional Government (KRG) and its main constituent political parties. An Iraqi
commentator later explained: ‘It did not occur to them (Iraqi asylum seekers) that their
own government would collude with their host countries to have them flown by force to
the hell they escaped from’. (Abdulsalam 2009)

This foreign ‘war’ policy dimension with commercial and political interests in mind is one
which appears in other anti deportation campaigns, notably Afghanistan, Sudan and the
Democratic Republic of Congo. Ultimately the UK Government did succeed in deporting
25% of their target to Iraqi Kurdistan. However, the irony that the war against Iraq was
fought under a banner of ‘protecting the Kurds’ is not lost on Sheffield asylum seekers.
As one Iraqi activist said ‘There are no human rights here. It means shame for the UK,
not what we heard on the news’. (See also Crosthwaite 2006)

SYMAAG (South Yorkshire Migration and Asylum Action Group)

SYMAAG, a campaigning, lobbying and direct action group. was established in 2007. It
emerged after a 3 day march from Sheffield Home Office to Lindholme detention centre
near Doncaster, 35 miles away, to demand “Dignity Not Detention”. This high-profile
event involving 200 people from 16 countries laid the basis of the group’s future
campaigning and established a coalition of apparently disparate social, community and
political groups. As one Sudanese marcher explained ‘Now I can look people in the eye’.

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SYMAAG ‘Dignity not Detention’ march 2007

SYMAAG has organised public meetings of up to 300 people; has frequent e-mail
newsletters to 280 individuals and organisations regionally; organises high-profile
demonstrations in Sheffield and has met many of the region’s MPs and relevant
councillors.

From the formation of SYMAAG many of its activists have been people who are seeking
asylum. We would argue that Sheffield has a number of features which facilitate their
involvement in ongoing and generalised campaign work for asylum rights and against
deportation, what Squire calls ‘mobile solidarities’ (Squire p3)

As one Darfuri asylum seeker explained ‘You will never feel lonely in Sheffield’. Perhaps
a residue of its “municipal socialism” is an ethos of inclusivity with cheaper access to
everything from sports to entertainment facilities and numerous cultural events hosted by
refugee and asylum-seeking communities. (See Lansley et al 1989 and Taylor et al
1996) NRC has around 100 asylum-seeking volunteers, as befrienders, advice workers
and community development workers. Students from the two universities engage in
campaign and support work. Amongst some teaching, city council and health
professionals there has often been outward support for asylum seekers’ entitlements and
a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy used when legislation would normally exclude them.
Established Yemeni and Chilean migrant communities have “worn a path” through
official channels making progress easier for those who have followed. Many new refugee
community organisations have established themselves, the Congolese forming a pan-
African campaigning and educational group. Alongside these are the UK branches of
political parties from countries of origin, each with their experience of political
commitment and endurance.

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Who has been mobilised?

Sheffield has a distinctive leftwing collectivist political and social movement history. (See
Price 2008) People we interviewed identified this as a major factor in developing and
sustaining the anti deportation movement. One interviewee suggested that many
individuals who had a Labour Party and/or trade union background had joined anti
deportation campaigning in the tradition of ‘championing the underdog’ disillusioned with
what remained of the ‘labour movement’ and local politics.

Certainly leadership in the organisations was from people in their 50’s and 60’s veterans
of earlier radical periods in Sheffield or elsewhere. (See Barker 2001) Many of the
activists have a Christian church background. Sheffield has a reputation again borne out
by its history of ‘mixing Methodism with Socialism’. Anti deportation campaigning has
sucked in a whole range of radical and political clergy, ministers and congregations
going beyond the established ‘philanthropic’ or charity approaches. This is not surprising
for many of the asylum seekers fighting deportation are themselves active members of
Christian churches.

Solidarity has meant a Quaker couple donating their life savings to buying two houses for
use by ASSIST. Local Anarchist squatter groups have run workshops for the
organisations. A Catholic nun has been involved in campaigning and opened up a local
church particularly to Eritrean and Ethiopian asylum seekers, many of them Muslims. A
Methodist minister opened up a small night shelter for destitute asylum seekers. A
Baptist church rented a house for use by a ‘failed’ asylum seeker family forced to go
underground to avoid deportation. The congregation debated whether this was ‘illegal’
but as one of the interviewees put it ‘I told them it was God’s law we were obeying not
the government’

This political campaigning role for local churches on asylum seekers developed from
existing social action networks like Church Action on Poverty (CAP) and the Catholic
Justice and Peace network. The local Church Action on Poverty network identified the
issue of destitution amongst asylum seekers as a major one in 2004 and wrote to all
local candidates in the 2005 General Election. CAP members helped to form SYMAAG
in 2007.

Beyond the churches networks activists represent or draw on public sector professional
workers and staff and students from the two universities, and the educated middle
classes – particularly of South West Sheffield. The constituency of Hallam had and still
has one of the highest proportions of graduates in any constituency in England (Dorling
p.43). Professionals working ‘in and against the state’ (See Barnes and Prior 2009 and
London Edinburgh….1980) have been involved in Sheffield campaigns on asylum
seekers’ healthcare and children of asylum seekers, mobilised through large public
meetings organised by SYMAAG.

Interviewees also saw the trade union networks and working class activists as important
in contributing to anti-deportation campaigns. In 2007/8 UNITE helped develop a Migrant
Workers Support Network with SYMAAG and other Sheffield voluntary agencies which
amongst other things monitored raids on unionised factories for ‘illegals’, in one case
Iraqi Kurdish asylum seekers. It also supported a joint steward /campaigner workshop

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with the NRC. The TUC ‘Let Them Work’ campaign was seen by one interviewee as very
important in giving real public legitimacy to the campaigns. Recently, striking bus drivers
pickets in Sheffield en masse signed a petition to stop the deportation of a Nigerian
asylum seeker who had been persecuted for his union activities as a bus worker.
Members of the Public and Commercial Services union at the Sheffield UK Borders
Agency itself have offered support through their ‘Not A Number’ campaign. SYMAAG
has built strong links with Unite Against Fascism (UAF), in South Yorkshire largely
financed by the unions and jointly organised with Trades Councils. In Barnsley in 2008
the Trades Council with teachers unions and the miners sponsored a SYMAAG
Solidarity with Asylum Seekers conference on May Day in the Miners Hall.

In the Miners Hall Barnsley Mayday 2008

It is also significant that the organisations of first generation migrants from the
Caribbean and Pakistan have not been visible in anti deportation and traditional ‘race
relations’ organisations like the local Council for Racial Equality have been sidelined
by new agencies mobilising large numbers of volunteers and activists. Activists in
important social movements from the ‘90’s like the SAYM (Sheffield Asian Youth
Movement) (see Renton 2006) can now be found as councillors or integrated into
mainstream ‘race relations’ roles. (Khan 2008, see Farrar 1999 for similar pattern in
Leeds) An exception to this is the local Chilean refugee community from the 1970’s
which has continued solidarity action and joined recent anti deportation campaigning.

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Political opportunism

Up to 1999 Sheffield was still firmly Labour council territory.(See Seyd and Whiteley
1992 Lansley et al 1989) From 1999 the Liberal Democrats have contested power and at
present (2009) are in control. The Greens are also an established minor party. This
period has of course also been the period when asylum seekers and their politics have
emerged in the city. Campaigning organisations have been able to benefit from this fluid
politics with a Labour government in power. The fact that the national City of Sanctuary
movement began in Sheffield is testament to the influence of religious groups on the
council, although the original funding for the project came from foundations. Similarly
local anti deportation campaigners and trade union voices managed to get the Liberal
Democrat council to use the Sustainable Communities Act to declare that the City
Council area should be one where asylum seekers should be given the right to work.
Both measures also demonstrate the fact that sections of the electorate in a traditionally
radical city are still seen by politicians as progressive and willing to reject racism and
injustice.

Conclusions

Sheffield anti deportation campaigning is an example of a significant contentious social

movement being built as a reaction to government policies on asylum and immigration
since 2000 and built on the politics of outrage and an active network. In October 2009 a
meeting was convened to further coordinate campaigning work – ten different
organisations met and, amongst other things, decided there was a need for a
‘deportation alert system to coordinate support to threatened individuals’. Perhaps the
broad and inclusive nature of the Sheffield anti deportation campaign based on solidarity
with individuals deciding to campaign, and crucially its collective political lobbying, is
some clue to its apparent effectiveness

We estimate around 300 activists are mobilised in Sheffield all of whom see anti-
deportation campaigns on the basis of the cases initiated by asylum seekers themselves
as something to support. Certainly we have detected what Colin Barker has called
‘collective effervescence’: ‘the phenomenon of ‘people changing’…. A sense of self
empowerment, the de-legitimation of existing authority, and the creation of new informal
and formal institutions and networks’ (Barker p11)

The Sheffield social movement perhaps does represent Squire’s notion of

‘mobile solidarities’, avoiding distinctions between ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’
refugees.

‘Characterized by the formation of mobile relations of solidarity in which distinctions

between citizens/non‐citizens, between different national or cultural groups, and between
different migrant categories begin to unravel. In this regard, mobile solidarities
……..exceed the terms of existing integration and cohesion policies.’ (Squire p3)

3577 words

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References

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countries send them home by force’ Azzaman June 17th www.azzaman.com

Barker C. 1999 ‘Empowerment and Resistance: ’Collective Effervescence’ and other

accounts’ in Bagguley P. and Hearn J. ‘Transforming Politics: Power and Resistance’
London: Macmillan pp 11-31

Barker C., Johnson A and Lavalette M 2001 ‘Leadership matters: an introduction’ in

Barker C Johnson A and Lavalette M eds ‘Leadership and Social Movements’
Manchester: Manchester University Press pp 1-23

Barnes M and Prior D 2009 ‘Subversive Citizens: power, agency and resistance in public
services’ Bristol: Policy Press

Basok T. 2008 ‘Constructing grass roots citizenship for non-citizens’ Peace Review 20
pp 265 – 272

Cohen S. 2006 ‘Deportation is Freedom: the Orwellian world of immigration controls’

London: Jessica Kinsley

Craig G., Dawson A., Majella K., and Gill M. 2005 ‘A safe place to be? The quality of life
of asylum seekers in Sheffield and Wakefield’ Hull: University of Hull

Crosthwaite S. 2006 ‘Beatings and Sugar Plums: New Labor’s war on the Kurds’ Counter
Punch November 3rd www.counterpunch.org

Dorling D. 2009 ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ Sheffield: Sheffield University

Farrar M.1999 ‘Social Movements in a Multi-Ethnic Inner City: Explaining their rise and
fall over 25 years’ in Bagguley P. and Hearn J. ‘Transforming Politics: Power and
Resistance’ London: Macmillan pp 87-105

Farrar M 2004 ‘Social Movements and the struggle over ‘race’’ in Todd M. and Taylor G.
eds ‘Democracy and Participation: popular protest and new social movements’ London:
Merlin pp 218 – 247

Fekete, L. 2009 ‘A Suitable Enemy: Racism, Migration and Islamophobia in Europe’

London: Pluto

Home Office 2007 ‘Enforcing the Rules: ‘A Strategy to Ensure and Enforce Compliance
with Our Immigration Laws’ London: UKBA

Khan M 2008 ‘Militant Sheffield: from Asian Youth Movement 1980’s to Muslim Youth
2001 onwards’ Burngreave Messenger 15th February www.burngreavemessenger.org

Lansley S., Goss S. Woolmar C. eds 1989 ‘Councils in conflict: rise and fall of the
municipal left’ Basingstoke: Macmillan

London Edinburgh Weekend Return Group 1980 ‘In and Against the State’ London: Pluto

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Maddison S. and Scalmer S. 2006 ‘Activist Wisdom: Practical Knowledge and Creative
Tension in Social Movements’ Sidney: UNSW Press

NOII (No-One is Illegal) 2007 ‘Campaigning against deportation or removal; building an

anti-deportation campaign, a practical and political guide to fighting to remain in this
country’ Bolton: NOII accessed at www.noii.org.uk 19 11 09

Price D. 2008 ‘Sheffield Troublemakers: rebels and radicals in Sheffield history’

Chichester: Phillimore and Company

Renton D 2006 ‘When we touched the sky: the Anti-Nazi League 1977-81’ Cheltenham:
New Clarion Press

Sivanandan A. 2006 ‘Race, Terror and Civil Society’ in Race and Class vol 47 no 3

Seyd P. and Whiteley P. 1992 ‘Labour’s grass roots: the politics of party membership’
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Squire V. 2009 ‘Mobile Solidarities: the City of Sanctuary movement and the Strangers
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Tarrow S. 1998 ‘Power in Movement’ Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

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adapted aircraft’ Independent 27th December www.independent.co.uk

Websites

ASSIST www.assistsheffield.org.uk

Campaign to Stop Deportations to Iraq http://www.csdiraq.com/

City of Sanctuary www.cityofsanctuary.org/sheffield

Committee to Defend Asylum Seekers www.defend-asylum.org

Conversation Clubs www.conversationclub.org.uk

Medical Justice Network www.medicaljustice.org.uk

National Coalition of Anti Deportation Campaigns www.ncadc.org.uk

Northern Refugee Centre www.nrcentre.org.uk

Stop Deportation Network http://stopdeportation.net/

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Methodology

The paper is based on desk research and the activist research experience of the
authors and qualitative research involving structured interviews with 14 activists and
a series of telephone interviews and conversations with a range of activists. The
approach is influenced by ideas of ‘really useful knowledge’ and the value of the
‘wisdom of activists’ (See Maddison and Scalmer 2008)

The general argument is structured around Sidney Tarrow’s notion of ‘contentious

social movements’

‘The irreducible act that lies at the base of all social movements…is contentious
collective action…Collective action becomes contentious when it is used by people
who lack regular access to institutions, who act in the name of new or unaccepted
claims, and who behave in ways that fundamentally challenge others or authorities.
Contentious collective action is the basis of social movements, not because
movements are always violent or extreme, but because it is the main and often the
only recourse that ordinary people possess against better equipped opponents or
powerful states.’ (Tarrow p.3)

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