#immigration removal centre

[onbreakreadlastpost]

Husband and wife to be forced apart by Home Office deportation flight

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[ceilidhtransing]

The discussions around whether or not to vote for Kamala keep being dominated by very loud voices shouting that anyone who advocates for her “just doesn't care about Palestine!” and “is willing to overlook genocide!” and “has no moral backbone at all!” And while some of these voices will be bots, trolls, psyops - we know that this happens; we know that trying to persuade progressives to split the vote or not vote at all is a strategy employed by hostile actors - of course many of them won't be. But what this rhetoric does is continually force the “you should vote for her” crowd onto the back foot of having to go to great lengths writing entire essays justifying their choice, while the “don't vote/vote third party” crowd is basically never asked to justify their choice. It frames voting for Kamala as a deeply morally compromised position that requires extensive justification while framing not voting or voting third party as the neutral and morally clean stance.

So here's another way of looking at it. How much are you willing to accept in order to feel like you're not compromising your morals on one issue?

Are you willing to accept the 24% rise in maternal deaths - and 39% increase for Black women - that is expected under a federal abortion ban, according to the Centre for American Progress? Those percentages represent real people who are alive now who would die if the folks behind Project 2025 get their way with reproductive healthcare.

Are you willing to accept the massive acceleration of climate change that would result from the scrapping of all climate legislation? We don't have time to fuck around with the environment. A gutting of climate policy and a prioritisation of fossil fuel profits, which is explicitly promised by Trump, would set the entire world back years - years that we don't have.

Are you willing to accept the classification of transgender visibility as inherently “pornographic” and thus the removal of trans people from public life? Are you willing to accept the total elimination of legal routes for gender-affirming care? The people behind the Trump campaign want to drive queer and trans people back underground, back into the closet, back into “criminality”. This will kill people. And it's maddening that caring about this gets called “prioritising white gays over brown people abroad” as if it's not BIPOC queer and trans Americans who will suffer the most from legislative queer- and transphobia, as they always do.

Are you willing to accept the domestic deployment of the military to crack down on protests and enforce racist immigration policy? I'm sure it's going to be very easy to convince huge numbers of normal people to turn up to protests and get involved in political organising when doing so may well involve facing down an army deployed by a hardcore authoritarian operating under the precedent that nothing he does as president can ever be illegal.

Are you willing to accept a president who openly talks about wanting to be a dictator, plans on massively expanding presidential powers, dehumanises his political enemies and wants the DOJ to “go after them”, and assures his supporters they won't have to vote again? If you can't see the danger of this staring you right in the face, I don't know what to tell you. Allowing a wannabe dictator to take control of the most powerful country on earth would be absolutely disastrous for the entire world.

Are you willing to accept an enormous uptick in fascism and far-right authoritarianism worldwide? The far right in America has huge influence over an entire international network of “anti-globalists”, hardcore anti-immigrant xenophobes, transphobic extremists, and straight-up fascists. Success in America aids and emboldens these people everywhere.

Are you willing to accept an enormous number of preventable deaths if America faces a crisis in the next four years: a public health emergency, a natural disaster, an ecological catastrophe? We all saw how Trump handled Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. We all saw how Trump handled Covid-19. He fanned the flames of disaster with a constant flow of medical misinformation and an unspeakably dangerous undermining of public health experts. It's estimated that 40% of US pandemic deaths could have been avoided if the death rates had corresponded to those in other high-income countries. That amounts to nearly half a million people. One study from January 2021 estimated between around 4,200 and 12,200 preventable deaths attributable purely to Trump's statements about masks. We're highly unlikely to face another global pandemic in the next few years but who knows what crises are coming down the pipeline?

Are you willing to accept the attempted deportation of millions - millions - of undocumented people? This is “rounding people up and throwing them into camps where no one ever hears from them again” territory. That's a blueprint for genocide right there and it's a core tenet of both Trump's personal policy and Project 2025. And of course they wouldn't be going after white people. They most likely wouldn't even restrict their tyranny to people who are actually undocumented. Anyone racially othered as an “immigrant” would be at risk from this.

Are you willing to accept not just the continuation of the current situation in Palestine, but the absolute annihilation of Gaza and the obliteration of any hope for imminent peace? There is no way that Trump and the people behind him would not be catastrophically worse for Gaza than Kamala or even Biden. Only recently he was telling donors behind closed doors that he wanted to “set the [Palestinian] movement back 25 or 30 years” and that “any student that protests, I throw them out of the country”. This is not a man who can be pushed in a direction more conducive to peace and justice. This is a man who listens to his wealthy donors, his Christian nationalist Republican allies, and himself.

Are you willing to accept a much heightened risk of nuclear war? Obviously this is hardly a Trump policy promise. But I can't think of a single president since the Cold War who is more likely to deploy nuclear weapons, given how casually he talks about wanting to use them and how erratic and unstable he can be in his dealings with foreign leaders. To quote Foreign Policy only this year, “Trump told a crowd in January that one of the reasons he needed immunity was so that he couldn’t be indicted for using nuclear weapons on a city.” That's reassuring. I'm not even in the US and I remember four years of constant background low-level terror that Trump would take offence at something some foreign leader said or think that he needs to personally intervene in some military situation to “sort it out” and decide to launch the entire world into nuclear war. No one sane on earth wants the most powerful person on the planet to be as trigger-happy and careless with human life as he is, especially if he's running the White House like a dictator with no one ever telling him no. But depending on what Americans do in November, he may well be inflicted again on all of us, and I guess we'll all just have to hope that he doesn't do the worst thing imaginable.

“But I don't want those things! Stop accusing me of supporting things I don't support!” Yes, of course you don't want those things. None of us does. No one's saying that you actively support them. No one's accusing you of wanting Black women to die from ectopic pregnancies or of wanting to throw Hispanic people in immigrant detention centres or of wanting trans people to be outlawed (unlike, I must point out, the extremely emotive and personal accusations that get thrown around about “wanting Palestinian children to die” if you encourage people to vote for Kamala).

But if you're advocating against voting for Kamala, you are clearly willing to accept them as possible consequences of your actions. That is the deal you're making. If a terrible thing happening is the clear and easily foreseeable outcome of your action (or in the case of not voting, inaction), in a way that could have been prevented by taking a different and just as easy action, you are partly responsible for that consequence. (And no, it's not “a fear campaign” to warn people about things he's said, things he wants to do, and plans drawn up by his close allies. This is not “oooh the Democrats are trying to bully you into voting for them by making him out to be really bad so you'll feel scared and vote for Kamala!” He is really bad, in obvious and documented and irrefutable ways.)

And if you believe that “both parties are the same on Gaza” (which, you know, they really aren't, but let's just pretend that they are) then presumably you accept that the horrors being committed there will continue, in the immediate term anyway, regardless of who wins the presidency. Because there really isn't some third option that will appear and do everything we want. It's going to be one of those two. And we can talk all day about wanting a better system or how unfair it is that every presidential election only ever has two viable candidates and how small the Overton window is and all that but hell, we are less than eighty days out from the election; none of that is going to get fixed between now and November. Electoral reform is a long-term (but important!) goal, not something that can be effected in the span of a couple of months by telling people online to vote third party. There is no “instant ceasefire and peace negotiation” button that we're callously overlooking by encouraging people to vote for Kamala. (My god, if there was, we would all be pressing it.)

If we're suggesting people vote for her, it's not that we “are willing to overlook genocide” or “don't care about sacrificing brown people abroad” or whatever. Nothing is being “overlooked” here. It's that we're simply not willing to accept everything else in this post and more on top of continued atrocities in Gaza. We're not willing to take Trump and his godawful far-right authoritarian agenda as an acceptable consequence of feeling like we have the moral high ground on Palestine. I cannot stress enough that if Kamala doesn't win, we - we all, in the whole world - get Trump. Are you willing to accept that?

And one more point to address: I've seen too many people act frighteningly flippant and naïve about terrible things Trump or his campaign want to do, with the idea that people will simply be able to prevent all these bad things by “organising” and “protesting” and “collective action”. “I'm not willing to accept these things; that's why I'll fight them tooth and nail every day of their administration” - OK but if you're not even willing to cast a vote then I have doubts about your ability to form “the Resistance”, which by the way would have to involve cooperation with people of lots of progressive political stripes in order to have the manpower to be effective, and if you're so committed to political purity that you view temporarily lending your support to Kamala at the ballot box as an untenable betrayal of everything you stand for then forgive me for also doubting your ability to productively cooperate with allies on the ground with whom you don't 100% agree. Plus, if the Trump campaign gets its way, American progressives would be kept so busy trying to put out about twenty different fires at once that you'd be able to accomplish very little. Maybe you get them to soften their stance on trans healthcare but oh shit, the climate policies are still in place. But more importantly, how many people do you think will protest for abortion rights if doing so means staring down a gun? Or organise to protect their neighbours from deportation if doing so means being thrown in prison yourself? And OK, maybe you're sure that you will, but history has shown us time and time again that most people won't. Most people aren't willing to face that kind of personal risk. And a tiny number of lefties willing to risk incarceration or death to protect undocumented people or trans people or whatever other groups are targeted is sadly not enough to prevent the horrors from happening. That is small fry compared to the full might of a determined state. Of course if the worst happens and Trump wins then you should do what you can to mitigate the harm; I'm not saying you shouldn't. But really the time to act is now. You have an opportunity right here to mitigate the harm and it's called “not letting him get elected”. Act now to prevent that kind of horrific authoritarian situation from developing in the first place; don't sit this one out under the naïve belief that “we'll be able to stop it if it happens”. You won't.

[our-trans-punk-experience]

FAR RIGHT RIOTS

REBLOG THIS PLEASE!!

shit is bad in the UK but obviously it is immensly confusing and I know some people wouldn't want to search up the news given how volatile it is, so here is a timeline of events. warnings for talk of violence, child death, racism, police ect

Monday 29/07: mass stabbing occured in Southport at a kids dance class, three girls died on scene, several others were hospitalised. An at time unnamed 17 y old boy was arrested on suspicion, and a knife was seized. later

Tuesday 30/07: having read false news suggesting that the attacker was a muslim immigrant who had arrived on a small boat, far-right groups with links to the EDL their leader Tommy Robinson took to the internet to imply the attacker was Muslim attacked a mosque in Southport, and after being declared a public disturbance, the police showed up and started trying to disperse them. This very quickly spiralled into a riot in which 39 police were hospitalised. Also on this day, Nigel fucking Farage, leader of far-right party Reform UK tweeted a video in which asked if the police were lying that the attack was not "terror related", furthering belief that the attacker was Muslim

Wednesday 31/07: violent anti immigrant protest continued, and there were mass riots in London. The PM spoke out denouncing the far right rioters as "violent thugs who would feel the full force of the law"

Thursday 01/08 : to try and curb the spread of misinformation, the police released the identity of their suspect - Axel Rudakubana, born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents in hope that the confirmation that he is not a Muslim immigrant would stop the rioting. It has not. PM Starmer released a statement saying that these were "coordinated attacks by the far right. " and that "this is not a protest that got out of hand these are individuals bent on violence"

Friday Night 02/08: Riots started in Sunderland late at night with reports of "serious violence". Starmer announced he had a plan to tackle far right violence.

Saturday 03/08: New far right mob action started in Manchester, Bristol, Hull, Belfast, Stoke, and Nottingham. Nottingham saw the first counterprotest, and as I write this, clashes between antifacist protestors and the far right is on going. The racists are setting fire to migrant housing buildings and attacking both police and counterprotestors countrywide. Dispersal orders have been issued for every city centre and major town centre across the UK.

Sunday 04/08: a "nick em quick" approach is to be used against the rioters in a hope to remove the far right mob from the street as soon as possible. There have been over 100 arrests. There are no plans to bring in the army, say ministers. There is a current attack on a migrant housing building in Rotherham.

I will keep posting updates as this unfolds so watch this space. This is obviously terrifying, so I want you to focus on actionable points.

stop the spread of misinformation. i can cite all my sources on a different post if you would like, but know that i visited ten different news sites, and also watched all the live news coverage to make this post. if you see any new information, fact check it. if you see someone spreading misinformation anywhere, DO SOMETHING. call them out and correct them and if they don't fix it, report them.

take care of any of your friends who aren't white, or if you aren't white, consider not going anywhere alone. racists don't discriminate in their discrimination. they are violent, deranged, and several are armed.

unless you are attending a counterprotest, stay the fuck out of town and city centres!!!!

STAY SAFE OUT THERE!! always in solidarity

[apas-95]

Is there a story behind China's one child policy that makes it not as horrifying as western media claims?

The defining feature of China's development for the past 70 years has been the urban-rural divide. In order to develop a semi-feudal country with a very low industrial level into an industrialised, socialist nation, it was necessary to develop industrial centres. To 'organically' develop industrial centres would have taken many decades, if not centuries of continued impoverishment and starvation, so programs were put in place to accelerate the development of industry by preferentially supporting cities.

Programs like the 'urban-rural price scissors' placed price controls on agricultural products, which made food affordable for city-dwellers, at the direct expense of reducing the income of rural, agricultural areas. This hits on the heart of the issue - to preferentially develop industrial centres in order to support the rest of the country, the rest of the country must first take up the burden of supporting those centres. Either some get out of poverty *first*, or nobody gets out of poverty at all. The result being: a divide between urban and rural areas in their quality of life and prospects. In order to keep this system from falling apart, several other policies were needed to support it, such as the Hukou system, which controlled immigration within the country. The Hukou system differentiated between rural and urban residents, and restricted immigration to urban areas - because, given the urban-rural divide, everyone would rather just try to move to the cities, leaving the agricultural industry to collapse. The Hukou system (alongside being a piece in many other problems, like the 'one country two systems', etc) prevented this, and prevented the entire thing from collapsing. The 'one child policy' was another system supporting this mode of development. It applied principally to city-dwellers, to prevent the populations of cities expanding beyond the limited size the agricultural regions could support, and generally had no 'punishments' greater than a lack of government child-support, or even a fine, for those who still wanted additional children. Ethnic minorities, and rural residents, were granted additional children, with rural ethnic minorities getting double. It wasn't something anyone would love, but it served an important purpose.

I use the past-tense, here, because these systems have either already been phased out or are in the process of being phased out. The method of urban-rural price scissors as a method of development ran its course, and, ultimately, was exhausted - the negative aspects, of its underdevelopment of rural regions, began to overwhelm its positive aspects. So, it was replaced with the paradigm of 'Reform and Opening Up' around the 1980s. Urban-rural price scissors were removed (leading to protests by urban workers and intellectuals in the late '80s), and the Hukou system, along with the 'one child policy', were and are being slowly eased out as lessening inequality between the urban and rural areas make them unnecessary. Under the new system, the driver of development was no longer at the expense of rural regions, but was carried out through the internal market and external capital. The development paradigm of Reform and Opening Up worked to resolved some contradictions, in the form of the urban-rural divide, and created some of its own, in the form of internal wealth divisions within the cities. Through it, over 800 million people were lifted out of extreme poverty - almost all of them being in rural areas - and extreme poverty was completely abolished within China. 'Extreme poverty' can be a difficult thing for westerners to grasp, wherein poverty means not paying rent on time, but to illustrate - many of the last holdout regions of extreme poverty were originally guerrilla base areas, impassable regions of mountainside which were long hikes away from schools or hospitals, wherein entire villages were living in conditions not dissimilar to their feudal state a century before. These villages were, when possible, given infrastructure and a meaningful local industry accounting their environment and tradition (like growing a certain type of mountainous fruit), or entirely relocated to free government-built housing lower down the mountain that was theirs to own. These were the people the 'one child policy' was aiding, by reducing the urban population they had to support. Again, there were exemptions for rural and ethnic minority populations to the policy.

Even now, Reform and Opening Up is running its course. Its own negative aspects, such as urban wealth inequality, are beginning to overcome its positive aspects. So, the new paradigm is 'Common Prosperity', which will work to resolve the past system's contradictions, and surely introduce its own contradictions in the form of chafing against the national bourgeoisie, as it increases state control and ownership of industry, and furthers a reintroduced collectivisation. Organising a nation of well over a billion people is not simple. It is not done based on soundbytes and on picking apart policies in the abstract for how 'dystopian' they sound. It is an exceedingly complex and interconnected process based on a dialectical, material analysis of things; not a utopian, idealist one. What matters is this: those 800,000,000 people now freed from absolute poverty. The things necessary to achieve that were, unquestionably, good things - because they achieved that. They had their negative aspects, as does everything that exists, but they were unquestionably correct and progressive things.

[woman-respecter]

hi, i'm the soviet jewry anon

there's so much to kvetch about, i dont know where to begin

i was gonna traumadump but im gonna rant about jewish history instead

well ever since i noticed activism becoming an internet trend i knew we were doomed cuz a part of soviet antisemitism is an intellectualisation of jew hatred (that's why stalin would publicly condemn antisemitism and then be antisemitic in a manner he could treat as just "anti nationalism not antisemitism"). first of all jewishness/antisemitism is already so complex which means it's really easy for people (jews and non-jews) to misunderstand it and harm us. so when i saw people quickly latching on to binaries such as the oppressed/oppressor and good/bad and removing all nuance, i knew things were gonna go downhill. yes all forms of hatred are very complex but in my opinion even the most basic forms of antisemitism like "jews control the world!" aren't properly grasped by gentiles which strengthens antisemitism since they're so ignorant about us lol. this is particularly dangerous because most people have never met a jew or know much about us and we are only like .2% of the world. what's worse is that they view us through a culturally christian lens as well instead of seeing us for who we really are.

the phrase antisemitism makes you stupid is too real. it feels like a stupidity epidemic has really made itself clear with the rise of antisemitism which opens the door to other hatreds too.

back to soviet antisemitism, i cant really discuss it properly because yk tumblr antisemites are everywhere and i dont want you to get harassed by them but here's some things i wanna bring attention to

taken from this incredible book "The Jews of Eastern Europe, 1772-1881" by Israel Bartal, "The imperial project to enlighten and reeducate the Jews in the spirit of the autocratic Russian state was to be implemented through the establishment of a system of Jewish schools, with instruction in Russian. The actions of the authorities in the days of the affair of ‘‘government- sponsored enlightenment’’ were similar to those taken by colonial regimes that sought to disseminate European culture among the natives in their overseas colonies." of course this didn't work lmao but it was one of their many many many efforts. people don't realise the scorching similarities between native americans and jewish people and it is so frustrating. people don't understand the extent of both of our suffering.

2. In the early 1960s the image of the Jew in the Soviet Union was that of an evil capitalist carrying out illegal capitalist deals which resulted in a high number of death sentences and executions of Jews which was not really out of the norm since death sentences and executions were already "normal" punishments for Jews, it was just a new excuse :/

3. a book i read a long time ago about soviet jewry said: a) jews are more safe in the democractic centre than everywhere else and b) jews in the soviet union were not allowed to assimilate or live a jewish life, nor were they allowed to immigrate even though the soviet union didn't want them there which i found very interesting. i cannot remember the name or author but i will look and let you know later if i find it.

4. the newspapers in the soviet union in their antisemitic propaganda would list the full names of jews along with their home and work addresses, job positions, etc. these newspapers would also illustrate the jew as disrespectful and harmful to "even their own jewish people and synagogues" to show how bad we are lmao.

5. theres so many jewish political movements partly because when everyone is so dedicated to wiping out jewish culture, these political movements form a jewish culture as an attempt to make up for the absence. this may seem simple but it seems like people really don't understand our desperation for survival. moreover soviet union "atheism" mostly attacked jews and really shows how atheism/secularism can be damaging to us as well.

LASTLY. some book recs :)

the jews in poland and russia by antony polonsky, a writer at war by vasily grossman and anything by joseph roth.

sorry for this long rant but im tireddd

hi anon, thank you so much for this information! there really is nothing new under the sun when it comes to antisemitism huh. usually i’m a weenie when it comes to publically answering asks about jewish topics but i think this is too important and interesting to just leave in my ask box so i’m gonna post this one. hopefully some of my followers will take interest in it

and thanks for the book recs!

[notasapleasure]

actually fuck it no, I'm done cringingly fawning to people who were never going to be happy about this. I so viscerally remember the misery of 2010, watching the wrangling go on through the morning and knowing Clegg had already made up his mind never to engage with Brown, knowing that power had flipped and in the crisis state following the recession we were going to get a government determined to cut and cut and cut and undo so much of the good that thirteen years had tried to entrench (SureStart centres, do you remember those, and the massive impact they had? Gone in England, Wales and Scotland, like they never existed. Libraries in rural areas! Remember when we had those? Regeneration in sad little market towns and unloved post-industrial areas, that was a thing once upon a time!). Utter misery on that Friday in 2010. I've rarely been angrier than I was that day. I will never forgive Clegg and many of his contemporaries. But I can still be delighted by the Lim Dems' 71 (SEVENTY-ONE!!) seats today. I was on the No Cuts march in London, and what an atmosphere. What hope, to think a new government formed on a hung parliament might actually listen to the approx. 1 million people who took to the streets (it wasn't as big as the Iraq protests, which also didn't work, but it was one of the biggest since, and it felt like it might be effective, in the flush of democratic fervour just following an election...) - and then the cuts went ahead anyway and we've had fourteen years of Tory entitlement and lies and misrule and sleaze and scandal and people who were fired for misconduct spinning round the roundabout and slotting right back into another job in high office after a token slap on the wrist. The repeated narrative that people want tax cuts and bootstraps rather than public services and basic rights...I'm so, so incredibly glad that's over. I cannot tell you how relieved I am.

Anyway, here are some things from the 2019 manifesto that we have just voted in with this government:

Bringing the railways back into public hands as each contract comes to an end. This is no different from Corbyn's policy. GB Energy, a nationalised energy provider, which is a development of the unplanned ambitions of 2019. Stopping the special treatment of fee-charging schools (by charging VAT on fees, it's an easier fix than removing their charitable status but achieves a similar thing). Building a vast number of new houses.

Other notables: no one is getting deported to Rwanda now. Do I like the rest of their language on immigration? No, but this is still a significant victory against what would have been a horrifying precedent. Unequivocal support for Ukraine's right to defend its soverign territory, no Putin appeasement. Also, a legal review of arms sales to Israel. It might not give the result I want to hear, I remain cautious, but the willingness to review this, and the committment to acknowledge the Palestinian state, is a big shift in the conversation from a sitting government that is undoubtedly a step in the right direction. Votes for 16 year olds! Many of them may turn out to be reactionary little shits, but if they're old enough to join the army and fuck, they're old enough to vote. Scrapping the Troubles Legacy Act in Northern Ireland, which was designed to protect British actors who committed war crimes and has brutally reopened old wounds here. Good fucking riddance to that.

And I just think Ed Miliband should be allowed to have a little chaos and tax a few oil giants. Just for funsies :3

[bullet-prooflove]

TheWall! Series Part One: Poker Night - Bishop Losa x Reader

Tagging: @crazy4chickennuggets @kmc1989 @oureternalbond  @wakeama @fanfic-n-tabulous @dreamlandcreations @anime-weeb-4-life @keyweegirlie @danzer8705 @im-just-a-mississippi-girl @the-wandering-lunatic @alwaysachorusgirl @beardedbarba @multifandomloversworld @est1887 @mortal--soul @buddinglinguist @purrrrfect @adaydreamaway08 @stressed-chas @spookyboogyuniverse @librarian1002 @msjava1972 @thanossexual @kishie8 @saltyunicorn079 @nessamc @thebaileybugle @spaghettificationandpretzels @nu1freakshow @justreblogginfics @beccabarba @legally-a-bastard @trublu2u @irishavengersassemble @fanfic-n-tabulous

Companion Series to:

Complicated - Bishop already knows your secret.

The Wall - Bishop comes home to find you covered in blood.

It’s poker night at Vicki’s.

Bishop thinks it’s going to be quiet. A couple of drinks, a few rounds of cards while the rest of the guys blow off a little bit of steam. It’s more toned down than it used to be now that most of them have coupled up, but they’ve got a few guys up from Yuma who were looking for a specific form of entertainment and Vicki’s happy to oblige.

Bishop’s playing out the best hand of his life when they hear the gun shots. He knows the sound of a high calibre, long range weapon when he hears it. Despite your best efforts the Reed Coalition are still hunting down immigrants. He knows you’re not out there tonight. You’re meeting with the accountant to discuss the community centre’s finances. Still hearing those gun shots, it puts the shits up him. They were close, too close he thinks.

It's the flash of headlights that makes his heart sink, the sound of wheels spinning out on gravel. Creeper slides the curtain back and Bishop sees the colour drain out of his face before an expletive leaves his mouth. He’s on his feet as the door is thrown open.

It’s you that Riz is carrying, you who’s bleeding out in the other man’s arms. Drops of blood trail down your limp wrist, pattering onto the hard wood floor. Bishop knows that he’ll hear that sound in his fucking dreams.

Coco uses his arm to sweep the cards and poker chips from the table, the plastic disks scatter across the floor, rolling under chairs that are being shifted to make way for the causality. Riz is careful as he lays you down, Bishop takes in the sight of him as Gilly assists. Theres’s glass in his hair, miniscule shards glittering in the warm glow from the lights above. Streaks of crimson run down the left side of his face in rivets from slices across his forehead, cheek and neck. His shirt is soaked with blood, a mixture of both yours and his.

You’re awake, your hand is pressing Riz’s hoodie against the wound just under your clavicle. Coco covers your palm with his own, taking over the task. Bishop’s hand slips into yours, clasping it tightly, quiet reassurance that he’s there, that you aren’t alone. He feels that relief thundering through his system when you squeeze back. You hiss when Coco removes the hoodie, his features pinched as he tries to assess the wound.

“Stitches is on route, but she's an hour out.” Creeper informs them before Vicki shoves a First Aid kit into his hands and directs him to one of the bedrooms up the stairs. Her attention switches to Riz, guiding him onto one of the barstools as Hank flicks open the clasps of his own First Aid box.

“We need to take you upstairs.” Bishop tells you. “Get you some privacy so that Coco can get a better look at that wound. I’ll follow you up alright?”

You nod, a tear leaking down your cheek that he chases away the calloused pad of his thumb.

“I’m gonna be right here Mi Cielito.” He promises you. “Everything is gonna be ok.”

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Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee

[probablyasocialecologist]

On a cold November afternoon in 2021, the three of us used metal lock-ons to chain ourselves together and block a quiet, private road near Gatwick airport, outside Brook House immigration removal centre, to prevent people being forcibly removed to Jamaica. We took action in solidarity with and support of people the government was trying to rip away from their children, partners and loved ones, while some were also physically resisting their deportation inside Brook House. We were arrested and charged with causing a public nuisance. We denied that and told the jury we felt we had a moral responsibility to act. The jury members appear to have empathised. They acquitted us. That speaks volumes. Living in this country and under a government proactively working to perpetuate racism, violence and other prejudice against marginalised people, there is an obligation to resist, in whatever way you can. That was our motivation. We now know that 41 of the 50 people the government tried to deport to Jamaica on that flight are still in the UK, and many of them have sent us grateful messages of support. Mothers have thanked us for resisting on behalf of their sons, while others have said that knowing there were people out there willing to stand up for them meant so much at a dark and lonely time – and that they can now enjoy their lives with their families.

[rabbitcruiser]

Cronquist Tea House, Red Deer

The Cronquist Family

The Cronquist House is one of the few remaining buildings in Red Deer dating from the early 1900's when the district was settled.The three story, 3500 sq. ft. Victorian-style farm house was built in what is now West Park Estates by the Cronquist family who were Swedish immigrants. 

Emmanuel Pettersen Cronquist married Hilda Carlsdater in 1886 and became a successful Alberta businessman with extensive farming and livestock operations. He completed their luxurious family home in 1912 in a location with a beautiful view of the Red Deer River Valley.

The House Through Time

The house fell into disrepair due to the death of the last surviving family member in 1974. It was vacant and neglected despite being a landmark for travelers along the old Calgary- Edmonton trail. 

Then the 1000 acres of land which belonged to the Cronquist family were acquired by developers who intended to demolish the house and build a new subdivision.

 Where We Come In

In 1976, the Red Deer Folk Festival Society (now the Red Deer Cultural Heritage Society) was given the opportunity and took on the challenge of rescuing the now famous Cronquist House from demolition. In relocating the house to its present site overlooking the picturesque Bower Ponds, the Society created one of the first multicultural centres in Alberta.

After the move to the Bower Ponds location, the Cronquist House was completely restored. The interior decorations of the house are new, although reminiscent of the era in which the house was built, and the beautiful and extensive woodwork is original. It stands on a new basement, however, the original bricks were removed for re-location and reset at the new site. New wiring, heating and plumbing systems installed by volunteers from trades and construction professionals to citizens who simply donated their time to help out in any way they could.

From March to December, the public is invited to enjoy the ambience of the Cronquist House over delicious light lunches or afternoon tea and dessert. The house may be rented for meetings, small weddings, or other private functions. 

Source

[head-post]

Small boat arrivals fell by third last year

The UK Home Office published the latest figures on illegal migration and asylum claims on Thursday. There were 38,784 illegal arrivals in the 12 months to June 2024, representing a 26% drop from the previous year.

Of these, 81%, or 31,493, made the dangerous journey across the Channel in small boats. This figure is 29% lower than the 44,460 arrivals on small boats in the year ending June 2023.

Despite the overall drop in numbers, the average number of people per boat rose to 51, up from 44 in the previous year, suggesting that smugglers are increasingly cramming more people onto each vessel.

While the government continues to grapple with the complexities of managing migration, the number of people awaiting an initial decision on their asylum claims remains a key issue.

By the end of June 2024, 118,882 people were still awaiting an initial decision, a slight increase from 118,329 at the end of March 2024.

Nevertheless, this is a significant drop of 32 per cent from the record high of 175,457 recorded in June 2023. Of those waiting, 76,268 have been on the waiting list for more than six months, although this number is down 46 per cent from last year’s record high of 139,961.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper reiterated her commitment to tackling illegal migration, announcing plans to reopen two immigration centres as part of a wider strategy to increase the number of people being removed who have no legal right to remain in the UK.

Cooper, who has been criticised by migrant rights campaigners, said the Border Security Command would step up its activities.

She emphasised that 100 officers from the National Crime Agency had been brought in to reinforce the border. According to Cooper, they are to thwart “criminal gangs operating transport operations” and prevent migrants from travelling dangerously across the sea in boats. The minister also announced sanctions against negligent employers who hire migrants illegally.

For more than 10 years, each of Britain’s governments has promised to reduce the number of migrants. Britons who supported leaving the EU believed that the country’s immigration problems were due to EU pressure on it. But Brexit didn’t help: while net immigration in the year before the referendum in 2015 was 329,000, according to Reuters, it will be 745,000 in 2022, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Read more HERE

[eaglesnick]

Private Sector Good, Public Sector Bad? (2)

This is the second part of a look at former public services and utilities in Britain that have been privatised in the name of neoliberal economics and the mistaken belief that private enterprise is ALWAYS more efficient than publicly  run bodies.

Prisons

The first privately run prison in the UK was opened in 1992 under a Conservative government and private sector involvement in Britain’s penal system has grown steadily ever since. The UK is now second only to the USA in the number of privately run prisons.

Premier Custodial Group was formed in 1992 and in 2005 was the largest private company running UK prisons. It was a joint venture between the American private prison operator Wackenhut Corrections Corporation and the British firm Serco PLC. From a turnover of £7.52 million in 1994 it had increased its revenues to £127.4m, with pre-tax profits of nearly £10m, paying out a £2m dividend to shareholders. In 2002 Wackenhut was taken over by Group 4 Falck.

In 2003 Serco gained control of Premier, estimating that Premier's

 “income over the life of its existing contracts for five prisons, one secure training centre, two immigration facilities and court escort custody and electronic monitoring services was £2bn” (Cited in Prison Reform Trust: Private Punishment :Who Profits; January 2005)

Group 4 Securicor (G4S) was a company created in 2004 when Group 4 acquired Securicor. Since these takeovers these companies have gone from strength to strength, with Serco, G4S, and GEO Group branching into immigration and other services.

In 2018, the Guardian reported that the Home Office paid these companies:

 “hundreds of millions of pounds to run the UK’s immigration removal centres, but no one knows for certain just how profitable the industry is…Commercial confidentiality agreements mean the Home Office and outsourcing companies are not obliged to publish detailed financial information about immigration detention centres in the UK.” (Guardian: 10/10/22)

In 2022, one of these companies, Sodexo was awarded a £264 million UK prison contract over a ten year period. On receiving the contract, Paul Anstey, CEO, Government, Sodexo UK & Ireland stated:

“Our vision is to provide a secure and safe environment which reduces re-offending through education, builds new skills and offers respect, equality and inclusion.” (Facilities Management Magazine: 16/08/22)

If only that were true! As long ago as 2013 Sodexo Justice Services  was facing charges of prisoner torture and degradation.

'Cruel, inhumane and degrading': Female prisoner kept segregated in 'squalid' cell for five years.”  (Independent: 21/08/2013)

In 2016 a video of naked Prisoners pretending to be dogs led to an investigation into violence and humiliation of prisoners by Sodexo. In September 2017, a female prisoner died under Sodexo care. An inquest into her death concluded:

“serious failures at Sodexo run HMP Peterborough contributed to death of Annabella Landsberg”  (Inquest: 04/04/2019)

Another prison run by Sodexo was accused of residing over a “spice” epidemic, which led to the death of a male prisoner. (Manchester Evening News) In 2018 Sodexo was again accused of neglect and systematic failures resulting in the death of yet another inmate. In 2019, a different prison run by Sodexo was accused of “systemic breaches of inmate human rights”.

In February of this year 20 prison staff resigned from the Sodexo run HMP Lowdham Grange, which was deemed so unsafe the government was forced to take it over.

The appalling levels of service cited above are not restricted to Sodexo alone. In her book “Profiting from their misery: Britain’s private prisons”, Hatty Nestor reveals that:

“outsourcing companies like G4S encourage prisoners to work 40-hour weeks, all they are paid (is)  as little as £2 an hour. Such practices amount to slave labour. Companies are profiting from prison labour, paying fewer well-trained, low staff wages. In private prisons, staff are paid 23% less than public prisons, and they also outsource security, healthcare and cheap food. Private prisons aim for a profit margin of 8-10%, which is met by cutting costs and the increased exploitation of staff and inmates.”

Given that privately run prisons pay their staff less, are more overcrowded, and employ fewer prison officers you would think they would at least be more cost effective yet this isn’t the case. The governments own figures for 2022/23 reveal that it cost £32,762 per prisoner, per year in publicly run prisons, while the cost for privately run prisons was £33,628 per prisoner. (Ministry of Justice: “Costs per place and cost per prisoner by individual prison.", 21/0324)

 What is more, the government gives 23% of its allocated budget to private companies despite the fact their prisons only house 15% of the total prison population. It seems that whichever way you measure private prison success (apart form profits for its shareholders) private prisons do far worse than those still in the public sector.

[zahri-melitor]

1 and 18 for the 20 questions to hate?

1. You have to make one Robin (Dick, Jason, Tim, Stephanie, Damian) not exist permanently and never have existed. Choose which.

Look I've gamed this out before (publicly even) and it's Steph. Steph is the only one of the five I can easily remove from the timeline without disturbing things too much or knock on effects I'm concerned about.

Dick is fundamental. You remove Dick and Bat comics look unrecognisably different. DC comics look unrecognisably different. Superhero comics looks unrecognisably different. Plus I love Dick so much. No Dick is a timeline divergence in 1940 that I don't think anyone can envisage the entire shape of.

Jason? Jason's death is the third most important thing ever to happen to Bat comics storytelling (the first is the death of the Waynes, the second is the death of the Graysons at Haly's Circus). It's a fixed point in the narrative that all storytelling revolves around. No single other event in Bat comics outside of the two origin stories listed above has had so many knock on effects. Prior to Jason's death, Bruce's entire story was about the loss of his parents. After Jason's death, it is also the story of losing a child, and how that changes you. It's heartbreaking to me that, for Bruce, the trolley question of "would I save my parents or my child" is both everpresent there and also in most incarnations, is answered "my parents". (Bruce's kids all believe he would answer "parents").

Tim I can't give up for two reasons: one because he's my boy, but secondly and more importantly, because part of my deep love for Bat comics is about the wide network of characters who revolve around Gotham and Bruce. It's about my love of the Bat family. And these are concepts that did not exist in the way you think they do, which were not developed properly, until Tim walked in and became the Team Up Robin. If you love the Bats as anything more than Batman & Robin (and maybe Batgirl, maybe occasional forays of Selina and/or Talia and/or Nocturna to helping out B&R), you need a Tim shaped character to pull that together.

Damian is the other one I go back and forth on removing, but I think at this point he's tied into enough storytelling that ripping him out as the most recent still does a lot of storytelling damage, plus there's the situation that Damian does allow for a different style of storytelling with Bruce that is different to what Dick and Tim brought.

The benefits of removing Steph is that, despite everything she brings to DC, as a supporting character for almost all comics she has ever appeared in, the only things you really need to rearrange are the precipitating incident of War Games (which actually interestingly could be transferred over to a lead in to Jason's return if you tried; also I suspect they would have killed Holly Robinson instead), and the Batgirl 2009 run (which would either go to Cass or to Babs, heroically I am assuming Cass would get it for my own sanity but we might have been cursed by Babsgirl two years earlier). She's actually not a participant in many wider events; her appearances are usually character work in lighter issues. Pretty much all of her plot relevance or character beats could be absorbed by another character and her loss wouldn't be noticed. Deleting Steph doesn't fundamentally alter the shape of the Bat comics like any of the other four do.

18. Best supergirl.

I have read at least a few appearances of all the major Supergirl candidates at this point, I believe. I think my favourite so far in what I've read honestly has to be Kara Zor-El, a child of Krypton, sorry to everyone else. I particularly enjoyed the storytelling of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow in terms of the frame of what a Supergirl character could be. I enjoy the loss that exists at the centre of Kara as a character - she's one of the last survivors of Krypton who understands the loss felt. Clark is the story of an immigrant raised in a new culture, never able to quite understand where he came from. Kara, on the other hand, understands the loss of her home. It's an important difference in their characters.

[beardedmrbean]

The Illegal Migration Bill is facing challenges in its final stages in Parliament.

The bill is part of the government's plan to tackle small boat crossings after record numbers arrived in the UK this way in 2022.

What is the government's plan to tackle migrants?

Under the Illegal Migration Bill, published in March 2023:

the home secretary has a duty to detain and remove those arriving in the UK illegally either to Rwanda, or another "safe" third country

migrants will not be granted bail or able to seek judicial review for the first 28 days of detention

under-18s, those medically unfit to fly or at risk of serious harm in the country to which they are being removed, will be able to delay departure

the number of refugees the UK settles through "safe and legal routes" is capped

Under a new agreement with France, the UK will pay £500m over three years to fund more patrol officers and a new detention centre.

The government also said its returns agreement with Albania had reduced small boat arrivals from the country.

How many people cross the Channel in small boats?

Rishi Sunak's claims on small boats fact checked

What changes have been made to the Illegal Migration Bill in parliament?

Pressure from peers in the House of Lords led to changes being made to the bill, known as "amendments".

One required the government to produce a report looking at the existing so-called "safe and legal" routes to the UK, and the possibility of expanding them.

Another was to add protections in the bill for people claiming to be victims of modern slavery.

But when the bill returned to the House of Commons - and despite criticism from some senior Conservative MPs - nearly all of the changes suggested by the Lords were overturned.

At a later stage of voting, these provisions were reinstated by the Lords.

The bill is currently in the "ping-pong" stage of Parliament, where it passes between MPs and Lords who consider the changes proposed by the opposing house.

The government hopes to pass the bill before Parliament breaks up for the summer recess period.

Concession over detention limits in migration bill

On a boat picking up migrants in the middle of the Med

What are the "safe and legal" routes to claim asylum in the UK?

The Home Office insists there are a number of "safe and legal" routes to the UK.

However, some are restricted to people from specific countries such as Afghanistan and Ukraine, while other routes only accept limited numbers. Figures shown are for the year to March 2023:

UK Resettlement Scheme - prioritises those from regions in conflict (1,056 grants issued)

Community Sponsorship Scheme - for local community groups to provide accommodation and support for refugees (309 grants)

Refugee Family Reunion - for partners and children under 18 of those already granted protection in the UK (6,029 visas)

Mandate Resettlement Scheme - to resettle refugees who have a close family member in the UK who can offer a home. (Six resettled; about 430 refugees accepted since 2004)

In April 2023, Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick was asked in Parliament which safe and legal routes were available to a young person wanting to flee the conflict in Sudan.

He said, "the best advice would be for individuals to present to the UNHCR [UN Refugee Agency]. We already operate safe and legal routes with them."

But the body insists "there is no mechanism through which refugees can approach UNHCR with the intention of seeking asylum in the UK."

What does international law say about refugees?

Critics of the government's asylum proposals, such as the Refugee Council, say they risk breaking international law.

The main principle of the 1951 Refugee Convention states that refugees should not be returned to countries where they faced threats to life or freedom.

The government insists its plan to send migrants to Rwanda for their asylum cases to be heard complies with international law.

But the Court of Appeal ruled in June 2023 that sending asylum seekers to Rwanda was unlawful and risks breaching Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The government will take the case to the Supreme Court.

What has the government said about migrant accommodation?

In March 2023, it said that three ex-military sites in Essex, Lincolnshire and East Sussex would house several thousand migrants.

In April 2023, it announced a barge called the Bibby Stockholm based in Dorset would host up to 500 adult male asylum seekers.

Another accommodation site called Catterick Garrison in Yorkshire is also due to open soon.

Local councils in Lincolnshire and Essex both lost legal challenges to prevent bases being used to house asylum seekers.

On 12 July 2023, the first asylum seekers arrived at the Essex site. The Home Office said 46 asylum seekers had been placed there, with more due to arrive over the summer and autumn months.

The government hopes the new measures will reduce the amount of money it spends on accommodation. There are more than 51,000 asylum seekers currently living in hotels across the UK.

A Home Office official told a committee of MPs that the department was paying to keep nearly 5,000 hotel beds empty to prevent overcrowding at detention centres.

[consistantly-changing]

[Image descriptions in order: an article titled "Minister ordered Home Office staff to paint over art for children at asylum centre, charity boss says". The subtitle says "Robert Jenrick 'said pictures of cartoons and animals must be removed', according to Refugee Council CEO". Attached is a photo of a man, presumably Mr. Jenrick, standing up at a conference. There is a woman sitting down behind him, barely on screen.]

[An excerpt from the article which says "Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick told staff at an asylum reception centre to paint over wall art depicting cartoons and animals to provide a "welcoming" atmosphere for children, it has been claimed.

Enver Solomon, CEO of the Refugee Council, said Mr Jenrick gave the order as he visited the Kent asylum intake unit earlier this year.

It was on the same visit that he was said to have urged workers to take down welcome signs with colourful branding, in order to make clear the centre was a "law enforcement environment" and "not a welcome centre"."]

Can’t stress enough how much of the UK’s immigration policy is intended not just to ‘close the borders’ or anything like that, but instead to be as deliberately evil as possible.

Demanding staff at an asylum reception centre paint over wall art, that made kids feel a bit more welcome, is evil.

The cruelty is the point. They want to make every step of the way towards claiming asylum the hardest it can be.