Dear Supporter 

Thank you so much, we have smashed through the 150,000 signature target over night with nearly 153000 of you signing to date. 

*Trigger warning*

Today I spoke to a man who is booked on the flight who sadly tried to take his own life last night. He was taken to hospital early in the evening but discharged and sent back to the detention centre at 1 in the morning. Due to his sexual orientation  he fears for his safety if he is deported. 

One man booked on the flight has seven children, the youngest is only 2 years old.  Another  came to the UK as a small  child, his children, partner and his mother were all born in the UK and are all British Citizens.  He has no family in Jamaica. He  went to school, worked and paid taxes here and raised his family here. It's  the only home he knows.

One man said he told immigration officers he wanted to claim asylum and instead of providing him with the required form they gave him a list of 6 law firms to contact and when he called them all, they told them they were unable to help him. Questions  must be asked as to why the Home  Office are recommending  law firms who do not deal with immigration cases. 

I was concerned to learn that upon arrival at the detention centre there were no covid tests, only temperatures were taken. A high temperature  is one possible symptom of coronavirus, not the only or main one and some people are carriers without any symptoms  at all. Those held in detention have told us that  there is no social distancing,  only paper masks  and people are all mixing and eating together, cleaners have not been asked to do any deep cleaning of shared spaces either.

We have had national and International  coverage again today with the Huffington Post and the Independent amongst others writing about the planned Christmas  deportation  flight  and I have written for gal-dem about the impacts and why the deportations shouldn't  be happening here:

https://gal-dem.com/christmas-priti-patel-planning-mass-deportation-jamaica-50-windrush/

Please see the list of actions at the end of my article which include a template letter  produced by gal-dem which you can use to write to your MP.

Thank you for your messages of support and for taking action.

In addition to the list of actions in the article above, if you have just recently signed this petition, please see the past 3 petition  updates which all provide actions you can take. 

Please use the hashtag #Jamaica50 on social media and you can follow @baracuk and @BameFor  on Twitter for updates and content to share to keep up the pressure. 

Kind Regards 

Zita 

Zita Holbourne 
On behalf of BARAC UK and BAME Lawyers for Justice