John Freddy Suarez Santander arrived in this country along with his family more than 17 years ago, when he was only six years old. Unfortunately, when he was 17 he committed a criminal offence and was sent to a young offenders’ institute for seven months. Two years after his release, the British Labour government implemented a law to the effect that immigrants with criminal records should face deportation. John Freddy was arrested and served with a deportation order.
His deportation was stopped following a protest at the airport by more than 50 family members and friends wearing T-shirts with his face on them and the slogan ‘Please don’t take my son away!’ John Freddy was removed from the aeroplane and the deportation was suspended. Our protest was legitimate because John Freddy’s case had been taken to the European Court of Human Rights and was awaiting consideration of the following arguments:
- He is being punished twice for a criminal act that he has already served time for by being sentenced to prison and then being given an additional punishment of deportation.
- It is against the principles of international law for a law to be applied retrospectively. The British government law to deport people with criminal records was passed a year and a half after John Freddy was sentenced.
- The European Court has said that criminal acts committed by youngsters should not be treated as a criminal record, but as the basis on which to rehabilitate them into society. Five years on from his sentence, John Freddy has committed no further criminal offences and has been completely rehabilitated.
All his family (parents, brothers, aunties and uncles, grandfather etc) are now British citizens. John Freddy has never returned to Colombia since leaving as a child and has no relatives there. In addition, he is now father to a five year old who lives in Britain.
On 4 April 2011 the nightmare began again. A new deportation order was unjustly issued for John Freddy. The government is determined to expel him from Britain, on the pretext of a criminal record he obtained as an adolescent and for which he already served a sentence, while they wash their hands of the social phenomenon which affects so many adolescents in this society. It is clear that behind this policy is racism and that these decisions hide violations of human rights and violate Universal Declarations of Human Rights, internationally approved agreements which the UK have ratified.
Once again our family has had to go through this tragic and torturous experience of the threat of deportation which we have lived through for seven years. We have exhausted all legal channels in trying to stop this ruthless separation. Our continued resistance has caused both economic strain and emotional crisis, which our unity helps us to endure. We are encouraged by John Freddy’s bravery.
In early April, John Freddy went to sign on at the Becket House Reporting Centre. He was told to wait there because someone from immigration wanted to speak to him. He knew he faced incarceration for the fifth time so he left the Centre to return home and say goodbye to his son, wife and parents. He was told to return on the following Monday at 10am. He was accompanied to Becket House by his parents, wife, aunts and uncles and his little son. Another chapter in our trial full of anguish began. John Freddy refused to disappear and live below the radar. He told us: ‘I am not a delinquent; I don’t want to live underground and give them the opportunity to catch me and treat me even worse than they have already.’ We watched him walk into the Centre and disappear as his little boy cried saying ‘they are locking up my daddy’. We hoped it was just a routine interrogation, but he later confirmed what we had feared; following a humiliating, long wait, including 5 hours in van with a piece of paper detailing his deportation flight details, he was incarcerated again. He remains in detention and we continue to fight for his release.
We have no family in Colombia. We are among the 10% of the Colombian population driven into exile by the government’s economic policies and corruption. The Colombian government does not care about Colombian emigrants or their treatment abroad. Many of us leave as economic migrants, others for political reasons. We have seen our children and grandchildren born and grow up here amidst a different culture. We try to educate them in the principles of respect and human solidarity.
There are many people like John Freddy who have their entire families abroad and who struggle against the ruthless and inhumane deportations. In the name of all immigrants today, we demand justice in those countries which subject their victims to forced displacement, full of tears and pain, and who criminalise us just for being immigrants. For you JOHN FREDDY SUAREZ SANTANDER, for your resistance to incarceration, for your desire to live with your family: we will not stop demanding justice in this struggle.
Elizabeth Santander
*On Monday 18 April, John Freddy won his application for bail and has returned to his family. It is a small victory but the battle against his deportation continues*
