Anita and Emiliano deported on Friday
Anita and her three-year-old son Emiliano were deported to Poland on Friday.
The latest extension to the deportation order date expired on
Thursday. There was a lot of confusion, various senior immigration
gardai and the entire Department of Justice being unavailable for
most of the day. At 4.00 pm Anita was told that she and Emiliano were
to be deported at 6.00 am on Friday morning. It was, not by any concidence, then tol late to get a court order stopping it.
Various fallback mechanisms which had previously been put in place to
protect her in Poland were activated. I can't speak of them for
obvious reasons.
Friday morning at 6:00 they reported to the Garda station. Two cars
brought them to the airport, the three Gardai in one, Anita and her
friends in the other. Anita and Emiliano were accompanied to Poland
by a male and a female garda. A volunteer from Galway also went with
them.
Things were conducted in a reasonably professional manner. In other
cases deportees have been locked in cells, handcuffed and separated
from their children. Fortunately this did not ocur in this case.
Anita has been in touch by phone and it seems that things are going
reasonably OK. She was not brought to the attention of the Polish
police and is in a temporary safe location.
This has left me, and a lot of other people, very angry.
It's a poor excuse for a country that won't protect a mother and a
three-year-old! I'm going to make that clear to every canvasser I
meet in the next few weeks and I'd hope others would
do the same.
The latest extension to the deportation order date expired on
Thursday. There was a lot of confusion, various senior immigration
gardai and the entire Department of Justice being unavailable for
most of the day. At 4.00 pm Anita was told that she and Emiliano were
to be deported at 6.00 am on Friday morning. It was, not by any concidence, then tol late to get a court order stopping it.
Various fallback mechanisms which had previously been put in place to
protect her in Poland were activated. I can't speak of them for
obvious reasons.
Friday morning at 6:00 they reported to the Garda station. Two cars
brought them to the airport, the three Gardai in one, Anita and her
friends in the other. Anita and Emiliano were accompanied to Poland
by a male and a female garda. A volunteer from Galway also went with
them.
Things were conducted in a reasonably professional manner. In other
cases deportees have been locked in cells, handcuffed and separated
from their children. Fortunately this did not ocur in this case.
Anita has been in touch by phone and it seems that things are going
reasonably OK. She was not brought to the attention of the Polish
police and is in a temporary safe location.
This has left me, and a lot of other people, very angry.
It's a poor excuse for a country that won't protect a mother and a
three-year-old! I'm going to make that clear to every canvasser I
meet in the next few weeks and I'd hope others would
do the same.