Anna’s Unity Diary

Start of October 2006


My first day at Unity. The office is small and it smells of hard work. There are toys on the floor, a battered sofa in the corner, cups of tea on the filing cabinet. On the desk by the door is a little notebook. This is the focus of the days events. People come and people go. They sign their name in the book, they leave and usually they come back and cross their names off the list. Their names in the book isn’t all they leave. There is a heartwarming display of trust. People I have never met, give me their handbags, their mobile phones, their children to look after for the time that it takes them to go to the home office to sign in. They are scared. Scared these things will be taken from them there– their phones, their belongings, theit children. Scared too that they might be taken. That is why they sign in the Unity book first. If they don’t come back we will know. Someone will know they are in trouble. If you are in trouble, you really want a friend to know about it. That’s what friends are for. That’s when you know who your friends are.

One woman came in distressed. On the edge of tears, her voice failing her. She sat down and brought out the letters she had been sent. One was a normal routine letter – routine, like having the ability to work taken away and being made to cross the city every week to enter a heavily guarded building to sign your name on a piece of paper to prove that you haven’t run away is normal. But in this twisted state of affairs hope means that today nothing dramatic will happen and the status quo will be prolonged a little longer.

So, she has this one normal letter which noted that she signed in last week, which she did, and another letter which arrived at the same time telling her that she didn’t sign in (but she did) and saying that she was now liable for immediate detention. They were telling her that at any moment she may be picked up and taken to prison. Can I just restate her position. No crime has been committed. She asked if she could seek refuge in this country, years have passed of her living here with her family and now she is sitting in front of me breathing fast and shallow in a state of pure panic because she has a letter telling her that her and her whole family may well be taken to prison at any moment. For asking for a place of safety because they had none.

So I go with the woman and her 2 letters to the Home Office building on Brand Street and there are 2 men at the gate. The gates are shut, locked. With each person who comes to the gate it is open they are let through and then it is shut behind them. We go through the gates and I explain the situation. The first man is friendly, he has a smile on his face, is he trying to be helpful? How does he view his job? We are not allowed ins but he takes the letters inside to find out what’s going on. I wait with the woman. She doesn’t stop talking, do you think it will be alright? Where has he gone? What does it mean? The man left by the gate asserts his authority.

“Can you move over please?”

There is nobody else there in a wide courtyard space. We meaninglessly shuffle a bit to the side and continue talking ignoring his presence.

The other man comes back with the letters. He confirms that she was there the time before to sign (she knew that) and that the other letter was a mistake (she didn’t know that) and she was in no immediate danger of going to prison (for the crime of asking for a place of safety) and that was that. She wouldn’t quite believe him. Asked him again. He told her again. Her face pleaded with his, reassure me. He put his hand on his heart and said I promise you that this letter wa sa mistake, just come as normal next week. Normal.

Walking back she talks of the fear. She talks of moving the kids around friends and families so that nobody is sleeping in their own home just incase the immigration officials come in the night. Nightly uprooting after the big uprooting.

At last she smiles and I breathe a sigh of relief. She thanks us and leaves.

In comes another woman with her husband. She is wound up and in full flow. Why, why, why do I have to go the post office to get hand outs of money, I hate it I hate it, I don’t need this money, I am a french teacher I can work (but she can’t) my husband is an engineer, we could do things but this, this...

And the people keep coming, kids arrive, play with the toys then are picked up again when their parents are finished. The sign in at Unity, they sign in at the Home Office, they sign out of Unity. He signs in at Unity, he signs at the Home Office, he signs out at Unity. She signs in at Unity, she signs at the Home Office, she signs out at Unity. All day. Every day.