The Verne walkway (Picture: Michael Collins, Right to Remain)Lou, who I met one windy afternoon last year, knows all too well the devastation that immigration detention can wreak on one’s family. Lou arrived in the UK as an unaccompanied asylum seeking teenager 15 years ago. Vulnerable and orphaned, life was tough. But then Lou met, fell for and moved in with Sam, a British citizen. After a couple of years, she became pregnant. It was an accident but Lou was delighted when their baby girl, Mary, was born. All this time, Lou’s asylum claim languished at the Home Office. Until, one day the authorities realised that the claim had been refused (but never communicated) years before. To the family’s great distress, Lou was taken away to an Immigration Removal Centre (IRC) for removal from the UK, leaving Sam and their daughter behind.
The length of time that Lou had lived in the UK, coupled with baby Mary’s British nationality, meant that it was always going to be difficult for the Home Office to remove Lou. But this didn’t stop the Home Office trying. And despite the damage being caused to the family, Lou was kept in detention as they tried. The initial wrenching shock of detention eventually gave way to what Lou called the slow “suffocation” of lengthy detention. In the end, Lou spent an incredible four years in immigration detention, separated from Sam and Mary. Mary was just a toddler when Lou was taken, and so almost all her memories of bonding are based in the visits hall of an IRC.
Parenting from afar
