Cold Calls

I'm cold-calling today, to book interviews for research. Yesterday, I gathered a list of what must be 100 people at least, from the charity I used to work at - Bail for Immigration Detainees. I have a

Name, nationality, age, phone number, year arrived in UK, date detained.

Name, nationality, age, phone number, arrived in UK, date detained.

Name, nationality, age, phone number, arrived in UK, date detained.

Name, nationality, age, phone number, arrived in UK, date detained.

Name, nationality, age, phone number, arrived in UK, date detained.

And so on, about 100 of them in a scrawl I hope to be able to decipher later! Many, maybe half, I suspect, will no longer be at the Detention Centre in question - they'll have been removed from the country (deported, in the early morning, before others are awake to make a kerfuffle, perhaps?), Released into the community to await the outcome of their immigration case (though not allowed by law to work and forced to live on coupons), Granted asylum, perhaps? They might still be in there, denied asylum, but waiting for the government of Iran/Lebanon/Eritrea/the Palestinian Authority to issue "Emergency Travel Documents" for their return (which can take years, if they drag their feet or deny that the person is a national. All that time in limbo status!). Maybe they've been moved to a different centre across the UK, as happens incredibly frequently and for no apparent reason? (there is an argument that the Border Agency moves people around so much because it prevents the formation of personal ties with staff, and severs links of support with networks of friends and charity actors. The threat of being moved also falls into the incentive system: because some centres are much nicer and friendlier than others, "troublemakers" can be credibly threatened with being moved to "one of those awful places that feels like a prison".

It's funny, to have snippets right in front of me of major, major dates and details about strangers' lives: Mr. Osunde from Nigeria and his date of detention earlier this year, Mr. Kamel, a Syrian Kurd who arrived in the UK in 2004 and who, I noted, speaks Arabic and "some English" (important for interview purposes - how can one give informed consent of one doesn't know what 'anonymized', 'confidential', and 'completely voluntary' mean? If they can't understand, perhaps, that I am not with the government, that I can't help them with their asylum claim, but that I am just a 'researcher'? That's why, when I make my first calls today to book interviews to be conducted in the visitor hall of Campsfield House Immigration Removal Centre, 6 miles north of here, I'll look for someone who speaks good English, who's been in the UK a while, who is likely to make this inaugural interview experience relatively smooth.

Alright Marouf, Mounir, Michael, Mohamed, Saheed, Lennox, Manjit.... I'm a'comin!