Asylum-seekers held for deportation

Garda immigration officers have rounded up dozens of failed asylum-seekers for a mass deportation which was expected to take place last night.

At least 16 people had been detained in Cloverhill Prison yesterday afternoon in readiness for a deportation flight to Nigeria, a spokesman from the Garda press office confirmed.

A number of women were detained in Mountjoy Prison while other Nigerians were picked up in towns and cities around the country and moved to Dublin during the day.

Anti-deportation activists said Garda officers later brought many of those detained to their places of residence to pick up belongings before being transported to Dublin airport.

They said at least four pregnant women were among those detained and that in some cases their pregnancies were too far advanced to be allowed fly.

Leonard Cree, from Drogheda, told The Irish Times his pregnant partner, Christiana Araboro, was detained yesterday when she presented herself at the offices of the Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB) in Dublin. Gardaí then brought Ms Araboro to Drogheda to pack before being deported.

Mr Cree said he telephoned a number of people, including her solicitor, and raced up to Drogheda, arriving before the gardaí. While she was packing, gardaí received a call telling them that Ms Araboro was not being deported.

Mr Cree said he was delighted at the turn in events. Ms Araboro, whose baby is due in November, has been told to sign on at the GNIB in September.

Rosanna Flynn of Residents against Racism said immigration authorities had been detaining people over recent weeks. Others were detained yesterday when they signed on.

She said gardaí had picked up a number of Nigerian asylum-seekers in Blanchardstown on Monday. Other reports of arrests came from Galway, Kerry and Cork.

"There are people taken in for deportation who have been here for up to five years. They have integrated well into the communities and now they have been ripped out from those communities to be deported," Ms Flynn said.

"Deporting pregnant women is not a good policy by any standard. To deport women pregnant with Irish children is like theft from their fathers. This Government is denying those fathers a chance to be part of their children's lives in their own countries."

There was an urgent need for the asylum process to be removed from the hands of the Department of Justice into the hands of a body such as the Human Rights Commission, she said.

One of the women reportedly in Mountjoy is Tanya Dube, a South African woman who was the subject of controversy in 2002. On that occasion, she was imprisoned in Mountjoy while heavily pregnant. She was released to give birth, but her child died after two days, according to Residents against Racism.