Immigration System.
1980. Visitor's landing cards are sent off to a computer at Bootle. The computer then informs the Home Office if the visitor has not left in time.
make deportation faster and more efficient.
volves installing computer terminals black at ports and airports and linking them the to a computerised Home Office confidential suspects index.
visitors present their passports to the immigration officer the details will be fed into the computer and checked against the index.
The computer may then send insuch as 'refer to Special Branch when gone' or Phe Home Office buss an Home Office computer THE 'NEW TECHNOLOGY' is now being harnessed to step up the harassment of black people. New Scientist and Computing magazines have both blown the gaff on a plan by the Home Office for an Nationality Department The first phase started in August names, numbers This enables the Home Office to Phase two of this operation inThis list already has over 18,000 of whom political activists. When Since being cent.
'refuse ment. has another Harmondsworth policies.
campaigns; the New even more passed.
called by the Gardens Checks Electronic Computer headquarters of the Illegal Immigra. tion Intelligence Unit. This stores the addresses telephone of people suspected of aiding illegal immigrants.
This poses the question of whether being active in an anti-deportation campaign constitutes 'aiding an il legal immigrant'.
These new measures follow on the heels of the Tory government's Na. tionality Act which confers on many black people the title of British Overseas Citzen. This means they are British but have no legal right to come and stay in Britain.
The Tories have also stepped up their use of the Immigration Ac elected in 1979 deportations have gone up by 20 per Race checks have been introduced in the NHS hospitals so that black people may be asked to prove that they are legally allowed to stay in Britain before being given hospital treatThe Tories economic policies have had a cruel effect on blacks, particularly black youth. A Commission for Racial Equality study shows that six out of ten Afro-Caribbean youth are unemployed and that four out of ten Asian teenagers do not have a job.
The Tories are using racism to en courage a black and white divide and to make the black population scapegoats for their economic and socia But events such as the rebellion of the black youth in the inner city ghettos in the spring and summer of 1981 scared the hell out of the Tories.
The spate of anti-deportation the big protest movements built around the massacres of • Cross 13; the campaigns against the harrassment of the Brad. ford 12 and the Newham 8 as well a: the protests over the death of Colir Roach in a Hackney police show that there is a real will to fight back among black people The Tories have responded with repression. CS gas and plastic bullets have been issued to the police and they will enjoy frightening ly wide powers if the new Police Bill is That is why the demonstration the Campaign Against Racist Laws on 27 March is so important. Not only can it rally thousands of people but it can show by its size and strength that the Tories are not going to have things their own way.
In the fight against Tory the labour movement must stand with black people. The fight for desor ratic rights affects everybod!.
Waterco Sire Surer! 27 March. " Repeal the Immerzion and Nationality ACis • Stop Race * Stop Racist Deportation • Unite the Divided Families Now.