The Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB) was last night preparing to deport up to 80 Nigerian nationals, with arrests having taken place across the State yesterday.
An aircraft had been chartered for an expected "mass deportation" to Lagos overnight or in coming days, a Garda source said yesterday. Among those to be deported were a large number of "aged-out minors" who had arrived here initially as unaccompanied minors. Having turned 18, they were no longer in the care of the Health Service Executive.
Immigrant support organisations were yesterday reporting the arrests of Nigerian nationals in Dublin, Athlone, Millstreet, Co Cork, Castleblayney, Co Monaghan, Co Carlow and Limerick.
Among those arrested, according to Mary King of the Dún Laoghaire Refugee Support Group, was one woman whose baby died here last year. "The baby's grave is here and she is very distressed at the thought of having to leave her baby's grave."
The chief executive of the Irish Refugee Council, Peter O'Mahony, said there was also one youth due to sit his Leaving Certificate in June, a man who has been in the State since 1998 and had secured to right to work here and another woman who was the sole parent of three teenagers.
Ms King, who works with unaccompanied minors, said one of those she works with, "a very bright, articulate girl" named Portia Osagiede (19), had had no notice of the imminent deportation. Ms Osagiede, who arrived in Ireland in November 2002, had been told to sign on at the GNIB headquarters on Burgh Quay "every week for the past three or four weeks".
"I had heard there was going to be a deportation charter this week so I rang her this morning to warn her, which she was glad of. " She said Ms Osagiede arrived at GNIB headquarters at 2pm yesterday as requested and was escorted by a male and a female officer to her accommodation in the city to pick up her belongings. "When she rang me she was on a bus, being taken I suppose to Balseskin holding centre, or the airport. She has no family in Nigeria at all."
Mr O'Mahony meanwhile has written to the Tánaiste expressing his concern at the "disturbing lack of transparency" on how decisions are made with regard to people's applications for humanitarian leave to remain. He also described as "very troubling" apparent inconsistencies in the criteria applied by those deciding whether people qualify for humanitarian leave to remain.
In a letter sent to her at the end of last year, following her intervention to halt the deportation of a woman who campaigned against female genital mutilation in Nigeria, Mr O'Mahony told Ms Harney he welcomed the intervention.
"Ironically . . . it is also a source of concern that a number of the cases of people who have, quite rightly, got leave to remain, appear to have depended on the intervention of a politician for their eventual success, which suggests that the lack of political support may work against a number of people whose cases have merit."
