Here, an asylum seeker watches for immigration vans from his window as he did every morning from 5am. In October 2006 the Kingsway Amnesty Group began their daily dawn vigils keeping watch to protect the families of Kingsway from the trauma of ‘dawn raids’.
Shortly after 7am, 20th September 2005, an Albanian asylum seeker and her baby are strapped into a separate van from her husband, Gezim, by immigration officers. ‘Dawn Raids’ are favoured by the Home Office as they are scheduled early in the morning when asylum seekers are most likely to be at home, and will be foggy as they are awakened from deep sleep.
Gezim is taken to a caged van in handcuffs and accompanied by flak-jacketed police. The family had been in the UK for just over a year. No one knew who had been taken that morning until this photograph was shown. For this community, as for many other dispersal communities in the UK, having friends and neighbours disappear is a way of life.
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