Harry Elias SJ

What do I do?  My work as chaplain to two immigration removal centres takes me to just outside Heathrow airport.  They are built like prisons and are filled with detainees, mainly in their twenties, whose asylum cases for leave to stay in this country have failed.  Some are waiting for reviews, others for bail hearings, but the majority are awaiting removal or deportation.

They are sad and anxious places.  A few have been there for over a year.  Some have been torn from their partners and children.  Some others live in dread fear of removal or deportation, which could be quite sudden at any time of the day or night, to a country where they feel sure they will be imprisoned or tortured and killed.

Among the Christians, Pentecostals from Africa and a few from Latin America are the largest group for worship.  The services are organised by themselves, with visiting guest leaders.  Sunday Mass, which I take, is not as well attended, but I have invited myself to the Pentecostal gatherings where I am welcomed, and where I give some instruction on Scripture and apply it to their present plight.