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Petition to end charter flights reaches almost 50,000

OVER 45,000 people have signed a petition calling on major airlines to stop helping the Home Office kick people out of Britain.

A Black Activists Rising Against Cuts (Barac) online petition against chartered deportation flights has nearly reached its 50,000 signature target after a week.

Virgin Airlines announced last month that from August it won’t help deport immigrants from Britain and Barac is calling on British Airways and others to do the same.

People deemed to be illegal immigrants are locked up in detention centres before being chucked on a plane and flown out of the country.

Campaigners are concerned those from the Windrush generation are at risk. Home Secretary Sajid Javid admitted in May that at least 63 people from the Windrush generation had been wrongly deported.

Barac co-chair Zita Holbourne said Virgin’s decision Virgin was a “big step in helping save people from facing injustice.”

She pointed out that American Airlines, United and Frontier had all asked the US government to stop using their flights to transport migrant children who had been separated from their families before President Donald Trump ended separations.

“I want to see UK airlines taking as strong a stance, and standing up for what is right,” Ms Holbourne said.

“We work regularly with people who are targeted by the Home Office, including those from the Windrush generation, and so I see the damage it causes to their lives and the communities they are part of when they are torn away.

“The tide is turning. Corporations are learning that it is important to listen to the public and recognise the role they play.”

British Airways did not respond to the Star’s request for comment.

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