The Migrants Law Project has factsheets on a range of topics, including detention. Detention Action supports detainees in Harmondsworth and Colnbrook Detention Centres and campaigns for an end to immigration detention.
RAPAR Refugee and Asylum Seeker Participatory Action Research is a Manchester-based human rights organisation which has a webpage for the development of informed and effective action about immigration detention. Campaign to Close Campsfield includes publications and a short briefing on Immigration detention.
Bail for Immigration Detainees — Bid provide legal advice and representation to migrants detained in removal centres and prisons to secure their release. Migrant Rights Network. Some short, excellent and updated awareness raising videos can be found at StandOff Films. They cover the recent hunger strikes and campaigns. These categories are fluid and can overlap, for example a non-British national may claim asylum from prison. Whatever the circumstances, being held in prison-like conditions without a time limit causes anxiety and distress.
Many people in detention already have traumatic backgrounds, and the psychological impact of being held is absolutely damaging. The UK is one of the largest users of detention in Europe. Harmondsworth, near Heathrow, is the largest detention centre in Europe, holding up to people at any one time.
Residential STHFs can hold people for up to seven days. There are also many detainees held in non-residential STHFs for up to 24 hours — at various ports and airports- and several hundred detainees in prisons.
The total capacity of these bed spaces excluding prisons is about 2, Including people detained in prison this total is closer to 3, The Home Office contracts out the management of detention facilities to private providers, and to the Prison Service. Detainees can wear their own clothes but drab tracksuits and flip-flops are provided for those who need them.
Detainees say that some of the guards — private contractors from global companies like G4S — show compassion while others are cruel.
What detainees really fear are meetings with Home Office officials inside detention centres. Many say that the officials pressurise them to opt for voluntary return even when they fear their lives will be at risk if they go home. Cell lock-in times vary from one detention centre to another but some centres confine people to their rooms for 13 hours a day. An indoor smoking ban was introduced in February.
During lock-in hours, some detainees have tried to circumvent the ban by lighting cigarettes using live wires from kettles or foil set alight in microwaves.
Among the vulnerable groups highlighted in the review were pregnant women and children. It called for banning the detention of pregnant women. Shortly after the release of the report, the Home Office announced a number of reforms, but it pushed back against a complete ban on the detention of pregnant women.
Other issues that have attracted criticism include: the role of private security companies in managing detention centres, the increasing instances of detention of ex-criminal foreigners after they have served their criminal sentences, and the lack of limits on the length of detention. Among its key conclusions were that the country should cease indefinite detention and impose a time limit of 28 days. For detainees, confinement is punitive, even though it is an administrative measure.
The UK has also received criticism from UN monitoring bodies that have called for a statutory limit on the duration of immigration detention, for detention to be a measure of last resort, and for reforms to the now-defunct Detained Fast Track system. After successful legal challenges by Detention Action and other groups, the Minister for Immigration announced the suspension of the system in July Two key changes are the provision of automatic bail hearings after four months in detention and limiting the detention of pregnant women to 72 hours, though subject to extension.
Many observers, however, have expressed disappointment that the new Immigration Act does not go far enough in its reforms. We are also disappointed that the Government has not accepted our case for an absolute exclusion of pregnant women from detention. Key norms. The Immigration Act first introduced administrative detention for those denied entry to the country.
More recently, in May , the Immigration Act became law. It provides a number of previously non-existent safeguards, including automatic bail hearings and limits to the length of detention of pregnant women.
The judgment in Hardial Singh is considered to be a critical legal case concerning immigration detention. Immigration Act Building on the Immigration Act , the bill aimed to restrict access to services for undocumented migrants. Numerous critics have argued that the law victimizes immigrants and reveals a lack of official understanding regarding the undocumented migrant population in the UK.
Removals, detention, and UK Visas and Immigration. The Home Office is the authority with legal custody over immigration detainees, although operations at detention centres are contracted to various governmental and private entities. It works with partners such as the police to regulate migration in line with government policy, while supporting economic growth.
Unauthorized immigrants who are not in detention are given the option to depart the country voluntarily, either independently or with the support of an assisted voluntary return programme AVR. Detention under Immigration Act powers is administrative and, therefore, should not be punitive. However, the statutory power of detention has been somewhat limited through jurisprudence, most significantly in the Hardial Singh decision, which provides that the power to detain should be strictly and narrowly understood.
This means that if the detention is not for a statutory purpose then it is unlawful and the power to detain is limited to the period reasonably necessary for the statutory purpose to be achieved.
Since , the High Court has found that long-term detention breaches the principles outlined in the Hardial Singh decision, but the threshold has been set very high and it is nearly impossible for migrants to know when their detention will become unlawful. For example, despite these principles the High Court has held that detention for multiple years can be lawful in certain cases. Grounds for detention. Article 10 of the Immigration and Asylum Act provides for detention for unlawful stay and various rules and instructions provide for detention prior to deportation for unauthorised stay and following a criminal conviction.
The Immigration Act provides a number of offences that are subject to criminal procedures and penalties, including several under Section 24 that are related specifically to status-related violations. Since new legislation has created 84 new immigration offences, more than double the number of offences that had been created since The most recent figures reported by the Migration Observatory in come from , when people were convicted of immigration offences in magistrate courts and crown courts.
According to separate statistics provided by the Ministry of Justice, during the period there were nearly 3, convictions for offences under the Immigration Acts including cases in both the crown courts and the magistrates courts.
Of these, only a few hundred involved status-related violations. For those that have no legal basis to remain here and as a result face administrative removal from the UK it appears sensible to remove a period of imprisonment, which comes with a financial cost to the state and a personal cost to the individual. However, this diversion scheme appears to involve a significant risk of bypassing due process.
Detention of children. The immigration detention of children has undergone reforms in recent years, which have led to significant decreases in the number of child detainees. According to Home Office statistics, 1, children were placed in detention in , while in the year ending in March only children entered detention. In , the government announced to great fanfare that it would end the detention of children and established a new policy for the treatment of families. As part of the reforms, families with an irregular status are dealt with under a separate regime, which includes an Independent Family Returns Panel that advises on removal proceedings for families and children as well as specialized family caseworkers.
Also, in , in an effort to accommodate families without detaining children, the government announced the opening of Cedars pre-departure facility and the expansion and renovation of Tinsley House. Totally indefensible. Under the Immigration Act , unaccompanied children may only be held for a maximum of 24 hours at a short-term holding facility and only if the following two conditions are met: 1 directions are in force that require the child to be removed from the short-term holding facility within the relevant 24 hour period, or a decision on whether or not to give directions is likely to result in such directions; and 2 the immigration officer with the authority to detain the child reasonably believes that the child will be removed from the short-term holding facility within the relevant hour period.
On the other hand, some analysts have highlighted the positive impact of the policy. The number of children entering detention was 53 in the first quarter of , which is a substantial reduction on the many hundreds of children routinely held each quarter under the old system. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported in that children, particularly those arriving from war-torn countries like Syria and Afghanistan, are routinely misclassified by border and asylum officers as being adults and are subsequently detained in adult detention centres despite clear evidence that they are children and without referring their cases to social services, as provided for in government guidelines.
Upon arriving in the UK, asylum seekers are assessed by immigration officers in an initial screening interview, during which government guidelines provide that children should be referred to social services for an official age assessment. Detention of asylum seekers.
It stressed that temporary admission or release was the preferred measure for asylum applicants, and that detention should be used only as a last resort—after alternatives to detention have been considered. However, in , a total of 14, asylum seekers were detained. This compared to an overall refusal rate in the UK system of 72 percent. Detention Action legally challenged the detained fast track system in On 2 July , the Minister of State for Immigration announced the temporary suspension of the system.
Detention of women. Women held in immigration detention in the UK represent a particularly vulnerable group. Issues faced by women in detention include depression, miscarriages, and sexual abuse. Many women feel that those working at the detention centres do not fully understand their needs as detainees. The detention of pregnant women has been the subject of widespread opprobrium. The UK government has argued that it is vital for the Home Office to have the ability to detain pregnant women for short periods of time and as a last resort in order to be able to quickly remove them or if they present a risk to the public.
On 18 April , the UK Home Office announced that it would adopt a hour time limit on the detention of pregnant women, which could be extended up to a week in total with ministerial authorisation. Judicial review and bail. Detainees must actively challenge the lawfulness of their detention through judicial review and habeas corpus. The Home Office has an obligation to review the reasons for detention each month, which has been described by the Supreme Court of the UK as an active safeguard against unlawful detention.
An independent review of immigration detention commissioned on behalf of the Home Secretary found that, in practice, this review may be neglected, conducted hastily, or omitted entirely. However, all detainees have the right to apply for bail at any time by submitting an application to the Chief Immigration Officer, who is part of the Home Office, or the First-Tier Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber.
Applications for bail represent the only direct way that detainees can challenge their detention. The process is intended to allow detainees to access an independent judge with the power to overrule a detention order. In theory, this judge is required to presume in favour of defence, and the Home Office is required to justify the detention.
A number of concerns have been raised about the UK bail process, including the lack of information about the system provided to detainees and limited access to professional legal assistance. Further, when video conference systems are used, the lawyer is allowed only 10 minutes to speak with the detainee prior to the hearing, which advocates argue is insufficient. Length of detention. The United Kingdom is the only EU member state without a legal limit on the period of immigration detention.
The country opted out of the EU Return Directive, which includes an absolute maximum of 18 months for immigration detention. While there is supposed to be an absolute time limit of five consecutive days for people detained in immigration offices at ports of entry, Short-term Holding Facilities STHFs , police stations, or mobile detention facility vehicles, [] there is no limit on the duration of detention in Immigration Removal Centres.
The report concluded that the country should cease indefinite detention and impose a time limit of 28 days. Indefinite detention in the UK has also long been condemned by international human rights monitoring bodies, including the UN Human Rights Committee in and the UN Committee against Torture in Re-entry ban. Non-deportable detainees and indefinite detention. Detainees may remain in detention because removal to their home country is impossible due to risk of refoulement.
Detainees with countries of origin such as Iraq and Somalia may only be returned to certain areas in their homeland, and are often reluctant to accept voluntary return given the significant safety concerns. Many of these detainees remain in detention indefinitely. Some detainees face problems with documentation because their embassies are slow in returning documentation or demand evidence of documents such as birth certificates, which detainees may not have access to.
Health concerns. Research has demonstrated that people placed in UK immigration-related detention often suffer serious mental health deterioration, including increased post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. A study by the London Detainee Support Group LDSG revealed significant numbers of indefinite detainees developing mental health problems, self-harming, or attempting suicide.
BID has noted a significant increase in suicides among immigration detainees. Whereas in the year period there were four self-inflicted deaths in custody, in the two-year period there were seven.
Individuals with serious medical conditions, serious mental illness, or serious disabilities are detained unless the relevant condition cannot be satisfactorily managed in detention.
However, many detention centres are not equipped to hold elderly people or individuals with disabilities and only a few IRCs have hour healthcare available. However, the Rule 35 process has faced criticism and its failings have been documented over time. These protests have focused on issues such as limited access to legal advice and medical care.
Children have exhibited severe and lasting psychological and physical trauma after being placed in UK detention centres. Symptoms included bed wetting and loss of bowel control, heightened anxiety, food refusal, withdrawal and disinterest, and persistent crying.
Three girls attempted to end their own lives. These problems included fever, vomiting, abdominal pains, diarrhoea, musculoskeletal pain, coughing up blood, and injuries as a result of violence. Experts have also noted the negative psychological impact resulting from the UK practice of transferring detainees between removal centres.
Foreign national offenders. Unless they fall under one of the six exceptions provided in the UK Borders Act, foreign national prisoners FNPs who have been sentenced to a period of imprisonment of at least 12 months are subject to deportation.
Although these foreign offenders remain in prison under Immigration Act powers, they are not included in official detention statistics. One man interviewed for the report had been in immigration detention since March after he was sentenced to four years imprisonment and his effective sentence expired two years later.
The government argues that these detention measures are designed to protect the public against re-offences and absconding. Immigration detainees are also moved to prisons if they are deemed particularly violent or disruptive. The earliest UK immigration detention centres, opened in the s, were run by the private sector.
This decision was made with the view to ensure that non-prisoners would not be subject to the oppressive treatment criminals faced under the guard of prison or police officers.
The National Offender Management Service operates the two remaining facilities. In , the contract for managing holding rooms, the non-residential short term holding facility, and the three residential short term holding facilities passed to Tascor. The privatisation of immigration detention in the UK has been the subject of widespread criticism, which has been spurred in part by the numerous official and media reports regarding assaults and beatings of detainees at the hands of private security guards during the detention and removal process.
In , a coalition of NGOs detailed some cases of alleged assaults that took place during The allegations came from people from more than 41 countries, with the majority being made by African migrants.
The report raised concerns about the complaints procedure within the centres, stating that the current procedure was largely ineffective. The UK government has tried to use the privately operated nature of facilities as a shield to protect itself from liability in cases concerning alleged unlawful detentions at such facilities.
In the case of ID and others v. The Court of Appeal … dealt with this matter quickly. A study published by the University of Oxford Refugee Studies Centre reported that private companies that also operate prisons in other countries were persistent lobbyists in the arena of detention policy. Private contractors are provided with a fee per inmate per day, rendering immigration detention a lucrative business.
The standards, which build on the Detention Centre Rules, include details on the provision of legal services, accommodation, activities for detainees, admission and discharge protocol, the detention of female detainees, the provision of health care and a number of other areas of concern for detainees. Private companies have also been criticised for their management of non-secure asylum housing facilities where people awaiting decisions on their asylum claims can be accommodated.
Monitoring and inspection. Every IRC is subject to an unannounced inspection at last once every four years.
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