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Growing support for detention reform – where next?

26 September 2017

Following the death of a Chinese person at Dungavel in Scotland and the Panorama documentary on Brook House near Gatwick Airport, immigration detention is yet again under intense scrutiny.

At the Labour party conference in Brighton, a number of campaigners and supporters have been speaking to politicians and other conference attendees about the need for a time limit on immigration detention.

The Green Party has also recently launched a petition calling for an immediate end to indefinite immigration detention of asylum seekers and migrants and exploration of community based alternatives to detention.  

In the meantime, Members of Scottish Parliament are still denied access to Dungavel detention centre in Scotland, where concern for welfare of those held there is increasing following the death of a Chinese national.  

TK, who was in Dungavel at the time of the Chinese person’s death, published an open letter to the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd.  In the letter, TK said ‘You are doing your work.  Rule is same for all. If a person loses his life then what are the rules for? Rules are meant to keep people safe.  I hope you can understand what I am trying to say.’

After the oral evidence session of the Home Affairs Committee on Brook House, eight people who were detained at the same Detention Centre, including one man whose abuse was captured on camera, are now demanding a public inquiry into the alleged abuse revealed by the Panorama documentary.  

Mishka, a member of Freed Voices a group of people who lost over 20 years of their live to immigration detention, added ‘Ignorance is not an excuse any more. We want to see some real change.’

House of Commons returns on 9 October and Oral Questions (Home Department) will take place on 16 October.  We wait to see if any immigration detention related questions will be put to the Ministers on 16 October.  

 

 

 

 

 

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Join our volunteer team! Social media volunteers needed.

Social media volunteers needed!  Deadline 2 October 2017

11 September 2017

We are looking for one to two (or maybe three) enthusiastic and curious volunteers who have a deep interest in and commitment to migrants rights movement and challenging immigration detention and can help us increase our social media presence.  

This social media role includes tasks such as:

  • making sure our Twitter account (@DetentionForum) is always actively disseminating accurate and relevant information about immigration detention
  • writing small pieces of detention-related news that we can share with others
  • collating immigration detention related news
  • attending detention-related events and file reports about such events

You need to have;

  • Solid experience of working or volunteering in a NGO or in a team
  • General understanding of immigration detention in the UK (you don’t need to be an expert!)
  • Experience of Internet-based research to find information
  • Solid experience of using Twitter (you need to have actively used Twitter at least for three months)
  • Demonstrable ability to communicate clearly in English
  • Ability to work on your own initiative and complete tasks on time
  • Access to a computer and Internet connection
  • Any design / art / creative skills are a big plus – let us know what skills you have.  We are always struggling to have enough visual material to share over social media: are you the one who can help us with this challenge?

Above all, you need to have desire to communicate well with a wide range of audience, in order to challenge immigration detention.  

You don’t need to be in London but you need to be able to communicate with us over emails and Skype as and when necessary.  We are especially keen to hear from people who can report how their local communities are affected by immigration detention.  

Please do not apply if you do not meet these criteria. 

The Detention Forum currently has one part-time Project Director who works one to two days a week and five part-time volunteers.  Our team is proudly diverse and multinational, made up of people coming from different countries, cultures and background.  We do not have an office so we all work form home.  On a day to day basis, we work largely independently and communicate each other via Skype and emails as and when necessary.  This is the reason why you need to be a self-starter and reliable if you want to join our team!

Due to our limited resources and time, the only tools of communication we have with the outside world are emails, our website and Twitter (soon Facebook as well) – therefore for us, social media work and how we communicate using these platforms is very important.

We would like the volunteers to be available at least one day a week for at least five months.  From our experience, it takes a while before new joiners understand our key messages, how we communicate about immigration detention and why.  We occasionally arrange social events/meetings in London.  

The Detention Forum also runs an exciting social media project, Unlocking Detention, every year, in which our social media volunteers play a key role.  This year’s “tour” will start from October and end in December.  You can find more about last year’s #unlocked at www.unlocked.org.uk

If you are interested in volunteering for us, please send the following to detentionforum@gmail.com by 2 October 2017:

  • your CV
  • a short covering letter addressing the above points, confirming that you are available for the training and interview, if recruited/shortlisted
  • details of your Twitter account
  • a short written piece, up to 300 words, on immigration detention (you can write about any topic and theme relating to immigration detention)

We will contact those who are shortlisted.

Volunteering at the Detention Forum can be a lot of work.  However, you will get to learn more about immigration detention and you also have a chance to learn how groups like the Detention Forum, its members and other groups around the UK are challenging the government to reduce and end immigration detention.

We look forward to hearing from you.

The Detention Forum team

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Responses to the Panorama documentary on Brook House Immigration Detention Centre – will the government be let off the hook again?

Responses to the Panorama documentary on Brook House Immigration Detention Centre – will the government be let off the hook again?

10 September 2017

The undercover Panorama documentary on Brook House Immigration Detention Centre prompted a range of reactions and comments from all quarters.

While there has been much focus on whether the G4S’s detention management contract should be terminated, some looked beyond individual allegations of abuse to a wider question of the UK’s use of immigration detention as a whole and the government’s continuing failure to reform UK’s dysfunctional and harmful detention system despite severe criticisms it has received over the years.

As expected, Immigration Minister’s response to the programme was restricted to the operational issue of G4S ‘ handling of the abuse allegations and made no mention of the detention reform that his department promised in January 2016 and still not delivered.

However, writing for the Huffpost, Diane Abbott, Shadow home secretary, Labour MP for Hackney North, squarely laid the blame on the government’s policy and practice of immigration detention.  She said ‘Conditions in Brook House, as revealed in the Panorama programme, are shameful. It may have been G4S guards carrying out the brutal acts, but it is this government that is ultimately responsible.’  At the same time, she stopped short of outlining what policy changes she considers to be necessary to resolve what she calls ‘Britain’s Brutal Immigration Detention System’.

In their letter published in the Guardian, Freed Voices, a group of migrants who have lost over 20 years of their lives to immigration detention, stressed that what was revealed by the Panorama documentary is ‘neither unique nor isolated – but routine’. Freed Voices asserted how UK’s practice of indefinite detention ‘undermines the whole immigration system’ and ‘allows staff to act with impunity, as though they have licence to assault and abuse’ and called for a time limit on immigration detention.  They concluded their letter by saying ‘The government promotes the British values of fairness and human rights around the world. It’s time to practice what it preaches at home.’

In a separate development, 17 Bishops of Church of England together with representatives from the Church of Scotland and Methodist and Baptist churches jointly called on the government to end indefinite immigration detention.  In their letter to the Telegraph, they maintained that indefinite detention and abuses in detention centres are ‘symptomatic of a rhetoric fostered by some politicians and sectors of the media that dehumanises immigrants and paints the public as ‘victims’ of immigration’ and described indefinite detention as ‘against the core fundamental principles which British law is based on.’

Two Early Day Motions have also been tabled in response to the documentary, displaying mixed responses from MPs.

EDM 257 PANORAMA PROGRAMME ‘BRITAIN’S IMMIGRATION SECRETS’, tabled by Keith Vaz MP, is entirely focused on the issue of whether asylum seekers should be detained in the same space as migrants who have finished their prison sentences.  On the other hand, EDM 293 IMMIGRATION DETENTION, tabled by Stuart McDonald MP, ‘calls on the Government urgently to implement reform of the use of immigration detention, introducing the introduction of a 28 day time limit and greater use of community-based alternatives to detention.’

With a death of a Polish individual after suicide attempt at Harmondsworth Detention Centre confirmed only days after the Panorama broadcast and the second Shaw Review starting at the same time, more questions are likely to be raised about the government’s role in perpetuating this harmful practice. At the same time, there is no guarantee that the government will not be let off the hook yet again: while there is a high level of expectation for the second Shaw Review among NGOs, inquiries and reviews can also be used as opportunities by the government to kick the problem into the long grass.  Without strong and sustained pressure on the government and a clear accountability mechanism, the promised detention reform might never be delivered.  We should not forget the urgency with which migrants, their families and communities need a radical detention reform now, not in years’ time, and start taking action now.

At the Detention Forum, we believe that the government should, as a matter of urgency, commit to:

  • the introduction of a 28 day time limit
  • the implementation of automatic bail hearings
  • much wider use of community based alternatives to detention
  • ending the detention of vulnerable people

We believe that these measures will result in a significant reduction in the scale and the lengths of immigration detention and will continue to advocate for these changes.

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If you are contacting your MP about immigration detention, you might find our latest briefing paper, available here, useful.

 

 

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Why you need to speak to politicians now: how to use Detention Forum’s latest briefing paper on immigration detention

4 September 2017

Our parliamentary latest briefing paper, Immigration Detention in the United Kingdom is now available.   You can download it here.

Now is the time that you speak to your MPs, Peers and your communities about the urgent need for detention reform, starting with a time limit.  Here is why.

This week, Parliament returns after summer recess.  And in the same week Stephen Shaw, who conducted the review of immigration detention in 2015, begins his second review.  This is a good news: we certainly need more scrutiny over the use of immigration detention.

However we cannot sit around, wait for Mr Shaw to finish his second review and find out what he has to say, because things are already not looking good.

We created an immense pressure that forced the Government to acknowledge for the first time ever that immigration detention is a problem and that they need to do something about it.

Under pressure, the Immigration Minister promised detention reform and said such reform would “lead to a reduction in the number of those detained, and the duration of detention before removal, in turn improving the welfare of those detained.”

The pressure came from all directions: people with experience of detention, communities supporting them and parliamentarians who could see the injustice of immigration detention and decided to act.

That was in January 2016, more than 1.5 years ago.  There is mounting evidence which shows that the government simply and quietly broke their promise.

The latest detention statistics that came out a few weeks ago revealed that since January 2016, there has been little change in the lengths or the scale of detention.  Our analysis is here.

Nearly 28,000 migrants still enter the detention estate in a year and more than one in three people leaving detention had been detained longer than 29 days.  And 52% who left detention were returned back to the community and not removed, raising questions over the necessity of their detention.

Only last week, we heard the news of G4S suspending its staff members working at Brook House detention centre over allegations of abuse.  Such allegations must be properly investigated and any form of abuse is totally unacceptable.  However, improving staff conduct in detention centres is not enough to address the UK’s systemic overuse of immigration detention.  

It is clear that we can’t trust the Home Office to take seriously the task of detention reform.  In the words of Joe from Freed Voices who experienced immigration detention, ‘The fact that the Home Office makes promises they don’t keep is not really news to me.’

One of the ways to put pressure on the Home Office is to urge parliamentarians to seek accountability for the broken promise of detention reform.  Without a radical reform, this system will continue to detain people indefinitely without a time limit, harm people’s health and well-being and separate people from their friends, families and communities.

It’s important to always remember that it is people and communities’ voice that has been the driving force for change.

It was people and communities affected by immigration detention that convinced the first parliamentary inquiry into immigration detention that the whole detention system must change immediately, starting with the introduction of a 28 day time limit.

This prompted a cross-party group of parliamentarians to try to introduce a time limit in law.  This call for a time limit was formidable and the government were defeated twice through the Immigration Act 2016 progress.  As a compromise measure, the government offered an automatic judicial oversight of detention after four months for some people: though this has not been enacted yet.

Now is also a good time to be approaching MPs and peers.

Some MPs have been newly elected in June 2017 and haven’t had a chance to learn about immigration detention and its devastating impact on people.  Many are also unaware of the parliamentary inquiry, the first Shaw Review or what positive legislative changes were secured in Immigration Act 2016.  They need to know these things if they were to confidently speak up for the need for detention reform.

Political parties will be having their conferences in autumn, and some of our colleagues will be out there speaking to them about the need for detention reform.  It helps if MPs and peers have already approached by their constituents and contacts who are deeply troubled by the UK’s use of immigration detention: they will know that it is an issue that they must pay attention to.

Some parliamentarians are already speaking up (see here, here and here) and we need more of them.  Our setback has been that some of the most supportive MPs lost their seats after the last election: we need new voices.

We know that some NGOs are planning to publish their reports on immigration detention over the next few months.  It helps if parliamentarians are already familiar with immigration detention and its impact when these reports come out, to encourage them to take a greater interest in what these reports have to say.

Our new briefing paper summarises all the key points that MPs and Peers need to know about immigration detention.  We hope you can use it to make sure much-needed detention reform actually happens.

If you have any questions about how to approach or engage your MPs, do get in touch.  We are also compiling a parliamentary contact map so we can pool our knowledge and intelligence.  If you want to contribute to this or want to get some information from us, please get in touch too.  You can contact us at detentionforum@gmail.com – we don’t work everyday, so it might take some time before we can reply.

And don’t forget our annual Unlocking Detention will be starting in October 2017.  Stay tuned!

 

 

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Our response to Brook House G4S staff abuse allegations

1 September 2017

The Detention Forum statement in response to the news of G4S suspending its staff as part of abuse investigation.

‘We welcome the news that G4S has suspended nine staff members who are being investigated over allegations of abuse. We understand that this action was triggered by BBC Panorama’s undercover documentary which will be aired on Monday next week.

Such allegations must be thoroughly investigated. Any form of abuse is unacceptable. 

However, scrutiny over immigration detention must not stop at improving how centre staff behave towards people held in immigration detention centres. We are deeply concerned about the lack of scrutiny of the UK government’s routine use of indefinite immigration detention.  We should not forget that Brook House is only one of nine such detention centres in the UK, which lock up migrants without a time limit. 

Deprivation of liberty must be an exceptional measure of last resort: yet the UK detains migrants routinely, locking up nearly 30,000 people a year for administrative reasons in prison-like conditions. UK is also the only country in Europe to detain migrants without a time limit, a practice that has been repeatedly criticised by monitoring bodies, including Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons. 

Anyone who does not have a secure immigration status is at risk of detention. Detention separates families, including parents from their children. 

More than two years ago, a cross-party Parliamentary Inquiry into the use of the immigration detention concluded that the UK detains far too many people for far too long and told the government to introduce a 28-day time limit and a wider range of community-based alternatives to detention. The government-commissioned report by Stephen Shaw which followed also urged the government to reform its detention system ‘boldly and without delay’. 

While the Minister promised to implement reform in response to these reports in January 2016, disappointingly, the latest statistical information shows that there has been no change in the scale or the lengths of detention. As of the end of June 2017, the longest time a person had been detained was 1,514 days, in excess of four years. 

There is a human cost to such incarceration. Self-harm and suicide attempts in detention centres are a direct consequence of this government policy of mass, indefinite, detention.  There is a clear consensus amongst all practitioners that detention has a devastating impact on individuals’ well-being, regardless of the reason why the person finds himself/herself in immigration detention. 

It does not have to be like this: the UK government can introduce a wider range of community-based alternatives to detention as recommended by, amongst others, UNHCR and the Commissioner for Human Rights at the Council of Europe. It can also introduce a 28 day time limit on detention.

Stephen Shaw, who conducted the review of immigration detention in 2015, begins his second review on Monday next week, as Parliament returns. We urge Mr Shaw and parliamentarians to seek accountability for the broken promise of detention reform that continues to put lives at risk today.’