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This was originally published on AVID website, and with their kind permission, republished here.

Dover detention centre to close! 

26 October 2015

Dover detention centre, which held 401 single male detainees, is to close by the end of October, it was announced last week.

The centre, previously a prison and young offenders institution, became a detention centre in 2002 and was run by HM Prison Service throughout this time. In the same month as the closure was announced, a detainee held there was awarded £19,000 in damages following their unlawful detention: a powerful symbol of the injustices and problems which plague the detention system. AVID welcomes the move, which we hope is a recognition on the part of the Government that it is using detention ‘disproportionately frequently’ and a move to reduce the numbers of those held. Dover’s closure reduces the numbers of detention bed spaces by around 10%.

It’s the second such rapid, unexplained closure of a detention centre this year, with Haslar IRC having been handed back to the National Offender Management Service (NOMs) in May. Staff were told on the 15th October that the centre would close within two to four weeks.

Detainees have been transferred out of the centre since the 15th, and we suspect many will be transferred to the Verne in Dorset, the second largest detention centre in the UK which opened in 2014.

While local press has focused on the impact of the closure on those who worked at the facility, it is likely that for those detained at Dover the closure will likely only mean greater anxiety and distress.

If they are transferred to other detention centres across the UK,  people who may have already been detained for months or even years will find themselves yet again separated from vital support networks – family, friends, lawyers and specialist support organisations – and the misery, isolation and trauma of their detention intensified.

AVID member Samphire (formerly Dover Detainee Visitors Group) has supported men detained at Dover for many years. Fraser Paterson, Detention Support Manager, said:

“For those at Dover, Thursday’s decision is likely to mean lengthy detention in a different detention centre. Just because one detention centre is closed doesn’t mean that these problems go away – they’re just less visible. The public needs to keep up the pressure on the Government to change these damaging policies.”

You can read Fraser’s full response on behalf of Samphire here.

AVID’s Director said:

“The closure of Dover detention centre, particularly coming so soon after the closure of Haslar, significantly reduces the numbers of detention spaces available. We hope this is a first step towards reducing the UK’s reliance on detention. The detention system is in crisis, and holding huge numbers without time limit is increasingly being understood as a practice that puts the UK at odds with other European countries. It is time for change, and we hope this is a sign that the government is willing to listen.”

AVID wishes all those who volunteered at Dover, supporting many thousands of detainees over the years, the very best. Samphire will continue its work in the community and its national work with ex detainees.

3 September 2015

As part of #UnlocktheDebate, the Detention Forum members will be sharing their views ahead of the parliamentary debate on the detention inquiry recommendations on 10th Sep 2015.

In this piece, Jerome Phelps of Detention Action examines the Government’s repeated claim that ‘there is no such thing as indefinite detention and hence there is no need for a time limit on immigration detention’.   Introducing a 28-day time limit on immigration detention was one of the key recommendations of the detention inquiry report.

Tweet your feedback to us (@DetentionForum) or with a hashtag, #UnlockTheDebate.  Detention Action tweets at @DetentionAction

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Next week, the UK’s practice of indefinite immigration detention will come under renewed scrutiny, as Parliament debates the report of the cross-party parliamentary inquiry. The inquiry concluded that a time limit of 28 days should be introduced. The government is likely to respond that a time limit is unnecessary, and that the UK does not practice indefinite detention.

The UK is unique in Europe in detaining migrants without time limit, often for periods of years, with no indication of when they will be released. Yet the government refuses to accept that this amounts to indefinite detention.

When called on as part of the United Nations Universal Periodic Review process to take steps to avoid cases of indefinite detention, the UK felt able to partially accept the recommendation, on the basis that indefinite detention doesn’t happen anyway:

‘Although there is no fixed time limit on immigration detention under UK law or policy it operates in line with the established principle that it must not be unduly prolonged and must last for no longer than is reasonably necessary for the purpose for which it was authorised.’

This ‘established principle’ refers to the common law principles known as Hardial Singh. These principles date back to 1983, and one of the first legal challenges to immigration detention. They set out the conditions that the Secretary of State (the Home Secretary) must meet in order lawfully to detain a migrant. The principles were subsequently summarised as:

(i) The Secretary of State must intend to deport the person and can only use the power to detain for that purpose;

(ii) The deportee may only be detained for a period that is reasonable in all the circumstances;

(iii) If, before the expiry of the reasonable period, it becomes apparent that the Secretary of State will not be able to effect deportation within a reasonable period, he should not seek to exercise the power of detention;

(iv) The Secretary of State should act with reasonable diligence and expedition to effect removal.

The Hardial Singh principles mean that the Home Office cannot simply lock up a migrant and throw away the key. Even if the person can lawfully be detained and the Home Office is doing everything that it can to deport them, there will come a point at which detention stops being lawful, either because detention is no longer ‘reasonable’, or because it will become unreasonable before the person is deported.

If migrants cannot lawfully be detained forever, is it therefore wrong to speak of indefinite detention?

The Cambridge English Dictionary defines ‘indefinite’ as ‘not exact, not clear or without clear limits.’ Lucid as the Hardial Singh principles may be, they can hardly be claimed to set exact or clear limits to detention.

Indeed, the abundant case law on unlawful detention, which has proliferated over the last six years in tandem with the expansion of long-term detention, is decidedly unhelpful in providing any practical guide as to when detention will become unlawful in any given case. Each case must be assessed on its own merits, and previous cases give little indication of how each new case will be decided.

In the early days, hopes were raised by a ruling that 30 months was ‘right at the outer limit of the period of detention which can be justified’ except in cases of serious offending. But subsequent case law undermined the suggestion that 30 months could be any sort of rule of thumb for unlawfulness in typical cases.

Indeed, the courts have become ever more reluctant to spell out clear or exact limits to detention. In the influential view of the Court of Appeal, it is not the case that:

‘in order to maintain detention the Secretary of State must be able to identify a finite time by which, or period within which, removal can reasonably be expected to be effected… There can, however, be a realistic prospect of removal without it being possible to specify or predict the date by which, or period within which, removal can reasonably be expected to occur and without any certainty that removal will occur at all.’

So not only is there no clear or exact time limit to detention, the Home Office does not even have to indicate when it expects removal to be possible, or have any certainty that it will ever be able to remove the person.

Indeed, it is not even clear that the Hardial Singh principles actually provide the legal limit to detention, since the Court of Appeal has also found that not every breach gives rise to a claim of false imprisonment. Detention can be not lawful with reference to Hardial Singh, but not unlawful either: a novel legal status that has been described by an influential barrister blogger as ‘legal-ish’.

The predictable result has been that migrants have been detained for periods that would be considered preposterous in any other European state, on the thinnest of pretexts. Shafiq-ur-Rehman, for example, was detained for 3 years and ten months, for much of which he was cooperating with removal, after serving a single prison sentence of seven months for using a false passport.

Immigration detention in the UK frequently lasts for years. Last month HM Inspector of Prisons reported finding nearly 40 people detained for over a year in a single detention centre, the Verne, and one detained for over five years. There is no time limit, and no-one in detention can receive even the haziest estimation of how long their detention would be lawful. There are legal limitations on the period of detention, but breaching them may not be unlawful.

If this is not indefinite detention, then we are in the world of Kafka.

3 September 2015

As part of #UnlocktheDebate, the Detention Forum members will be sharing their views ahead of the parliamentary debate on the detention inquiry recommendations on 10th Sep 2015.

In this piece, Ali McGinley of the Association of Visitors to Immigration Detainees (AVID) cautions MPs not to be fooled by the Government’s repeated claim that the ‘Shaw Review’ will address all the serious issues highlighted by the detention inquiry report.

Tweet your feedback to us (@DetentionForum) or with a hashtag, #UnlockTheDebate  AVID tweets at @AVIDdetention

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Next week the ground-breaking recommendations of the first ever Parliamentary Inquiry into immigration detention will be debated…….in Parliament. Since the publication of the inquiry report earlier this year, the calls for substantive change in the UK’s use of detention have amplified, buoyed by the hope that the huge raft of evidence which fed the Inquiry’s conclusions cannot be ignored, as so many other reports have been. The Inquiry concluded that wholesale change was needed, arguing for community alternatives and a time limit.

To date, the response from government has been to state that the UK cannot detain indefinitely and to defer to what has become known as the ‘Shaw Review’, a review into the welfare in detention of vulnerable people. It is likely these arguments will feature heavily in next week’s debate. But is the Shaw Review able to cure all ills?

There is no doubt that, as the Inquiry concluded, the UK uses detention ‘disproportionately and inappropriately’. There is a mounting crisis of harm in detention, yet thus far the government seems reluctant to accept the findings of the cross party panel of MPs and Peers, preferring instead to fall back on their own patchwork quilt approach of remedial reviews and investigations.

The Shaw Review was announced just days before the publication of the Inquiry findings and is viewed as a pre-emptive strike to the report, as well as a response to the damning Channel 4 investigations into Yarl’s Wood and Harmondsworth.

While the situation facing the vulnerable in detention is at crisis point, and therefore the Shaw Review is welcomed, there is a worrying tendency on the part of government to both pre-empt and over-estimate the impact that this review will be able to have.

The terms of reference handed to Sir Stephen and his team of Home Office secondees does not permit them to consider the decision to detain. As such the review’s premise is clear: the principle of detention is ‘not in question’, and it will only be able to deal with issues that arise once someone is already in detention. It will not be able to address the Inquiry’s critical findings of a disconnect between the official guidance on detention (which states that detention should be used sparingly and for the shortest period necessary) and the current practice of holding 30,000 people a year, with many instances of prolonged and unlawful detention. This is even acknowledged in the concluding remarks of the Inquiry Report:

“We welcome the review into the welfare in detention of vulnerable persons that was announced in February 2015, shortly before this report was published. However, the narrow scope of the review, particularly the restriction that it will not look at decisions to detain, means that it will not be able to deal with the issues raised by this inquiry and others”

Worryingly, this also means that the review will bypass the burning question at the heart of any consideration of the welfare needs of vulnerable people – why are they in detention in the first place? Does the UK really need to lock up pregnant women, those who have mental health needs, or people who have a disability? There is a real risk therefore that the Shaw Review will fall into what the Inquiry calls ‘tinkering’, looking at the remedial aspects of the system, and leaving the root causes of the problem unaddressed. There may be dangerous consequences should this opportunity be missed.

Similar attempts to ameliorate concerns about the treatment of vulnerable people in detention have been made in the past, with limited impact.

In response to a series of breaches of the Article 3 rights of immigration detainees with serious mental health needs, the Home Office commissioned the Tavistock Institute to carry out the Review of Mental Health Issues in Immigration Removal Centres in 2013. Tavistock reported in 2014 but their conclusions were not published until 2015, and we’ve yet to see any policy change as a result of their findings.

The Serco-commissioned review of Yarl’s Wood, a response to the findings of the Channel 4 expose, is a similar exercise, currently being undertaken by Kate Lampard CBE. Her remit is restricted to the elements of managing the centre which falls under Serco’s remit; as such she won’t be able to address the more complex policy questions around why so many vulnerable women are held in detention, many of whom have experienced sexual violence. Again, this review is welcomed: the women at Yarl’s Wood have been sidelined for too long. But it is unfortunately yet another example of a piecemeal approach which ignores the broader call for a time limit or the use of community alternatives.

There is a bigger question here. For many of us, the launch of the Parliamentary Inquiry report was a bit of a watershed moment. The systemic problems that we see every day were set out in black and white by a Cross Party Panel of MPs and Peers with considerable expertise, and their conclusions were clear: the problems that beset the UK detention system could be resolved simply by detaining fewer people.

Why is the government so reluctant to engage on the recommendations made by parliamentarians, instead diverting resources into piecemeal reviews of existing policies and systems?

Sadly, as we await their response, the crisis mounts: in the last month we’ve seen HMIP conclude that there is ‘too much violence’ at the Verne and that Yarl’s Wood is ‘a place of national concern’ that is ‘not meeting the needs of vulnerable women’. A few weeks ago there were media reports that a young man tragically took his own life at the Verne, and in the same month Catherine West MP was denied access to Yarl’s Wood, feeding rather than alleviating concerns.

It is time for the government to acknowledge that the problems in UK detention will take more than a sticking plaster to solve.

Here are some of the reactions from the civil society groups in response to the latest HMIP report on Yarls Wood Detention Centre in which the Inspector calls for a time limit on immigration detention.

Aderonke Apata of Manchester Migrant Solidarity

“This HMIP report on yarlswood reechoes the whole raft of concerns of human rights abuses inside yarlswood detention centre which we have been exposing since 2012. It’s no surprise that the report recognises need for time limit and that most vulnerable women aren’t detained. It’s evident that detention ruins lives (detainees, their families and friends). It is comparable to a concentration camp. No reforms can change the long lasting devastating effects it causes on human lives. We strongly call on the government to implement the recommendations of the APPG detention inquiry.”

Sam Grant of René Cassin

“This report highlights once again that the UK’s current practice of locking innocent and vulnerable people up indefinitely – is inhumane. Jewish experience of immigration to this country in the 1940s resulted in the internment of tens of thousands of Jewish men on the Isle of Man. We are sadly repeating what is commonly considered a stain on the UK’s reputation as a safe haven for refugees. As The Chief Inspector notes, tinkering with the system is not the solution, introducing a time limit is the only sensible moral and financial way forward?”

Nic Eadie of Gatwick Detainee Welfare Group

“GDWG welcomes Nick Hardwick’s call to implement the recommendations of the Parliamentary Inquiry into the use of Immigration Detention, including the imposition of a 28-day time limit. His voice echoes the sentiments of many individuals and organisations who understand that detaining migrants indefinitely not only shames our nation, but is also a hugely inefficient way to manage our borders. International evidence demonstrates that alternative, non-detention systems for managing migrants who are awaiting decisions on their cases are not only possible, but offer a more humane system at a fraction of the cost, while at the same time ensuring better rates of compliance amongst those subject to immigration controls. For almost 20 years we have seen first-hand the damage inflicted on people who are locked up for long periods merely for administrative convenience. This cannot continue. It is time for a time limit.”

Nazek Ramadan of Migrant Voice

“Migrant Voice calls on the government to implement the recommendations of the APPG detention inquiry. We strongly believe that immigration detention is expensive, unnecessary and has a devastating long term effects on the detained migrants.  Detaining individuals for immigration purposes has no place in 21st century Britain.”

Tzelem  The Rabbinic Call for Social and Economic Justice in the UK

“The Rabbinic Call for Social and Economic Justice in the UK wish to state in the strongest possible terms their objection against the system of indefinite immigration detention in the UK.  The report by Nick Hardwick, which described Yarl’s Wood Removal Centre as a ‘place of national concern’, highlighted the expensive, cruel and ultimately pointless nature of indefinite detention.   The government must take action on the report’s call for a time limit for the administrative detention of migrants.  As Jews, with a long history of seeking refuge from persecution and crossing borders, we identify with and stand by those detained.  Setting a time limit is the first step on the way to allowing those detained to live their life with some dignity.”

Suzanne Fletcher of Liberal Democrats for Seekers of Sanctuary

“This independent, official report adds to the recommendations of the All Party Parliamentary Group report on the Inquiry into the Use of Immigration Detention in the UK, as well as calls from the women affected and those speaking up for them.  Too many women have been scarred by a process which serves no purpose and costs money that could be better spent.  There is every reason now for progress on the APPG recommendations to begin as soon as Parliament reconvenes, and put an end to indefinite detention for all in the UK.”

Rabbi Danny Rich, Chief Executive of Liberal Judaism

“It makes no moral, economic or political sense to detain vulnerable woman without a limit on time.  It encourages bureaucratic inertia; it is inordinately expensive; it portrays Britain as uncaring of refugees when our history demonstrates the opposite; but most importantly it fails the ‘decency’ test.  Many detainees have been the victims of violence, abuse and discrimination, and detention without time limit frequently exacerbates existing difficulties.  It is not the purpose of immigration detention to ‘punish or ‘deter’.  It is a matter of justice that vulnerable human beings ought be treated fairly and expeditiously and the current regime of detention without time limit achieves neither.  It is in the interests of nobody for this policy to be retained and I urge the Government to bring it to an end immediately.”

Eiri Ohtani of Detention Forum

‘This is yet another sad report about one of the saddest places in the UK. The financial and human costs of immigration detention are simply too high, and we cannot afford to go on like this. It is time for the government to start engaging with the detention reform agenda proposed by the parliamentary inquiry panel. It should introduce a time limit of detention of 28 days and develop community-based alternatives to detention to reduce both the financial and human costs of detention.’  

Lisa Matthews of Right to Remain

‘The concerns raised in HM Inspecorate’s report on Yarl’s Wood are sadly not surprising. Right to Remain believes that these major failings are endemic to a system that deprives people of their liberty solely for being a migrant, a system that is intended to stop people establishing their legal right to stay and to drive people to despair, in order that they leave the UK. The regular and growing protests outside detention centres, most recently at Yarl’s Wood on 8 August, show that communities will not stand for migrants being locked up solely for the bureaucratic convenience of the state. The government needs to listen to those who have experienced detention first-hand (detained indefinitely, without trial) and to the many people from all walks of life calling for an end to this harmful and unjust practice.’

Ali McGinley of AVID

‘This report is an explicit call for change, and provides a strong evidence base of the harm caused to vulnerable women by indefinite detention. The current safeguards to protect the vulnerable have, once again, been found inadequate, leaving those with a history of rape, abuse or sexual violence at risk of harm. Today’s report echoes the growing call for a time limit on immigration detention, and we hope it encourages the government to take seriously the evidence that detention is harmful. There is no need to detain vulnerable women when their cases can be considered fairly in the community – where they can access the supports they so desperately need.’

Jerome Phelps of Detention Action

‘This is another scathing indictment of the indefinite detention of vulnerable migrants.  Yarl’s Wood is failing vulnerable women, and detention without time limit is simply failing as a policy.  The Inspector has joined the parliamentary inquiry in finding that too many people are being detained unnecessarily for too long.  It is high time for the Government to step away from the routine detention of migrants, and instead to work with them to resolve their immigration cases in the community wherever possible.’

Maurice Wren of Refugee Council

“The fact that people fleeing war and persecution are being locked away indefinitely in a civilised country is an affront to the values of liberty and compassion that we proudly regard as the cornerstones of our democracy. If the Government wants to prove it’s serious about justice and protecting vulnerable people, Ministers must urgently acknowledge that Britain’s policy of arbitrarily placing people behind bars because it’s politically convenient is wholly unjust, extremely expensive and utterly unsustainable. It’s high time Yarl’s Wood and places like it were closed. Seeking asylum is a human right, not a crime.”

Will Russell of Bristol Immigration Detention Campaign

“The inspector described a system in which pregnant women and the mentally ill were detained without justification for months on end, where understaffing was leading to unsafe conditions, and where the decline in healthcare standards has meant delays in receiving prescribed medication, dangerous mismanagement of physical health problems, and insufficient support for those with mental health conditions. He found that the procedure for identifying those unsuitable for detention to have provided “wholly inadequate protection for some of the most vulnerable detainees. The detention of human beings in these conditions brings shame on us all. The government may find it politically profitable to blame migrants for all the UK’s woes and talk tough about making the UK as inhospitable an environment as possible for those without a lawful right to reside here, but the fact that it has allowed the already dire situation at detention centres such as Yarl’s Wood to deteriorate further in this way is a moral failure. Sadly it is not a surprising one, but a seemingly inevitable product of a system which permits indefinite administrative detention of those under immigration control. The inspector has now added his voice to the growing consensus on the need for a strict time limit on the use of immigration detention. We welcome this, and call on the government to engage seriously with the reform proposals put forward by the Detention Inquiry, at the forthcoming Parliamentary Debate on 10th September 2015.”

Prisons Inspector finds that Yarl’s Wood is failing vulnerable women

12 August 2015

Nick Hardwick, the HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, has today found that Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre ‘is failing to meet the needs of the most vulnerable women.’

For the first time, the government-appointed inspector has joined calls from a parliamentary inquiry and the Detention Forum for a time limit on detention. He recommends that ‘a strict time limit must now be introduced on the length of time that anyone can be administratively detained.’

Hardwick was ‘particularly concerned about the length of time some women were detained and the detention of the most vulnerable women without clear reason.’ He noted that in the previous six months, ‘more than double the number of women who were removed (443) were released back into the community (894), which raises questions about the validity of their detention in the first place.’

At the time of the inspection, 19 women had been held for over six months, and one for 17 months.

The Inspector called for pregnant women and those with serious mental health problems only to be detained ‘in the most exceptional circumstances.’

Hardwick concluded that ‘the main concerns we had in 2013 had not been resolved and there was greater evidence of the distress caused to vulnerable women by their detention.’

Eiri Ohtani of Detention Forum said:

‘This is yet another sad report about one of the saddest places in the UK. The financial and human costs of immigration detention are simply too high, and we cannot afford to go on like this. It is time for the government to start engaging with the detention reform agenda proposed by the parliamentary inquiry panel. It should introduce a time limit of detention of 28 days and develop community-based alternatives to detention to reduce both the financial and human costs of detention.’  

Lisa Matthews of Right to Remain said:

‘The concerns raised in HM Inspecorate’s report on Yarl’s Wood are sadly not surprising. Right to Remain believes that these major failings are endemic to a system that deprives people of their liberty solely for being a migrant, a system that is intended to stop people establishing their legal right to stay and to drive people to despair, in order that they leave the UK. The regular and growing protests outside detention centres, most recently at Yarl’s Wood on 8 August, show that communities will not stand for migrants being locked up solely for the bureaucratic convenience of the state. The government needs to listen to those who have experienced detention first-hand (detained indefinitely, without trial) and to the many people from all walks of life calling for an end to this harmful and unjust practice.’

Ali McGinley of AVID said:

‘This report is an explicit call for change, and provides a strong evidence base of the harm caused to vulnerable women by indefinite detention. The current safeguards to protect the vulnerable have, once again, been found inadequate, leaving those with a history of rape, abuse or sexual violence at risk of harm. Today’s report echoes the growing call for a time limit on immigration detention, and we hope it encourages the government to take seriously the evidence that detention is harmful. There is no need to detain vulnerable women when their cases can be considered fairly in the community – where they can access the supports they so desperately need.’

Jerome Phelps of Detention Action said:

‘This is another scathing indictment of the indefinite detention of vulnerable migrants.  Yarl’s Wood is failing vulnerable women, and detention without time limit is simply failing as a policy.  The Inspector has joined the parliamentary inquiry in finding that too many people are being detained unnecessarily for too long.  It is high time for the Government to step away from the routine detention of migrants, and instead to work with them to resolve their immigration cases in the community wherever possible.’

Maurice Wren of Refugee Council said;

The fact that people fleeing war and persecution are being locked away indefinitely in a civilised country is an affront to the values of liberty and compassion that we proudly regard as the cornerstones of our democracy

“If the Government wants to prove it’s serious about justice and protecting vulnerable people, Ministers must urgently acknowledge that Britain’s policy of arbitrarily placing people behind bars because it’s politically convenient is wholly unjust, extremely expensive and utterly unsustainable.

“It’s high time Yarl’s Wood and places like it were closed. Seeking asylum is a human right, not a crime.”

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Background

• Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre is one of 10 centres which make up the UK’s detention estate. In total they hold nearly 4,000 people. Last year, 30,902 people were detained, the highest level ever[1]. Yarl’s Wood was holding 354 women at the time of the inspection. It is run by a private security company, Serco.
• Those who are refused asylum or other immigration status, over-stayers and non-British ex-prisoners are subject to indefinite detention in the UK.
• Although the Home Office maintains that detention is used only for the shortest period of time as a last resort to effect removals and deportations, the UK routinely detains migrants for extreme long-term periods. The UK is the only country in Europe with no time limit on immigration detention. At the end of March 2015, 153 people had been in detention for longer than a year. Many are ultimately released from detention. During the first quarter of 2015, of the total of 7,516 people leaving detention, only 3,376 were removed from the UK. The rest (3,756 people, 50% of those leaving detention) returned to their community after detention, raising the question of why they were detained in the first place.
• The cross-party parliamentary inquiry into the use of immigration detention[2] concluded that the UK detains far too many people for far too long and recommended that the UK introduce a 28 day time limit on immigration detention.   The government is yet to respond fully to this report and there is a parliamentary debate on it on 10 September 2015.
• In the meantime, the government has stated on a number occasions that they will review the conditions in which vulnerable individuals are detained. The inquiry panel has pointed out that the Shaw Review[3] explicitly excludes examination of the decisions to detain, thus it is unable to address the key issues highlighted by the detention inquiry.
• Recently, the UN Human Rights Committee, a body of 18 international experts who monitor the implementation of the international covenant on civil and political rights, made its first review of Britain since 2008. In their report, the Committee said it ‘is concerned that no fixed time limit on the duration of detention in Immigration Removal Centres has been established and that individuals may be detained for prolonged periods.’
• In recent years, the UK’s detention practiced has been mired with a raft of high profile scandals including allegations of sexual abuse at Yarl’s Wood, the death of a frail 84 year old Canadian man with dementia in handcuffs, and a proliferation of human rights breaches where the detention of no less than six mentally ill detainees has been found by the High Court to constitute cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.
• Until July 2015, women asylum-seekers were held at Yarl’s Wood for the Detained Fast Track asylum process, in which their claims were processed in detention to accelerated timescales. On 29 July 2015, in a case brought by Detention Action, the Court of Appeal found the Fast Track to be ‘systemically unjust’, and upheld the decision of the High Court to quash the judicial rules governing the appeals process. This followed four rulings over the previous year that aspects of the Fast Track were systemically unlawful. As a result, the Minister for Immigration announced to Parliament in July 2015 the suspension of the DFT. However, he made clear that the Government intends to reintroduce the process following a review.

[1] Immigration Statistics, January to March 2015 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-january-to-march-2015

[2] The Inquiry was jointly hosted by APPG on Refugees and APPG on Migration. http://detentioninquiry.com/

[3] On 18^th March, James Brokenshire stated in Parliament that there were no plans to review the ‘use of detention overall’ and referred to the Shaw Review. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/402206/welfare_in_detention_review_tors.pdf

The Detention Forum has prepared a briefing paper for the 10 September parliamentary debate on detention, which you can use to lobby your local MP and encourage him/her to attend the debate on 10th September.

It also helps you to prepare for your meeting with your MP, because it explains some key issues relevant to the debate.

However, the paper only gives background and general information.   Whenever you can, try to bring local information to the attention of your MP – are there groups working with people who are / were in detention?  Or are you an individual with experience of immigration detention and you can share that with your MP?  Read our previous blog here before you contact your MP.

The paper includes the following information.

1. Background to the debate and the government response so far
2. The Parliamentary Inquiry into the Use of Immigration Detention in the UK
3. Latest detention statistics – record high number of people detained
4. The Review into the Welfare in Detention of Vulnerable Persons (Shaw Review)
5. Independent Review of Serco’s work at Yarl’s Wood by Kate Lampard CBE
6. Proposed abolishment of bail addresses
7. Looking ahead: the need for systemic change and not “tinkering”
8. Case study

We will be amending 3. Latest detention statistics in early part of September – we know that the next set of statistics will be made available on 28 August.

If you have any good feedback from your MP or need advice and help, please do get in touch with us at detentionforum(at)gmail.com or Jon at Jonathan.Featonby(at)refugeecouncil.org.uk

The Detention Forum team

#UnlockTheDebate – Take part in the ‘alternative’ debate from 1^st September to 10^th September

We do not want the parliamentary debate on 10 September to be just another isolated incident. We want it to be part of a bigger story of change, which began with the parliamentary detention inquiry last year.

So we will be hosting #UnlockTheDebate, an ‘alternative’ on-line debate on the detention inquiry report recommendations from 1^st September to 10^th September.

• Have you been detained and want to take part in this alternative debate? Or are you supporting people in detention? If you are happy for us to share their voice via social media, let us know. Or tweet with the hashtag #UnlockTheDebate
• Have your say! During their national conference on 5^th September, Right to Remain is planning to collect short video clips of individuals answering the question ‘What would YOU say in the debate next week?’. The short clips will be shared on the Detention Forum website before the debate. If you want to take part in this, but are not attending the Right to Remain conference, please contact us – we will see what we can do
• Take part in a tweet-along-commentary! Some of us will be live tweeting during the debate, which will start around 11:15am – 11:30am on 10 September. If you are planning to join in the tweet-along-commentary session, please let us know so that we can tell you who else will be doing live-tweeting. We hope to storify this afterwards.
• Shape the debate!   Some of the Co-ordination Group members will be writing short blog pieces during the ‘alternative’ debate to address key issues that are pertinent to this Parliamentary debate. For example, why is an overall reform is necessary now, and what does it mean for civil society organisations? Is it correct for the Government to keep on insisting that the Shaw Review is the answer to the detention inquiry recommendations? Is the government correct to say that there is no such thing as indefinite detention in the UK because of Hardial Singh principle?   Maybe you are writing something yourself? Let us know.

The Detention Forum team

There is going to be a parliamentary debate on the detention inquiry report on 10 September 2015.  Find out more about what it is and what you can do.

Background

The debate on 10^th September 2015 will be the first full parliamentary debate on the detention inquiry report, which was published in March 2015. The debate will last for three hours and take place in Chamber. You can read the official notice here. The title of the debate is;

‘That this House supports the recommendations of the report of the Joint Inquiry by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees and the All Party Parliamentary Group on Migration, The Use of Immigration Detention in the United Kingdom; has considered the case for reform of immigration detention; and calls on the Government to respond positively to those recommendations.’

The debate was secured by Richard Fuller MP (Conservative), Paul Blomfield MP (Labour), David Burrowes MP (Conservative) and Kirsten Oswald MP (SNP) who made an application to the Backbench Business Committee in late July 2015. A huge thanks to them. You can read here how they argued the importance of this debate, drawing on the growing momentum for detention reform created by a range of civil society organisations.

A shorter debate took place in House of Lords on 26 March 2015. You can read our summary of the debate here and the transcript of the debate here.

Here is a reminder of what the detention inquiry report said.

What you can do

• Contact your local MPs and urge them to support the recommendations of the detention inquiry report and attend the debate. You can write to them or visit their constituency office to speak to your MP face-to-face. Does your MP have a researcher? You might want to speak to them as well – they often advise MPs what issues to focus on. You can find out who your MP is here.  Yon can also write to them via this webpage here too.  Don’t forget, many MPs are on Twitter nowadays – why not contact them via Tweet?  And ask your friends and supporters to do the same.
• If your MP is new to Parliament, you might need to explain it him/her what immigration detention is, what the detention inquiry was and why this debate is important. You can of course ask your MP to read the detention inquiry report (or the executive summary of the report which is much shorter) which is available here but the report on its own is not so powerful – it’s your involvement that makes it powerful. Don’t forget that transcripts of the oral evidence sessions and submitted evidence, including individuals’ testimonies, are also available on the inquiry website, www.detentioninquiry.org. If you don’t feel confident speaking to your MPs, email us at detentionforum@gmail.com and Jonathan.Featonby@refugeecouncil.org.uk so that we can give you advice. Those of us in London can also brief individual MPs in Westminster if necessary.
• It might be worth pointing out to your MP that the cross-party group MPs secured this debate. If your MP is a Conservative MP, mention that David Burrowes MP and Richard Fuller MP were on the detention inquiry panel and secured this debate. If Labour MP, mention that Paul Blomfield MP is involved in this debate. If SNP MP, mention Kirsten Oswald MP was also there to support the application. We know that Liberal Democrats MPs are already supportive of this.
• Those MPs who wish to speak during the debate usually prepare their speech. You can give them our briefing paper which summaries the key points so that the MPs can use it as a reference point. However, it is far more effective if you can explain to them why this is an important issue for you and in your area, to make the issue come alive for your MP. Do you have experience of detention that you can share with your MP? Do you support people in detention, were in detention or living in fear of detention?
• Most importantly, do not forget that MPs are human beings. Be courteous even if you disagree with them. And thank them if they agree to attend the debate. It takes only a minute to send them an appreciative email after the debate too. We will need their help again in the future – build good relationships with them.

The Detention Forum’s briefing paper for parliamentarians will be out shortly.  We are also planning an on-line ‘alternative debate’ on the same topic from 1st September to 10 September – so stay tuned.

The Detention Forum team

Unlocking Detention 2015 starts on 21 September 2015!

Last year, the Detention Forum launched its flagship Unlocking Detention tour – it is a virtual tour of all the immigration detention centres in the UK.

And this year’s hashtag is #unlocked15 (and apologies to others who are using the same hashtag!)

We are very excited to resume the tour again on 21^st September, and our aim is bringing these detention centres a little closer to people who have never been to or visited them.

The tour will visit each centre for a week over Twitter. We will also have a website gathering our blogs and photos. You can visit our website from last year to find out more about what it was like (you need to scroll down a bit.  You can also find the blogs from last year here).

This year, we want to take a slightly different angle and open up the conversation to the question of ‘How does detention affect your communities?’

Last year’s Unlocking Detention coincided with the first-ever parliamentary detention inquiry. As our members and colleagues gathered evidence to submit to the inquiry panel up and down the country, it became increasingly obvious that detention does not stop at the gate of the detention centres. It affects many communities.

London community evidence session – September 2014

The detention inquiry delivered a verdict that the UK detains far too many people far too long, and that detention cannot go on like this. Now is the time to push for a change, and for more people to be part of the movement.

As well as our some of our members, Right to Remain and Detention Action are helping to shape this tour and encouraging as many people as possible to take part.

Read their blogs here and here, and we hope you will be joining the tour!

If you have any suggestions on how you want to take part, get in touch at detentionforum(at)gmail.com.

The Detention Forum team

Religious Leaders on Immigration Detention: A Force to be Reckoned With

Today (29 July 2015) was the day that the Court of Appeal smashed the government’s hopes to bring the Detained Fast Track back to life anytime soon. In a beautifully worded judgment, the Master of the Rolls Lord Justice Dyson observed that “the consequences for an asylum seeker if mistakes are made in the process are potentially disastrous”.

Once again, the DFT was put on trial, and once again, it was found guilty. But today is also the day that our campaign went on. In fact, victories like todays give us an additional reason to keep up the fight. This evening, a small little room in the Diocese of Southwark was packed with members of the London Churches Refugee Network and other faith communities discussing the Detention Inquiry.

Eiri Ohtani (Detention Forum), Jerome Phelps (Detention Action) and Souleyman (Freed Voices) shone light on detention from different angles. They talked about the importance of keeping the Detention Inquiry alive, and stressed that they cannot do this alone.  After all, campaigners are the type of people many politicians prefer to avoid.

@Rabbi_Lea shares the reason why @tzelem_uk rabbis couldn't walk away from the issue of detention #Time4aTimeLimit pic.twitter.com/6C8AhOh36O

— René Cassin (@Rene_Cassin) July 29, 2015

The clergy in the room felt that this was where they could lend a helping hand. Rabbi Muhlstein stressed: “Our local MP is a member of our congregation. It is much harder for politicians to brush us away.” A little later, Rabbi Mason reiterated that religious leaders and communities “are a conduit between campaigners and decision makers”. Bishop Clark from agreed, but he also reminded everyone in the room that change starts in the constituency. If constituents are clear that something needs to be done, faith leaders stand on a much firmer foot when talking to decision makers.

@rabbidavidmason talking about the Jewish reasons for caring about detention #Time4aTimeLimit @tzelem_uk pic.twitter.com/3YTy2Z7D8T

— René Cassin (@Rene_Cassin) July 29, 2015

We also heard a moving account of how a group of Rabbis become involved in #Time4aTimeLimit campaign.  That once they learnt about UK’s practice of indefinite detention and how this was causing tremendous amount of trauma both on individuals and communities, they could not walk away from it.  This led to their mass visit to Harmondsworth Immigration Detention Centres, followed by an interfaith tent on Harmondsworth Moor.

Eiri urged all attendees to encourage their MPs to go to the parliamentary debate on the Detention Inquiry scheduled for September 10^th. In particular if MPs are new, this is a great opportunity to brief them about the key recommendations made by the report. Many attendees seemed keen to do so, and promised to reach out to their networks. We are very grateful for their support.

The Detention Forum team

The Detention Forum would like to thank London Churches Refugee Network, Rene Cassin, Detention Action and JRS UK for making this meeting possible.