- Executive Summary
Asylum seekers are often arbitrarily detained for long periods where there is no prospect of imminent removal due to the impossibility of obtaining travel documents. Long-term detention of asylum seekers with deportation orders is particularly common. Torture victims and unaccompanied minors are often inappropriately detained. Delays by NASS in processing applications for support also lead to unnecessarily prolonged detention. - London Detainee Support Group (LDSG) is a registered charity providing non-religious, non-judgmental emotional support and practical assistance to immigration detainees held at Harmondsworth and Colnbrook Immigration Removal Centres (IRCs). In 2005-2006 LDSG assisted 619 immigration detainees, and as a result we are in a good position to comment on the impact of detention policy and practice on detainees. LDSG’s key activities are:
- Maintaining a pool of around 80 volunteer visitors speaking all main detainee languages, each visiting weekly individual detainees to provide emotional support;
- Assisting detainees with practical difficulties related to their detention, e.g. accessing legal advice or other specialist service providers, applying for support from the National Asylum Support Service (NASS), or resolving welfare problems.
- LDSG welcomes this inquiry, and in particular the identification of detention as an area likely to raise human rights issues. Due to the extreme vulnerability of many asylum seekers, LDSG believes that the rapidly expanding use of detention is of serious concern. LDSG welcomes the Committee’s examination of whether detention may in some cases be arbitrary, and therefore breach the right to liberty under Article 5 of ECHR.
- There is a lack of adequate safeguards to ensure that detention is not arbitrary. The provision for automatic bail hearings for all detainees in the 1999 Act, never implemented, was repealed by the 2002 Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act. Moreover, there is no statutory time limit on detention. As a result, many detainees are detained for prolonged periods with little or no judicial scrutiny of their detention, in particular where linguistic or mental health factors prevent detainees from applying for bail themselves. Due to reductions in legal aid available for asylum cases since April 2004, detainees find it problematic to access legal advice in order to make bail applications. Detainees also face administrative delays in the listing of bail applications, as the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal (AIT) does not have sufficient resources to meet its obligations to list within 3 working days. Bail hearings should be held automatically for all detainees one week after they are detained, and at regular intervals thereafter. A statutory limit on detention should be introduced, in line with many other EU states. The Legal Services Commission should ensure that funding is available for representation of all detainees throughout their detention. Increased resources should be made available to the courts to ensure that bail hearings are listed within 3 days.
- Many asylum seekers are detained for long periods with no prospect of imminent removal. The immigration authorities of a number of countries of origin of asylum seekers will not in practice accept the return of undocumented nationals, because they do not consider the EU letter issued by the UK government to be sufficient identification, and will not themselves issue emergency travel documentation to allow return. However, the Immigration Service has in many cases refused to release detained undocumented nationals of these countries. LDSG has supported asylum seekers detained for prolonged periods from a number of countries for a number of countries to which such removals appear to be impossible, including Iran, Somalia, Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Mauritania and Niger, or prohibitively slow (e.g. Algeria, India). In addition, we have supported many long-term detainees who have been refused travel documents by countries including China and Liberia which will only rarely issue travel documents. Where travel documents have been refused by the country of origin, release should be automatic.
Three long-term detained undocumented Mauritanian nationals were in contact with us beween summer 2005 and spring 2006. None were taken to the Mauritanian Embassy for emergency travel documents. Two were flown to Mauritania, but were refused entry on the grounds that the EU letter was not acceptable identification. In one case, the detainee reported that the Mauritanian immigration authorities were angry with the UK for persisting with removals, when they had made clear that the EU letter was not acceptable. All three were eventually released on bail, after 11, 10 and 6 months respectively. | C, an undocumented asylum seeker from Cote d’Ivoire, was detained for Fast Track consideration of his asylum. He had no history of criminality or absconding. His asylum was refused after one month, but his detention continued, despite there being no progress in obtaining travel documents. On two occasions he was given removal directions. He reported that he was taken by escort staff from the detention centre, driven in a van for several hours, and taken back to the detention centre. He was released on Temporary Admission after over 6 months.
No removals of undocumented Ivorian nationals have been possible for at least 3 years; all Ivorian detainees in contact with LDSG were released around June 2004. Since that time, we have supported 15 undocumented Ivorian detainees, of whom 13 have been released, and two (both with deportation orders) remain in detention. | - Asylum seekers who have been given deportation orders are often detained indefinitely where travel documents are unobtainable. LDSG has supported many detainees who have served short prison sentences for minor non-violent offences, and been issued deportation orders. Where deportation is impossible to carry out, either because the receiving country as a matter of policy does not issue travel documents (see above), or because the deportee has been long-term resident in the UK and cannot prove any connection with their country of origin, extreme long-term detention is common, even where the detainee is cooperating with the documentation process. Both the Immigration Service and the AIT consistently show great reluctance to release on temporary admission or bail in these circumstances, despite the evident impossibility of removal, the stated reason for detention.
D, an asylum seeker from Algeria, was detained for over 2 years, following a 6 month sentence. He was very anxious to return, and was fully cooperating with the removal process, but travel documents were not obtainable. He was refused bail, and remains in detention.
LDSG is also aware of undocumented Algerians currently detained for periods of respectively 18 months, 15 months, 10 months, and in four cases for between 4 and 6 months. LDSG is not aware of any undocumented Algerians who have been removed or deported since 2003. | - This issue has become more serious since the media coverage of spring / summer 2006, and detainees previously released on the grounds that deportation was impossible have been redetained, despite there being no progress in their cases.
B, an asylum seeker from Iran, was detained for 2 years on the end of a short prison sentence, pending deportation. He was desperate to return to Iran, but it was clear from the monthly reports on his case that he received from the Immigration Service that no progress was being made on his case. He was finally released on bail by the AIT, but was redetained 2 months later, following the media coverage of the issue. The reasons for detention he received were identical to those he had been given during his previous detention, and it was clear that no progress had been made in obtaining travel documents. | - LDSG has been told by experienced legal advisers of a perceived “tariff”, whereby un-deportable detainees must wait in detention for approximately 9 months before AIT will consider bail. Factors such as risk of absconding or re-offending are given substantial weight at bail hearings, although the deportee is detained purely for administrative immigration reasons, and has finished their criminal sentence. The punitive use of immigration detention as an improvised extension of the criminal justice system should cease. Where deportation is not possible, release should be automatic, regardless of previous immigration history or offences.
- Arbitrary detention of asylum seekers who cannot be removed also leads to breaches of Article 8. The Immigration Service justifies the separation of families by the detention of one member as necessary for immigration control. LDSG has supported many detainees separated from their families for long periods, where it was evident that removal was impossible. LDSG has also supported detainees who were held in different detention centres to their families, in breach of guidelines.
X was an undocumented Liberian asylum seeker. He was distressed by detention, as his wife was 7 months pregnant when he was detained, and he was her only support in the community. He was released 5 months later, having missed the birth of his first child. | - The detention of torture victims remains routine, in contravention of Home Office policy that it will not normally be appropriate. LDSG has supported many torture victims in detention with medical reports supporting their claims to be victims of torture. LDSG is concerned that adequate procedures do not exist to prevent or curtail the detention of torture victims. They are not routinely released, even where Healthcare staff within the detention centre report evidence of torture to the Immigration Service. Torture victims are regularly detained for Fast Track consideration of their asylum case, because asylum seekers are not asked about their claim or health issues at the screening interview at which the decision to Fast Track is made. The Fast Track procedure itself does not allow sufficient time for medical reports to be obtained, and many solicitors do not make referrals to Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, citing lack of time. Our volunteer visitors have frequently reported the extreme distress caused by immigration detention to torture victims with experience of imprisonment in their country of origin. Asylum seekers claiming to be victims of torture should be screened out of the Fast Track procedure. Asylum seekers with medical evidence of torture should not be detained under any circumstances.
B was had been imprisoned for 6 years in Iran, and tortured for long periods. He had extensive scarring on his body. He came to the UK via Austria, so the Immigration Service hoped to remove him to Austria under the Dublin Convention, and detained him in order to pursue this. However, the Austrian authorities refused to accept him, and he remained in detention. Bail was refused because he did not have sureties. Detention caused him extreme distress, because it reminded him of his experiences in prison in Iran. He repeatedly self-harmed, and on one occasion attempted to hang himself. He was finally released on Temporary Admission after more than 3 months in detention. | - Inadequate age assessment procedures cause large numbers of unaccompanied minors to be wrongly detained as adults, until paediatric reports confirm their claims to be minors. 40% of age-disputed minors detained at Oakington were subsequently found to be under 18 and released. LDSG is concerned that the Immigration Officers, on whose judgement asylum-seekering minors are treated as adults, do not have adequate training or qualifications to make such judgments. As a result, serious risks are taken with the wellbeing of vulnerable children.
X claimed to be 17. He was assessed as an unaccompanied minor by social services, and placed in a home. However, at his screening interview, the Immigration Service disputed his age, in breach of their own procedure. They arranged for a second age assessment by a different borough, which concluded that he was not a minor. He was refused asylum on the Fast Track procedure, and his duty solicitor dropped him, informing him that there were no grounds for a further appeal. He found detention a traumatic experience, and felt very isolated as there were no other detainees of his age.
LDSG referred him to a civil solicitor to judicially review the decision to detain, and he was released back to the care of social services. | - Delays by the National Asylum Support Service (NASS) in processing applications for Section 4 support from unremovable detainees can prevent detainees from applying for bail, and unnecessarily prolong their detention. Immigration detainees applying for bail must supply the address at which they will be living if they are released. Asylum seeking detainees who are cooperating with the removal process or who cannot be removed (e.g. due to outstanding judicial reviews or health conditions) can apply to NASS for Section 4 support. NASS state that detainees applying for Section 4 support should supply the date of the bail hearing, so that a decision can be made in time, and an address provided for the hearing if appropriate. However, NASS do not automatically consider applications from detainees as Priority A (for which decisions take an average 5 days. NASS stated at a stakeholders meeting on 27 July 2006 that Priority B applications take an average of 15 working days. In one case, NASS required 6 months to make a decision on a Section 4 application. Bail applications should be listed after 3 working days, so in many cases detainees do not receive a decision from NASS in time. NASS should treat all Section 4 applications from immigration detainees as Priority A, as administrative delays can prevent detainees from seeking judicial oversight of their detention, and lead to breach of Article 5.
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My ICQ 266123
