Immigration detention centres

What are immigration detention centres?

Immigration detention centres are holding centres for foreign nationals waiting decisions on their asylum claims or waiting deportation following a failed application.

Prior to 2002 there were two types of detention centre: the removal centre and the removal prison. These were much like prison facilities, with the aim being to impose restrictions on the movement of the detainees, so that the government can monitor their whereabouts whilst their claims are being processed. Indeed, some asylum seekers are actually held in prisons.

Since 2002, the government has been able to set up another type of centre for asylum seekers - the accommodation or reception centre. These new centres will provide educative, health and leisure facilities and have advisory bodies to review their conditions.

The reception centres aim to improve the management of the asylum system and to socialise and prepare immigrants for acceptance into the wider community.


Background

The power to detain immigrants was first provided by the Immigration Act 1971, which allowed the detention of asylum seekers in detention centres or even prisons. There are currently nine detention centres in England and Wales.

Reception centres were introduced under the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, and were part of a raft of measures introduced to reform the asylum system in the UK. To date, only one reception centre is in operation, at Oakington near Cambridge.

Prior to the 2002 Act, asylum seeking and illegal immigration had been increasing. There were long backlogs of asylum applications and applicants were 'disappearing' while their claim was being processed, resulting in accusations that the system was unable to cope.

The 2002 Act allows individuals to be supported in reception centres for a maximum period of six months, in general. The Immigration Act 1971 provides no time limit for maximum detention. Under the provisions of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, non-British citizens suspected of terrorist links can be subject to indefinite detention. However, in December 2004 the House of Lords ruled this in breach of human rights law.

Part of the justification of the reception centre approach, described by the Home Office in 2001, was the need to improve dispersal of asylum seekers across the country, to take pressure off the South East and London, and to "help with the process of acceptance".


Controversies

The increased use of detention came about in response to public concern about the government's ability to handle the rising numbers of applications for asylum since the late 1990s.

The use of detention is controversial because opponents argue it is wrong to imprison or restrict the movements of people who have committed no crime, and in many cases, people who have come to the UK to escape persecution. Those detained and their advocates have frequently complained about the conditions inside detention centres and the treatment of detainees by staff.

In February 2002, violence broke out at the Yarl's Wood centre in Bedfordshire. It was alleged that the violence erupted because the firm running the facility, Group 4, refused medical treatment to a detainee, but this is denied by the company. The rioting resulted in a break-out and a fire that destroyed half of the £100 million centre. It was subsequently revealed that none of the UK's removals centres have sprinklers for putting out fires.

There has also been publicity about overcrowding and poor conditions in detention centres. In 2006 chief inspector of prisons Anne Owers said inefficient and inhumane centres treat immigrants like "parcels". Her comments did not improve a year later, noting concerns about access to key services remained. She said immigrants were spending "unacceptably long periods" locked in single rooms at Colnbrook centre near Heathrow airport.

More bad publicity for the government followed in August 2007, when 26 asylum seekers escaped from a centre near Oxford.

"The problem we have is these people feel they are treated like criminals when their crimes are simply fleeing their own country for whatever reason," Iman Sajid from the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants said.


Statistics

In December 2005, 1,950 people were being held in immigration detention or reception centres, of whom 1,450 were asylum seekers, 190 were held in prisons, 15 in short-term holding facilities and 1,745 in removal centres.

In September 2006, the Immigration Detention Estate comprised the following centres. Removal Centres: Campsfield (198); Colnbrook (303); Dungavel (194); Harmondsworth (501); Queens buildings (15); Tinsley House (146); Yarl's Wood (405). Short-term holding facilities: Dover Harbour (20); Harwich (12); Manchester Airport (16). Removal Prisons: Dover (316); Lindholme (112); Haslar (160 – to be increased to 300); Reception Centres: Oakington (265)

It costs on average £1,247 per week to keep a single refugee in Oakington detention centre, according to figures from the first half of 2002

Statistic 1: (Source: Home Office, 2006); Statistic 2: (Source: National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns, 2006); Statistic 4: (Source: Hansard, January 2003)


Quotes

"'Detention centre' means a place which is used solely for the detention of detained persons but which is not a short-term holding facility, a prison or part of a prison."

Immigration and Asylum Act 1999

"The security devices being installed at Yarl's Wood include microwave detection units and pan-and-tilt dome cameras, of the kind normally found only in highest-security prisons. The centre will be ringed by chain-link fence two and a half metres high topped by three lines of barbed wire. According to the Government, this prison is not a prison."

Arun Kundnani, Institute of Race Relations, February 2002