|
In May 2008, the UK government announced plans to increase immigration detention by more than half. As part of the strategy, it intends to build an 800-place 'Immigration Removal Centre' across the road from Bullingdon Prison in Oxfordshire.
The centre would accommodate some 800 men - twice the size of the biggest immigration detention centre at Yarl's Wood in Bedfordshire, and almost four times the capacity of Campsfield House in Kidlington.
The 'Accommodation Centre' revisited The proposal for a detention centre marks a revival of the failed Home Office plans to build an Accommodation Centre on the same site in 2002. Planning permission was unanimously refused by Cherwell District Council, which also won at public enquiry and judicial review. Although the Court of Appeal upheld the application, the government abandoned the plans in 2005, in the face of significant local opposition, after an estimated £29.1 million of public money had been spent.
Who is being detained?
People detained under the 1971 Immigration Act include:
People whose application for asylum under the 1951 United Nations Convention on Refugees is under review (many take years).
Those whose claims have 'failed', and may be in the appeals process (many succeed).
Those who are awaiting removal. Note: immigration detainees include significant populations from countries to which the Home Office acknowledges they cannot be sent back for reasons of safety and political instability such as Somalia, Iraq, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan and Zimbabwe
Former foreign national prisoners (FNPs). Often, the only 'crime' of many people who are further detained under the 1971 Immigration Act after they have already served a prison sentence, is to have arrived in the UK without acceptable documentation, or to have worked (and paid taxes and national insurance contributions) without a permit. After serving a prison sentence FNPs may be detained in immigration removal centres because there is pressure on the authorities to move them from the prison to the 'detention estate' to await deportation.
Indefinite detention While British law lays down that no one may be held in prison without charge for longer than 28 days - and recent proposals to extend that limit to 42 days have rightly resulted in heated national debate - there is no limit to the length of time for which people can be held under the 1971 Immigration Act. Until recently detainees in nearby Campsfield Immigration Removal Centre were being held for an average of 52 days, and that is without counting previous periods of detention in other detention centres.
|
|
