Access to lawyers for people in immigration detention reaches a new low

Bail for Immigration Detainees has published their latest report looking at access to legal advice for people in immigration detention and has found that levels of representation are the lowest they have been since the charity started their monitoring fifteen years ago. The report found the following:

64% of participant respondents were not represented at all, with 30% of those people giving financial reasons despite the ostensible availability of free legal advice in detention through the Detained Duty Advice Scheme.  

This scheme is broken: our report demonstrates multiple failings from lack of capacity and poor communication, to low quality advice. Those who had appointments were left uncertain about whether they were represented or not, with only 26% of people being taken on after speaking to DDAS lawyers. Only one person in the entire survey group received any form of written advice from an advisor on the duty scheme. 

Despite additional funding for cases being available through Exceptional Case Funding, only one person was informed of the existence of this funding and no applications were made by lawyers.   

The lack of access by immigration detainees to quality legal advice is a core reason for many of the complaints the Home Secretary has about legal challenges made by detainees, as detailed in my two recent pieces The reality behind “last minute” legal challenges to removal and Briefing: is the modern slavery identification system in the UK being misused?. Yet instead of trying to fix legal aid, the government is seeking to expand the use of immigration detention while also making life even more difficult for those trying to navigate an increasingly complex legal system.