Another bumper week – but then, immigration and asylum are hardly ever out of the headlines these days. EU citizens in immigration detention The number of EEA nationals held in immigration detention has increased sharply in recent years, from 768 in 2009 to 4,701 in 2016, according to figures secured by the...
Free Movement’s pick of the past week’s media reporting on immigration and asylum. Some positive asylum stories in recent days: the value of outsourced asylum accommodation contracts is to double, according to the Guardian. There is an apparently similar attempt to right past wrongs at Brook House immigration removal centre, where operator...
Free Movement’s pick of the past week’s media reporting on immigration and asylum. The economic effects of cutting immigration are in the eye of the beholder, it appears. The same study by PwC was variously reported as “Loss of skilled EU workers threatens UK growth” (Financial Times) and “Migration cut will...
There have been “significant improvements” at Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre, according to the latest report by the independent Chief Inspector of Prisons. Peter Clarke nevertheless documents “ongoing concerns” about the infamous facility, which at the last inspection in 2015 was found to be “failing to meet the needs of...
Free Movement’s pick of the past week’s media reporting on immigration and asylum. Last week saw a flurry of Brexit business. Theresa May wrote an open letter to EU citizens living in the UK in a less than convincing attempt to reassure (Huffington Post). It was sent ahead of a...
Panorama, Undercover: Britain’s Immigration Secrets is required viewing for anyone interested in immigration in the UK. It is also deeply uncomfortable viewing. It documents an undercover investigation into Brook House, one of the UK’s 13 Immigration Removal Centres. The episode shows detainees subjected to severe violence, taunting, and mistreatment. A...
Following a seven-day hearing in the High Court, Mr Felix Wamala, a Ugandan national, was awarded £48,000 in damages for the actions of private security guards contracted by the Home Office in seeking to remove him from the UK. This is the case of Wamala v Tascor Services Ltd [2017] EWHC...
The Home Office has updated its “Allocation of asylum accommodation” guidance so that a list of people who were previously excluded from the Bibby Stockholm, Napier and the other ex-Ministry of Defence sites and from having to share a bedroom, can now be accommodated in these places. The euphemism being...
What were Harmondsworth and Colnbrook Detention Centres have been brought under the same management, and are now called Heathrow Immigration Removal Centres. Nonetheless, as the Independent Monitoring Board’s report shows, detention centres by another name still have their same old problems. The Board’s recommendations focus on treatment of vulnerable people,...
Following his attention seeking call for all Muslims to be banned from entering the United States, there have been calls for Donald Trump to be given a “visa ban” preventing him from coming to the UK. Is this feasible in UK immigration law? The answer is probably “yes” although one recent...
The news coverage over the weekend reporting on the very recent deaths of three men in detention centres is yet another reminder that the system is, in my view, truly abhorrent. The Guardian reported that two men died from suspected heart attacks at Colnbrook near Heathrow airport. One of the...
Further to Shivani’s last post on this, the numbers facing removal on the charter flight to Sri Lanka are lower than originally thought, although it still constitutes a mass removal. Evidence of other breaches of confidentiality in Sri Lankan asylum cases is emerging. These could be isolated mistakes or there could be...
Bail for Immigration Detainees recently obtained statistics from the Ministry of Justice on the number of bail applications that are made at different hearing centres, and the outcomes of those hearings. There is quite a disparity in outcomes. For example, once withdrawn cases are set aside, the percentage of bail...
