PRESS RELEASE – TUESDAY 3 MARCH
The report of the first-ever Parliamentary Inquiry into the Use of Immigration Detention in the UK is published on Tuesday 3 March 2013.
The wide-ranging 76-page report is critical of the current regime and makes a number of proposals. Key among them are:
· There should be a time limit of 28 days on the length of time anyone can be held in immigration detention.
· Detention is currently used disproportionately frequently, resulting in too many instances of detention. The presumption in theory and practice should be in favour of community-based resolutions and against detention.
· Decisions to detain should be very rare and detention should be for the shortest possible time and only to effect removal.
· The Government should learn from international best practice and introduce a much wider range of alternatives to detention than are currently used in the UK.
Bill MacKeith of the Campaign to Close Campfield, which submitted evidence to the Inquiry, said: ‘We welcome the report as a first step to proper parliamentary scrutiny of immigration detention in the UK. We support the recommendations. We shall continue to call for the end of the power to imprison innocent people incorporated in the 1971 Immigration Act and for the closure of Campsfield and all immigration detention centres.”
Contacts:
Campaign to Close Campsfield: Bill 01865 558145, Liz 07791 738 577, Tim 07721 771 835, Gill 01993 703994
Close Campsfield 