UK Home Affairs Committee Slams Home Office For Immigration Detention Process Flaws

The UK Home Office has failed its responsibility to ensure the safe and humane detention of immigrants in the United Kingdom and shown a "cavalier attitude" in its approach to the issue, the Home Affairs Select Committee said in a report on Thursday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st March, 2019) The UK Home Office has failed its responsibility to ensure the safe and humane detention of immigrants in the United Kingdom and shown a "cavalier attitude" in its approach to the issue, the Home Affairs Select Committee said in a report on Thursday.

The committee initiated an investigation into the work of the country's immigration removal centers, which are under the Home Office's jurisdiction, after reports of detainee abuse at the hands of staff at the Brook House immigration removal center surfaced in 2017.

"Over the course of our inquiry, we have found serious problems with almost every element of the immigration detention system. People are being wrongfully detained, held in immigration detention when they are vulnerable and detained for too long ... the Home Office has shown a shockingly cavalier attitude to the deprivation of human liberty and the protection of people's basic rights," the report said.

The report identified a weak administrative process, a lack of judicial oversight over the decision to detain people and caseworkers' inefficient training as the key areas that made the Home Office's immigration detention process neither "fair [nor] robust.

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The report made several recommendations regarding the procedure's reform, including the introduction of stronger judicial oversights, a face-to-face predetention screening process and ending indefinite immigration detention by implementing a 28-day limit.

In December, the Home Office closed its Campsfield House immigration detention center in the southeast county of Oxfordshire following fierce public criticism over its unacceptable living conditions for detainees. In a bid to tackle public backlash, Caroline Nokes, the UK minister of state for immigration, said that reforms to improve the welfare of detainees would be introduced.

The United Kingdom has one of the largest immigration detention systems in Europe and the only one without a limit on the detention period. According to the Home Office statistics, over 24,000 immigrants joined the UK detention system in 2018.