This year’s Unlocking Detention’s theme is taking action, and the Detention Forum is supporting APPG on Refugees’ parliamentary meeting on immigration detention on 16 November. Do you think your MP is coming? It probably depends on whether you will be urging them to do so or not. Will you be contacting your MP? Will you be taking this action?
Mishka, of Freed Voices have earlier told Unlocking Detention why we all need to speaking to our MPs.
And Jon Featonby explained why political pressure must be ramped up now. Yes, now.
You can find out contact details of your MP (and their activities in Parliament) and send them your messages directly here.
Below is the information about the parliamentary meeting, which you can pass onto them, or cut and past as you wish. Don’t forget to add your own message! Tell them why it is important for you that they take action on this matter. This parliamentary meeting is open to MPs and peers. Here is also a copy of the letter the Detention Forum will be sending out to MPs and peers that we are in touch with.
============================================================================
APPG on Refugees meeting on immigration detention
Thursday 16 November 2017
10:30 -11:30 The Grimond Room in Portcullis House
Immigration detention has been regularly in the media spotlight in recent months, for tragic and disturbing reasons. The Panorama documentary into Brook House Immigration Removal Centre, broadcast in September, led the Home Affairs Select Committee to hold an inquiry. The Panorama revelations were quickly followed by deaths of migrants in detention. On 7 September, a 28-year old Polish man died as a result of a suicide attempt in Colnbrook detention centre. On 19 September, a Chinese national died in Dungavel detention centre in Scotland. And on 3 October, a Jamaican man died in Morton Hall detention centre.
The purpose of the meeting is to provide space for MPs and peers to discuss what further steps can be taken to make progress towards fundamental detention reform. Calls for a time limit and detention reform have gained increasing momentum over the last few years, starting with the inquiry of the APPGs on Refugees and Migration into the use of immigration detention (2015). Subsequently, the first Shaw Review in 2016 and debates during the passage of the Immigration Act 2016 led the Government to make various promises and concessions, few of which have yet been implemented. At present, Stephen Shaw is holding a follow-up review to assess progress. Yet despite substantial public and political pressure and a ministerial commitment to reform, migrants held in immigration detention have seen little tangible change.
The latest statistics shows that the UK continues to routinely detain large numbers of migrants for lengthy periods, including vulnerable people. In the last year, nearly 28,000 migrants entered the detention estate; more than one in three were detained longer than 28 days. In the last quarter, 52% of migrants who left detention were released into to the community, not removed. As at 30 June 2017, the longest length of time a person had been detained was 1,514 days, in excess of four years.
During the meeting, parliamentarians will also have the opportunity to be briefed on recent developments in immigration detention, the follow-up Shaw Review and findings from recent and forthcoming research reports. Speakers will include Women for Refugee Women, Freed Voices (a group of migrants who have collectively lost over 20 years to immigration detention), Detention Action and Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group. Paul Blomfield MP will be chairing the meeting.
Please RSVP to detentionforum (at) gmail.com