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This blog comes from Ruth Jacobson, a committee member of the Verne Visitors Group (VVG). VVG was established in 2014 to support people detained in The Verne immigration removal centre (IRC) until its closure in December 2017. Here, Ruth is writing in a personal capacity. At the time of Unlocking [...]

This blog comes from Indre Lechtimiakyte. Indre is originally from Lithuania and has been working as a caseworker and coordinator of the Ex-Detainee Project for Samphire since 2016. Prior to joining Samphire, she worked on the return migration project at IOM Vilnius, human rights education and awareness raising projects in [...]

Week 7 of #Unlocked18 took us to Morton Hall IRC, near the small village of Swinderby in Lincolnshire. Surrounded by fields and villages, it is one of the UK's most isolated and least-known detention centres. It was originally an RAF base before reopening as a prison in 1985, and became an IRC [...]

Luke Butterly works for Right to Remain, a UK-based human rights organisation challenging injustice in our asylum and immigration systems. This blog has been reposted with kind permission from Red Pepper. In communities across the UK, around 80,000 people with pending asylum and immigration claims have to 'report' with the Home [...]

Content warning: torture. Image by @Carcazan This blog comes from Beatrice Grasso, Detention Outreach Manager with JRS UK, who recently published a report on the indefinite detention of trafficking survivors. While JRS’s research draws on case studies from Harmondsworth and Colnbrook immigration removal centres (IRCs), this issue affects people detained across the [...]

This blog comes from Kate Alexander, Director of Scottish Detainee Visitors, who support people detained in Dungavel immigration removal centre (IRC) and tweet at @SDVisitors The latest inspection report on Dungavel IRC, published on 16 November, makes interesting reading. Dungavel usually receives positive reports from inspectors, in stark contrast to [...]

Content warning: torture. This contribution comes from the Life After Detention group (LAD) based in Glasgow and facilitated by Scottish Detainee Visitors. Between them, members of LAD have lost 4 years and 8 months of their lives to detention. The first part, ‘Because of Detention’, reflects on the ongoing devastation [...]

This blog comes from A. Panquang, a member of Freed Voices (@FreedVoices) and Detention Forum volunteer.  Detaining anybody simply means separating them from their familiar surroundings; away from friends, family and community. Everyone has a family and being in detention usually means being separated from them. The UK immigration system doesn’t take [...]