NCADC Campaigning Toolkit
There is no set time limit on immigration detention. International law, European law, British law and UKBA policy all enshrine the presumption of release and liberty but this is often not reflected in practice. See Detention Action’s report on Indefinite Detention.
Case law on length of detention has established that people can only be detained for a ‘reasonable’ period of time, and the power to detain only exists when there is a ‘realistic prospect of removal’.
UKBA must undertake regular detention reviews to justify a continued detention. To request release from detention, a request can be made for temporary admission or bail.
Bail is more formal – temporary admission is easier to request, but is not granted very often. It’s best to have the help of a solicitor in applying for bail, as most applications will involve a bail hearing. Applications for CIO bail do not involve a hearing as they can be granted by the Chief Immigration Officer (CIO) at the detention centre. CIO bail is unlikely to be granted if temporary admission has already been refused.
If you cannot find a solicitor, you can apply for bail yourself. BID (see below) have a handbook which can help with this.
The main conditions of release will be a specified address and sureties and a requirement to report regularly at a police station or reporting centre. Sometimes detainees are released on condition of being fitted with an electronic tagging device.
If a period of your detention has been found to be unlawful by the High Court (if UKBA has not followed its policy on reasonable length of detention, for example) you may be able to seek financial compensation (damages).
Successful temporary admission and bail applications will include a particular address to live at on release. This is often difficult for migrants to provide.
If you are applying for bail, you can apply for Section 4 accommodation as a bail address. Section 4 accommodation is usually provided to asylum seekers who have no leave to remain in the UK and no ongoing legal case, but for whom there is a particular reason why they cannot leave the UK. This accommodation is used as emergency bail accommodation and does not necessarily mean you are entitled to Section 4 support itself. At the time of writing, there are long delays with processing Section 4 bail accommodation applications. BID has produced a leaflet with information about post-detention accommodation:
Another obstacle can be the location of the address: if someone is acting as a surety (see below), and does not live near the accommodation address, bail may be refused on the basis the surety cannot easily check you are living at the address where you have said you will.
A surety is someone who puts up a sum of money guaranteeing the person applying for bail will keep to the bail conditions. If the detainee doesn’t keep to the conditions, the surety is liable to lose the money they have put up. Usually no money is handed over when someone agrees to be a surety, but if bail conditions are broken the money will be taken from their bank account. In Scotland, you normally deposit the money if bail is granted and will be reimbursed if bail conditions are kept. The amount for surety may be a significant amount – is it often in the thousands of pounds (and if the surety has a high income, it may be even higher as it is meant to be an amount which would be difficult to lose).
The bail application form has space for two sureties, though this isn’t a requirement. The surety will need to attend the bail hearing and provide ID, proof of address, occupation, financial status and immigration status.
N.B. A criminal record check and immigration record check can be undertaken of all people who act as sureties. You do not need to be a British citizen to act as surety, but if you have problems with your immigration status, it may not be a good idea to act as a surety for someone.
The best sureties are close friends or colleagues, rather than family members, or supporters who do not know the detainee well, but this is not always possible. If you do not know anyone to act as a surety, you could speak to your local visiting group or BID.
Your application for bail will be heard in an immigration court. You will either be taken there from the detention centre or appear by video link. Video links are now being used more often: you stay in the centre, and the court proceeds in your absence except by a video link.
The bail hearing will consider things such as the release accommodation, sureties, the likelihood that the applicant will abscond (run away or not keep to reporting conditions), immigration history, family or community ties and factors such as health conditions.
It’s important to check the bail summary provided by UKBA (their case for continued detention) as there are often mistakes in this that could be challenged. The bail summary should be made available to you and your legal representative the day before the hearing.
There are often problems with bail hearings such as procedural irregularities, lack of legal representation and interpretation problems. The Bail Observation Project was set up to monitor these, and their two reports on Immigration Bail hearings detail the problems and call for improvements. These reports contains a section on what ought to happen in a bail hearing, which will help you follow what goes on in court.
It’s best to have a legal advisor to represent you in a bail hearing. You may want a friend or supporter to attend the bail hearing with you as an observer, not necessarily as a surety.
If you have a public campaign, the campaign group may wish to hold a solidarity protest outside the hearing. (See ‘Community Campaigning’).
It can be a good idea for several supporters to attend the hearing so that is clear it is being witnessed.
UKBA policy on detention states that the following groups of people should only be detained in very exceptional circumstances:
Unaccompanied minors (though there have been cases of age disputed minors detained by UKBA as adults, who have in fact been children)
pregnant women
survivors of torture (including rape)
people with serious medical conditions or mental health conditions that cannot be appropriately managed in detention.
This last category is a 2010 re-wording of the policy, and it is not clear what ‘appropriately managed’ means. Although the rewording tightens the definition of people with mental health conditions not suitable to be detained, there has also been case law showing that in very extreme cases, the continued detention of people with severe mental health issues has breached Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights – the right not to be tortured, or subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment.
Medical cases, torture survivors and Rule 35 Detention Centre Rule 35 requires detention centre doctors to report to UKBA ‘any detained person whose health is likely to be injuriously affected by continued detention or any conditions of detention.’
More information on rule 35 is available from Medical Justice.
Many detainees struggle to access proper healthcare in detention, and rule 35 reports are commonly either not done, or not done properly. If you think this is the case for you, you should speak to your solicitor and contact Medical Justice.
To be released from detention as a survivor of torture, independent evidence will be needed. Medical Justice may be able to assist with preparing this.
A membership network for visitor groups. They produce an informative monthly newsletter (In Touch), and have useful information about immigration detention on their website. They are a good organisation to contact if you are in detention and want to be visited; or if you are thinking about becoming a visitor/befriender to someone in immigration detention. They can provide information about groups that visit detention centres and people kept under immigration powers in prison.
Note that these visitors are independent and quite distinct from the Independent Monitoring Board (sometimes called official visitors) for each detention centre, whose members are appointed by the government.
Formerly the London Detainee Support Group, Detention Action support detainees in Harmondworth and Colnbrook IRCs and campaign on immigration detention issues, particularly the detained fast track system and indefinite detention.
Medical Justice is a network of asylum detainees, doctors, experts and other supporters exposing and challenging inadequate healthcare provision to immigration detainees. They provide casework for immigration detainees with serious medical conditions and survivors of torture.
The Detention Forum is a loose network of over 30 NGOs who are working on immigration detention issues. They work together to build a momentum to question the legitimacy of immigration detention which has become such a normal part of the British immigration system.
Bail for Immigration Detainees is an independent charity that exists to challenge immigration detention in the UK. They work with asylum seekers and migrants, in detention centres and prisons, to secure their release from detention. See above for an explanation of why bail is important. BID have a London office, an Oxford office and a South office. See here for details
The Campaign to Close Campsfield is a campaign group working to close Campsfield Immigration Removal Centre near Oxford. It has been active since 1993, holds monthly demonstrations outside Campsfield, monthly campaign meetings in Oxford, and works together with other groups to stop immigration detention, racist deportations and immigration laws enforcing racism.
Barbed Wire Britain is a campaign network against immigration detention. It aims to help organise at a local and national level to end the practice of immigration detention in the UK, to help local groups to get established, to raise the national profile of debate on the issue, to help give voice to detainees and former detainees, and to establish links with like-minded organisations and individuals in other countries.
