Court Action to End HIV Immigration Detention

posted: 31/08/2010

The campaign to end the locking up of people with HIV in Immigration Detention centres, like Yarls Wood, is now moving to the Court of Appeal.
 

This follows a judge’s decision to turn down three test cases heard at the High Court.
 

The Judge decided that the Home Secretary's policy that people who are "suffering from a serious medical condition" should not be in immigration detention except for very exceptional cases does not normally apply to people living with HIV. In particular, the judge decided that whilst HIV is  a serious medical condition, the three HIV+ claimants were not "suffering", because their HIV treatment was working well enough.
 

Detained almost three years
One of the three people has now been in immigration detention for close to three years, (since October 2007) and the other two, since November 2008 and August 2009.
 

The court summed up their case like this:
"Each of the three claimants is HIV positive. They have been subject to immigration detention. The length of detention in each of their cases is different. For each, the stage of their illness and the degree of symptoms associated with it has varied over time. What is common to each ... is that the management of their condition has been adversely affected by their detention and by the management failings by the Secretary of State and those operating immigration detention on her behalf. The effect of this ... has been to put their health in jeopardy in ways that could have serious long term consequences for their ability to survive in the United Kingdom or in their home countries when or if they are removed."
 

Judgement
The judge decided aginst the three people. "It almost goes without saying that the liberty of persons is jealously guarded by the courts. Thus, the courts will scrutinise closely immigration detention to ensure that it is in accordance with the legislative purpose and that, generally speaking, the Secretary of State complies punctiliously with her policy on the matter.
 

“At some point, the treatment of those with HIV status in immigration detention may be sufficiently mis-managed so that the person suffers and falls within paragraph 55.10 of the Enforcement and Immigration Guidance. That mis-management might also constitute a breach of ‘Hardial Singh’ principles, ….. , or of the standards laid down by the Strasbourg Court. In my view, however, on the facts of these cases those standards were not breached in relation to any of these claimants."
 

All three people are disappointed with the ruling and have told their solicitor to appeal the decision in the Appeal Court. The case is not likely to be considered by the Appeal Court for months.

The case is being dealt with by Louise Whitfield and Gareth Mitchell in PierceGlynn’s Public Law and Human Rights team.
 

Full High Court judgement is here
 

Asylum Detention Challenges

posted: 23/03/2010

The harsh treatment faced by detained women and children seeking asylum - including women and children with HIV - who are held at Yarl’s Wood will now be closely considered by both the High Court and the British Medical Association.
 

Three Human Rights Abused
"Lawyers have been granted permission to challenge the government's detention policy, which they claim amounts to "cruel, inhumane and degrading" treatment of women and children.

The High Court has given the go-ahead for a judicial review of the cases of four women held at the Yarl’s Wood detention centre after lawyers claimed their treatment breaches articles three, five and eight of the European convention on human rights. This comes very soon after many women have ended a 5 week hunger strike in protest at the conditions and their treatment.

Jim Duffy, a solicitor at Public Interest Lawyers, which is bringing the case, welcomed the decision. "The case confronts the policy and practice of the Home Office and the private company running Yarls Wood, Serco."
 

Three Yarl's Wood doctors investigated
Three doctors working at Yarl's Wood immigration detention centre are facing investigation by the General Medical Council, amid calls for healthcare at the centre to be transferred from the private sector to the NHS. Alistair Burt, Tory MP for North East Bedfordshire, (containing Yarl’s Wood) described healthcare as the weak link and that this weakness can only be ended by transferring healthcare to the NHS.
 

As he points out: "If there is an issue over fitness to travel and the decision is made by a contracted company inside Yarl's Wood, what chance is there of having confidence that it has not been influenced by the contract given to the contractors to get people out of the country?"

More details from Medical Justice 1 and Medical Justice 2 and Medical Justice 3
 
 

Positive Children Locked Up

posted: 01/09/2009

Ministers were blamed as it was revealed that hundreds of children are being held unnecessarily in immigration detention centres. Some of the parents and children have HIV. Official figures dragged out of the government revealed that on one day at the end of June this year, 470 children were being detained with their families.

The figures, made public following pressure from children's rights groups and MPs, showed most were under five. The detention of any child longer than 28 days has to be signed for by a minister. 1 in 3 of the children were there already for longer than 28 days. Out of 225 children released from detention in the second quarter this year, only 100 were actually removed from the UK.

Many were from troubled countries such as Zimbabwe, Sudan, Sri Lanka and Democratic Republic of Congo where returning people has been difficult and the safety of doing so hotly contested.

The UK has one of the worst records in Europe for detaining children, but accurate figures on how many are held, or for how long, have remained elusive.

MPs and children's rights groups have now called for an end to the "national scandal" that has allowed children to be locked up unnecessarily.

Sir Al Aynsley-Green, the children's commissioner for England, welcomed the publication of the figures, but said they raised important questions.

He said: "If they were allowed to stay at the end of their release, why did they have to go through the detention process in the first place?"

He described the fact that one in three had been held for longer than 28 days as "extremely worrying".

Earlier this year, Aynsley-Green published a critical report into Yarl's Wood detention centre in Bedfordshire which found the average stay for children had increased, and the decision to detain for longer than 28 days failed to take into account any welfare concerns raised.

Damian Green, shadow immigration minister, described the government's attempts to find alternatives to detention for families as "feeble", adding: "It would be better and cheaper if we don't have to lock up young children for weeks and sometimes months. Other countries seem to do better than we do at finding alternatives."

The average cost of holding someone in an immigration detention centre is £130 per day.

Post-traumatic stress disorder because of child detention

The Guardian has spoken to three families held at Yarl's Wood for between 19 and 71 days. One of the children has been diagnosed as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, while another, Ibrahim Ssentongo, four, remains traumatised seven months after his detention.

Ibrahim's father, Stephen Ssentongo, 35, from Uganda, said: "When he sees people in uniforms of white shirts and black trousers, like bus drivers or security guards in shopping centres, he stops. He wants to hold your hand or to stand in front of you, so that you will hold him. He is scared."

Sheila Melzak, a consultant child psychotherapist who has worked with families in detention, said Ibrahim's trauma was far from unusual.

"All the young people I have been talking to have lingering effects, after months and even after years" she said.

"It is frightening for children to see their parents in tears. They see adults in a high state of stress, they hear a lot of shouting and crying. It is a highly institutionalised environment and that leads to problems with eating and sleeping and learning."

Bethlehem Abate, 12, from Ethiopia, described the day she and her mother were seized in an early morning raid as "one of the worst days I ever had to experience".

The schoolgirl, who has been living in Leeds for four years after fleeing her home country to seek asylum, said she was disillusioned by the British government, because she felt sure "they would understand our situation and help us", but instead they have "turned everything around."

Last resort child detention or are families just easy targets?

Family and children's support groups said the statistics showed the UK Borders Agency was failing in its duty to detain children only "as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time".

Amanda Shah, of Bail for Immigration Detainees, said: "Fifty-six per cent of detained children were released back to their communities in the UK, their detention having served no purpose other than wasting taxpayers' money and traumatising the children involved. Children we have supported have suffered depression, weight loss, bedwetting and even self-harm as a result of their detention – that is the human reality behind the statistics."

Lisa Nandy, policy adviser at the Children's Society, said children were being detained unnecessarily because the asylum system was "chaotic" and because the UK Border Agency and private contractors who work for them often targeted families to increase their removal rates.

The Home Office said today : "UK Border Agency fully recognises its responsibilities towards children but these responsibilities have to be exercised alongside our duty to enforce the laws on immigration and asylum. If a family decide to appeal against the courts decision while being detained the removal process is halted. If a judge agrees that there are fresh grounds for an appeal the family are usually returned back to the community until the case has been reviewed."

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