Seeking to Implement Alternatives: IDC submission to UK parliamentary inquiry
In a submission to the UK Parliamentary Inquiry into the use of immigration detention, the IDC suggests that there are new approaches that the UK could explore, which have been successful in other countries to prevent unnecessary immigration detention and effectively manage cases in the community in a humane, timely and effective manner.
The submission points out that many governments that…
How the UK Turned Away from Immigration Detention
Written by Jerome Phelps
Strategy and advocacy consultant, and former Director of International Detention Coalition and Detention Action
The summer of 2013 was a very different world. President Obama was on course to sweep to a second term. ‘Brexit’ was a neologism likely to be forgotten. Mayor of London Boris Johnson was directing his attention to bendy buses and the garden bridge. The…
Inquiry Finds Nauru Detention Centre “Insupportable”
Concluding a 5 month Inquiry, the Australian Senate tabled its report on the immigration detention centre in the small pacific state of Nauru.
The 227 page report from the Senate Committee states that the Nauru detention centre is "insupportable" in its current form, stating that the centre is not "adequate, appropriate or safe."
It also concludes that “Nauru is neither a safe nor an…
UK Detention Inquiry Report Calls For “Change in Culture”
The International Detention Coalition (IDC) welcomes the report of the first ever parliamentary inquiry into immigration detention in the UK, which recommends a “wholesale change in culture” towards “community models of engagement and better case working and decision making” rather than enforcement and detention.
Report recommendations largely mirror those made by the Director of the IDC…
IDC presents on ATD to decision-makers in the UK and the Netherlands
The IDC Director, Grant Mitchell, gave presentations on alternatives to immigration detention to the UK Parliamentary Inquiry on the use of immigration on 18 November 2014, and to a group of Dutch government officials on 17 December 2014.
IDC presentation to UK Parliamentary Inquiry
On 18 November, IDC Director, Grant Mitchell, gave evidence to the third and final oral hearing of the…
Call for a moratorium on UK detention expansion – Stop Campsfield Expansion
As the UK Home Office plans to more than double the capacity of Campsfield House Immigration Removal Centre in Oxfordshire, IDC member, the Detention Forum, is calling for a moratorium on the detention expansion.
Over the last 12 months, UK immigration detention capacity has increased by 25%. Over 4,000 detention bed spaces are now available in eleven prison-like Immigration Removal…
Immigration detention under the spotlight in the UK
This summer saw two significant developments in relation to immigration detention in the UK.
UK High Court finds detained fast track, as it operates, unlawful
On 9 July 2014, the UK High Court handed down a significant judgment finding the detained fast track procedure for asylum seekers unlawful as it currently operates, in a case brought by IDC member Detention Action. This is the first time…
Will More and Longer Detention Solve the ‘Migration Crisis’?
NB. This article was first published on the University of Oxford's Border Criminologies Blog on the 5th of April 2017.
Guest post by Jerome Phelps, Director of Detention Action, a UK organisation that provides support and advice to migrants in immigration detention and campaigns for change. He designed and manages the Community Support Project, an innovative alternative to detention project…
Arresting the mass detention of migrants: ‘Build trust, not walls’
The pragmatic development of alternatives to detention with civil society at the fore can help to arrest the slide into the abyss of mass detention of migrants in Europe writes Jerome Phelps, IDC Regional Advisor and Director of Director of Detention Action.
The possible future shape of immigration detention in Europe lies hidden between the lines of the Commission’s proposals…