Image courtesy of Michael Collins New Freed Voices member, John P.*, was recently released after ten months detained in Morton Hall IRC in Lincolnshire. For this #Unlocked17 special, he sat down with Detention Action to go through his thoughts on some of the stock phrases the Home Office trot out in response to anti-detention campaigners. *John P. is not the author’s [...]
This blog was written by Bill MacKeith, joint organiser of the Campaign to Close Campsfield, for Unlocking Detention. Photos: Campaign to Close Campsfield On 25 November 1993, two white vans arrived at Campsfield main gates, 6 miles north of Oxford. They brought the first detainees to the new Campsfield detention centre from Harmondsworth near Heathrow. Since then some 30,000 people have been [...]
The seventh week of #Unlocked17 focused on Harmondsworth and Colnbrook: two detention centres alongside one another, a stone's throw from the runway at Heathrow airport. Around 1,000 migrants are detained across these two sites. Harmondsworth alone has space for up to 661 men - making it the largest detention centre in Europe (yet another shameful record the UK holds, alongside being [...]
Since the publication of Detained Lives (which Tamsin Algers refers to in her earlier blog here), a campaign to end UK's practice of indefinite detention has been gathering pace. Rachel Robinson, Advocacy Manager for Liberty, argues why the time is now to end this practice once and for all. There are few things more difficult than waiting. At an airport. [...]
Images courtesy of Freed Voices At Unlocking Detention, we occasionally receive emails from people, including those who say they are journalists, asking us to let them join the “tour”. These requests stem from misunderstanding: some assume we are organizing physical, guided tours of the inside of these immigration detention centres, while we are actually running a “virtual” tour unearthing facts and [...]
Authors: Candice Morgan-Glendinning and Dr Melanie Griffiths (University of Bristol) The following post is informed by an ESRC-funded project running at the University of Bristol. The research examines the intersection of family life and immigration policy for families consisting of British or EEA nationals and men with precarious or irregular immigration status. Further project information, including a report and policy briefings [...]
Image courtesy of @Manchestermisol Beatrice Grasso is Detention Outreach Manager at Jesuit Refugee Service UK where, with volunteers, she supports many detained in Harmondsworth and Colnbrook detention centres. In this blog, she explains how their mission “Accompany, Serve and Advocate” informs and shapes their work in these detention centres, ‘places most people don’t even realise exist’. Imagine being taken away from [...]
This blog was written by Helen*, a US citizen who travelled to the UK and was detained earlier this year. She spent four days in Colnbrook detention centre, before being returned to the US. In this blog, she recounts her experience. *This is not her real name. Day 1: I arrived at Gatwick Airport, from the US, at 10.15am. I spoke [...]
The focus of this week's #Unlocked17 tour was Campsfield House, near Oxford airport. It has been an immigration detention centre for almost a quarter of a century - a 24th anniversary demonstration took place this week. Since it was converted from a young offender institution to a detention centre in November 1993, over 30,000 people have been detained here. Up to 282 [...]
Immigration detention and the detention estate sometimes appear permanent and unchanging. However, underneath the surface, things are changing. Tamsin Alger, Casework and Policy Manager at Detention Action, looks back at a catalogue of actions people in detention, she and her organisation have taken to challenge immigration detention over the last 10 years. Ten years ago this month, I started working [...]