Immigration Detention in the UK

8th March 2011
Next update
15/03/2012
By
Stephanie J. Silverman
Press contact
Rob McNeil

This briefing provides an overview of immigration detention in the UK. It discusses the size of the UK’s detention facilities, the number of detainees, the average duration of detention, and the detention of children.

Related documents
application/pdf iconBriefing - Immigration Detention in the UK - PDF

Key points

  • The UK immigration detention estate is one of the largest in Europe. Over the past two years, between 2,000 and 3,000 migrants were in detention at any given time.
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  • Approximately 28,000 persons entered detention under Immigration Act powers in 2009 and 26,000 persons in 2010.
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  • About half of immigration detainees are held for more than two months.
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  • The most common category of immigration detainees are people who have sought asylum in the UK.
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  • In 2009, over 1,000 children were detained with their families for the purpose of immigration control. In 2010, this number declined to just over 400, most of whom were asylum detainees.
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  • In 2010, the average daily overall cost of one bed per day in the immigration detention estate was £120.
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Understanding the evidence

Immigration detention refers to the government practice of detaining asylum seekers and other migrants for administrative purposes, typically to resolve their immigration claims, facilitate their removals, or establish their identities.

The reasons for which a migrant may be held in detention include: to effect removal; to establish a person's identity or basis of claim; where there is reason to believe that the person will fail to comply with any conditions attached to the grant of temporary admission or release, i.e. a risk of absconding; where there is a risk of harm to the migrant or the public; and as part of the detained fast-track (DFT) system (whereby asylum seekers could be detained if their claims appeared straightforward and capable of being decided quickly).

Border officials in the UK may detain migrants: on arrival; upon presentation to an immigration office within the country; during a check-in with immigration officials; once a decision to remove has been issued; and after a prison sentence or following arrest by a police officer.

The publicly available data on immigration detention chiefly originate in publications released by the Home Office and Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons (HMCIP). Data and information from non-governmental organisations’ reports, Hansard texts of Parliamentary debates and formal questions and scholarly articles supplement this information.

 

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The UK’s immigration detention facilities are among the largest in Europe: between 2,000 and 3,000 migrants are detained at any given time

The UK has one of the largest networks of immigration detention facilities in Europe, with capacity for more than 3,100 bed spaces in January 2011. As shown in Figure 1, over the past two years there have been between 2,000 and 3,000 migrants detained at any given time.

Figure 1

Just under 30,000 migrants are detained in the UK every year

A total of approximately 28,000 migrants entered detention under Immigration Act powers in 2009 and 26,000 in 2010 (UK Home Office 2010, 2011). These statistics do not include persons detained in police cells, Prison Service establishments, and those detained under both criminal and immigration powers. The majority of immigration detainees are held in UK Border Authority (UKBA) Immigration Removal Centres (IRC), as well as Short Term Holding Facilities (STHF) that are located inside or near airport terminals. As of December 2010, there were approximately 10 IRCs, 2 residential STHFs, 11 non-residential STHFs, and 6 combined non-residential STHFs/reporting centres. Except for 3 IRCs that are managed by the Prison Service, the Home Office has outsourced the management of its detention facilities, of which the private firm Group 4 Securicor, or G4S, holds the majority of contracts. Immigration detainees are also held in Prison Service establishments, although it is difficult to estimate the numbers accurately because of inconsistent recording (Bhui 2004: 9).

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About half of immigration detainees are held for more than two months

In the fourth quarter of 2008, the Home Office began to publish snapshots of how long immigration detainees had been held in either IRCs or STHFs. A relatively stable share of about half of immigration detainees are held for less than two months (Figure 2). It is also not uncommon for detention to span two to six months. A small but consistent minority of detainees – just under 10% – are being held for more than one year.

Figure 2

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The most common categories of immigration detention are people seeking asylum

There are many categories of people who are detained under Immigration Act powers, and these categories can overlap. For example, new arrivals may be detained awaiting examination by an immigration officer to determine their right to entry; new arrivals who have been refused permission to enter the UK and are awaiting removal may also be detained; those who have either failed to leave the UK on expiry of their visas (so-called over-stayers), have not complied with the terms of their visas or have attained their visas by deception may be detained; and undocumented persons found in the UK can be detained pending a decision on whether they are to be removed or pending arrangements for their removal.

The largest category of immigration detainees is persons who have sought asylum at some stage of their immigration process. In 2010, asylum detainees accounted for 48% of the immigration detainee population (UK Home Office 2011). The Government’s announcement in 2005 to process 30% of new asylum applicants through the detained fast-track (DFT) system has contributed to the high numbers of asylum seekers in detention.

The immigration detainee population also includes foreign national prisoners (FNPs), some of whom applied for asylum while in prison. Since April 2006, the UK Government has prioritised the removal of FNPs. As of 1 August 2008, with the introduction of the UK Borders Act 2007, all FNPs who have been sentenced to a period of imprisonment of 12 months or more are subject to automatic deportation from the UK unless they fall within one of the Act’s six exceptions. Prior to removal, FNPs who do not qualify for the exceptions remain in prison under immigration powers and are not counted in official detention estate statistics.

An answer to a parliamentary question in October 2010 revealed that for an average month in 2009, approximately 550 FNPs were detained in prison beyond the end of their custodial sentence while deportation was pursued (Green 2010). This policy may have contributed to an emerging public perception that the greater number of immigration detainees are criminals.

The policy primer on ‘Immigration Detention: Policy Challenges’ provides more context, explanation and analysis of FNPs and asylum seekers in UK immigration detention.

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The detention of child migrants and families

Throughout the 1990s, it was rare for the Home Office to detain families with children. By 2009, the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee estimated that 1,000 children were detained with their families in UK facilities, and Home Office statistics suggest that just over 400 children entered detention in 2010 (Home Office 2011, House of Commons Home Affairs Committee 2009). Non-governmental organizations and other groups estimate the number of child immigration detainees to have been up to 2,000 per annum between 2005 and 2009 (Crawley and Lester 2005, 11 Million 2009, Sankey et al. 2010). Child migrants and asylum seekers were detained with their parents chiefly in Yarl’s Wood IRC in Bedfordshire and at Dungavel IRC in Strathaven, Scotland.

While the family units at Yarl’s Wood and Dungavel have been closed, the Home Office has expanded the unit at Tinsley House IRC at London Gatwick Airport. This facility will hold “turn-around” families for up to 72 hours; those families include childless couples, couples with adult children, and couples with minor children. There are also two other pilot programs – one in London and one in Liverpool – to manage family cases through the new Family Returns Process.

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The financial costs of immigration detention

The Home Office generally does not publish figures on the financial costs of immigration detention. In answer to a 2007 request made under the Freedom of Information Act, the Home Office revealed that in 2005/6 the weekly cost per detainee ranged from £511 (Lindholme IRC) to £1,344 (Colnbrook IRC). The cost of detaining someone in the DFT system in the now-closed Oakington IRC cost £1,620 per week (ICAR 2007).

On 4 February 2010, the UK Government reported in Parliament that the average overall cost of one bed per day in the immigration detention estate is £120 (included in these estimates are the costs incurred by incidents such as fires in IRCs or individuals suing for unlawful detention) (Hansard 2010). This enables us to estimate the annual costs of particular IRCs. For example, since we know that Campsfield House IRC usually operates at 90% capacity with 194 (of a possible 216) migrants detained there, we can estimate that this particular IRC costs approximately £8,497,200 per year to run.

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Evidence gaps and limitations

It is important to recognise that any one source can be misleading in the presentation of data on immigration detention in the UK. For some time now, academics, journalists and activists have been requesting further information and clarification on the nature of the statistics on immigration detention released from the Home Office and the Office of National Statistics. The Home Office took steps to improve its dissemination of statistics in 2011. However, gaps and limitations in the data still persist. For example, information on the ethnic origins of the detainees is often difficult to determine. It is also difficult to track individual trajectories of detention, release and re-detention through the statistics because they are presented as separate numbers of occurrences. Additionally, it is often the case that the only means to identify FNPs in prison is by looking through individual charts. Such evidence gaps and limitations are important in discussions about how to access immigration detainees and provide them with services such as translation and visits.

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References

With thanks to: Mary Bosworth and officials at the Home Office.

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