On Wednesday 4th November at about 7.30 pm I will be opening a short one-hour debate on this subject. I want to draw particular attention to the detention for periods of various lengths of families with children, who have committed no offence while in this country. These are often asylum applicants who have not been able to establish their case as refugees. Included among them are others who have come to this country but have overstayed their leave to remain. The families are held at Yarls Wood near Bedford, at Tinsley House, near Gatwick, and at Dungavel in Scotland. In addition, individuals and couples without children are held at several other detention centres.
Britain is in breach of its obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and detention in itself and the conditions in the centres have been severely criticised by HM Inspector of Prisons and by the Children’s Commissioner for England.
Lord Hyylton,
In many coutntries of the more “adavanced type” one’s real rights to due process and fair dispostion are vastly greater for a serial killer than for one who has fallen into thoe large lacunae in imigration law. Cubans in the US, Eastern Europeans in several areas and other examples of this ought to make us see something bad about our sense of values.
The manner in which we treat immigrants in this country deeply depresses me. Whatever happened to our common humanity?
It also appears that the 1951 Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees (article 31) is being contravened:
Refugees unlawfully in the country of refugee
1. The Contracting States shall not impose penalties, on account of their
illegal entry or presence, on refugees who, coming directly from a territory
where their life or freedom was threatened in the sense of article 1, enter or
are present in their territory without authorization, provided they present
themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their
illegal entry or presence.
2. The Contracting States shall not apply to the movements of such refu-
gees restrictions other than those which are necessary and such restrictions
shall only be applied until their status in the country is regularized or they
obtain admission into another country. The Contracting States shall allow
such refugees a reasonable period and all the necessary facilities to obtain
admission into another country.
Detention for administrative convenience is not permitted here.
(That last line was my comment.)
Thank you. Do make the points about the 1951 Cnvention to your MP.
My Lord
I am afraid it would be most dishonest of any political party to pretend that it cared a fig about immigration whilst at the same time supporting the abolition of frontiers occasioned by membership of the European Union.
This is a human rights issue, not an immigration one. It’s nothing to do with economic migration, from within the EU or from without. The question here is why we treat people fleeing for their lives worse than convicted criminals.
Within the EU people can only move long-term if hey can find work, or have the means to retire, but I agree that migration and asylum issues are generally low priority here.
Perhaps if the Military Industrial Complex didn’t go around blowing these countries up and causing these problems there wouldn’t be quite so many assylum seekers.
LH: Your speech is featured on the new BBC Democracy Live website. Well done BBC!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/house_of_lords/newsid_8341000/8341227.stm
Lord Sheikh points out that only Britain and Denmark (I would expect this of Denmark) have opted out of the EU Returns Directive with its time limit of 18 months for detaining individuals. He said this in light of one individual being detained in the UK for eight years.
What’s going on?