Immigrants: Detainees

(asked on 12th October 2017) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to reduce the length of time people are detained for immigration purposes.


Answered by
Brandon Lewis Portrait
Brandon Lewis
This question was answered on 18th October 2017

The Home Office are continually reviewing internal processes to ensure that the time any individual spends in immigration detention is kept to a minimum. Each person’s case is considered on the specific individual circumstances surrounding their immigration and/or offending history.

Following Stephen Shaw’s review into the welfare in detention of vulnerable persons a number of casework changes were introduced to improve the efficiency of case progression and therefore reduce the time any individual spends in immigration detention. These include a single Detention Gatekeeper function to ensure an independent assessment on the suability for detention is made and Case Progression Panels to provide an internally independent review of suitability for continued detention and the progression of case actions.

The Home Office will also soon introduce a duty from the 2016 Immigration Act to provide additional judicial oversight of immigration detention to the Immigration and Asylum Chamber. This ‘auto-bail provision’ will involve those in immigration detention being referred to the Tribunal for a bail hearing every 4 months.

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