Responding to the Home Affairs Committee’s report on immigration detention, published today (21 March), which has found ‘serious failings’ in the system, Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty International UK’s Refugee & Migrant Rights Programme Director, said:

“The Committee is right to give a damning review of the Home Office’s cavalier, excessive and inhumane use of immigration detention. 

“Detention is an extreme measure that should only ever be used in exceptional circumstance to achieve a legitimate and realistic purpose. Yet the use of harmful immigration detention powers remains routine, causing real harm to thousands of people and their families every year.

“We urgently need to see effective judicial oversight, legal aid provision and a short and universally-applied statutory time limit on detention.”