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End Indefinite Detention

Indefinite detention causes immeasurable and unnecessary harm. It is a breach of human rights. It has to end.

It’s #Time4aTimeLimit.

The UK is an outlier for its use of indefinite detention. Migrants, including asylum seekers, EU nationals, and torture and trafficking survivors, are held without a time limit in the UK.

Despite promised reform, progress has been piecemeal and slow. The UK’s over-reliance on detention is not only ineffective and expensive, but also incredibly harmful.

Ineffective

Long term detention does not lead to higher deportation rates. In fact, the longer someone is detained, the more likely that they will be released from detention. When someone is detained for over 28 days their chances of being removed actually decrease.

Expensive

The cost of running the detention estate in 2013/14 was £164.4m. Independent research by Matrix Evidence has found that £76 million per year is wasted on the long-term detention of migrants who are ultimately released. In addition, between 2012 and 2015 the Home Office paid out almost £14 million in compensation following claims for unlawful detention.

Harmful

The physical and mental health problems caused by detention are well documented. Since 2000, at least 49 people have died in UK detention centres. Incidents of self harm are now recorded at more than one a day.

Join the movement to end indefinite detention

Urgent Protect people in immigration detention.

Urgent – 27,000 people held every year in UK immigration detention centres with no time limit. Unaccountable, arbitrary, indefinite detention is a human rights abuse. Join the movement to end it.