‘Immigrants being treated as prisoners in Britain’

LONDON - Asylum seekers and illegal immigrants in Britain are being virtually treated as prisoners in the country’s immigration detention centres, the chief inspector of prisons has said.

Reacting to the alleged brutal treatment of asylum seekers before their return to their countries of origin, chief inspector Dame Anne Owers said there was growing conflict between the forced removal of failed asylum seekers and the proper care of detainees held in immigration custody.

The UK Border Agency’s (UKBA) primary role is to enforce immigration control, she said.

“Immigration detention should not to be the same as prison. When we are looking at prison, the role of the prison service is to try to hold people safely in detention - that is not the core role of the UK Border Agency,” Owers was quoted as saying by The Independent.

She suggested that the responsibility for detention of illegal immigrants be given to another agency.

“The job (of UKBA) is removal, and detention is incidental to removal. So I don’t think there is always an appreciation of what is happening on the ground about detention. So I float the idea of whether the process of looking after people who are in detention wouldn’t be better separated from the perfectly proper role of UKBA as an organisation that has to enforce immigration controls.”

Her suggestions came in the wake of concerns over immigration removal centres in Britain becoming more like prisons leading to increased violence between detainees and staff.

The latest instance was reported at the Brook House immigration detention centre near Gatwick airport. While the staff were found to be inexperienced, the detainees claimed they were bullied and tortured. Brook House was opened in 2009 and is considered a category B prison, the second highest level of imprisonment in the country.

The chief inspector said she found Brook House “fundamentally unsafe” during an inspection.

“We are worried about the new buildings which are designed like a high-security prison. The problem is if you build places like that and you have inexperienced staff, or don’t have enough staff, then you are designing places to fail. When staff are new to working in custody there is a risk that they will lack confidence and will resort too readily to force. At Brook House there was the use of shields.”

Previously, Owers had inspected detention centres near Oxford, Gatwick and Bedfordshire where she had found living conditions of detainees “wholly unacceptable” and had reported about force being used even against children to separate them from their families in order to carry out deportation.