Home Affairs Committee

Introduction to the Organisation

Yarl’s Wood Befrienders is a member of the Association of Visitors to Immigration Detainees. We are based in Bedford, just a few miles from Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre. Our mission statement is to “visit those held at Yarl’s Wood, aiming to affirm human dignity and restore self-esteem by listening and offering befriending support.” We have two full-time coordinators and around 45 volunteers, who we place in one-to-one support roles with detainees. Through the relationships we build up, we get to know about detainees’ experience of detention and learn much about the situations which have led to them coming to the UK and being detained.

Summary

Although there are many aspects of immigration detention in general that we have great concerns about, we will focus in this submission on two specific groups: those held in the Detained Fast Track (DFT) procedure and pregnant women.

We are strongly opposed to the use of the DFT in any form and believe that it cannot form part of a fair and just asylum process. At every stage of the process, applicants are arbitrarily disadvantaged by this lightning-quick process and ultimately have little chance of having their case heard fairly. We discuss areas of the process which could be drastically improved, whilst maintaining that the entire DFT process is unjustifiable and must be abolished.

The existence of the DFT results in the fact that complex cases are assessed in a process designed to deal only with “straightforward” ones. Applicants lack the time and legal advice they need to present their case properly. Large numbers of vulnerable people slip through a screening process which is not designed for the purpose of allocating to the DFT and many who should never have been detained are only finally released on the order of immigration judges.

As an organisation we are also particularly concerned about the number of women in the DFT who have suffered gender-based violence or who have faced persecution due to their sexuality or gender identity. In our opinion, such women should never be placed on the DFT.

The detention of pregnant women is a practice which we feel should and could be ended now. We repeatedly see the damaging effects of detention on the health of this vulnerable group. The risk to mother and child outweighs any justification for detaining in the name of immigration control.

We regularly see women detained right into the final stages of their pregnancy, the continued detention of pregnant women who are failing to eat and the escalation of mental health problems. Trauma is exacerbated still further by the practice of separating women from their partners or husbands in order to enforce removals.

Section 1—The Detained Fast Track

Screening

1. According to Section 2.1 of the UKBA’s Detained Fast Track Processes document, an applicant may enter into and remain on the DFT only if “on consideration of the known facts relating to the applicant and their case obtained at asylum screening (and, where relevant, subsequently), it appears that a quick decision is possible.”267 However, decisions to place on the DFT are routinely made with very little information known about an applicant’s asylum claim. A claim for asylum is based upon an applicant’s well-founded fear of persecution if returned to his/her country of origin. However, the only question in the screening interview which addresses this issue reads “Can you BRIEFLY explain why you cannot return to your home country?” It is impossible for officers in the Fast-Track Intake Unit (FIU) to make a meaningful assessment of the suitability of a claim for the DFT based on the answer to this question. This, alongside guidance that “there is a general presumption that the majority of asylum applications are ones on which a quick decision may be made”268 leads to complex claims being assessed within the DFT, to which they are entirely unsuited.

Case Study A (NB the names in all the case studies have been changed)

Nayomi was a young Sinhala woman from Sri Lanka. She had been involved with an international NGO helping Tamil victims of the civil war. When she raised concerns about the human rights violations perpetrated in IDP camps by Sri Lankan government soldiers, she was interrogated and started to receive death threats. Her family was forced to move towns due to the severity of the intimidation and Nayomi decided to leave the country. Nayomi’s case was extremely complex, involving high-level officialdom in both the government and the army. However, when Nayomi applied for asylum, she was placed straight on the DFT. When the Befrienders met Nayomi, she had just received a refusal letter from the UKBA and was extremely fearful. Nayomi felt that the interviewer had failed to follow her account properly, exacerbated by poor interpreting, and, given the timescale of the DFT, she had not had the chance to prepare a statement chronicling her persecution in Sri Lanka. There was plenty of supporting evidence from Sri Lanka, but this was dismissed. When Nayomi’s case was refused, she went on to appeal. Here, the judge recorded that he had had difficulties following the narrative and that he had been unable to read the interview record due to the poor handwriting. However, he dismissed the appeal in any case and Nayomi was returned to Sri Lanka shortly afterwards. Despite promising to get in touch with the Befrienders from Sri Lanka, we have not heard from her.

2. A large proportion women’s claims for asylum are inherently complex, especially when gender-related persecution is involved. Human Rights Watch documented a number of women whose “asylum claims all had complex gender-related dimensions to them and involved consideration of the state’s failure to provide them with protection—yet all the cases had been placed in DFT.”269 Yarl’s Wood Befrienders regularly comes across cases of this kind in the DFT, reinforcing the evidence that the screening process is not robust enough. Yarl’s Wood Befrienders is encountering a concerning number of women placed on the DFT who have made claims of persecution due to their sexual orientation or gender identity. These cases are far from simple to determine and the consequences of return to many countries are severe, yet they are being placed on the DFT even when the applicant raises the issue at the screening interview.

3. As well as failing to channel out complex cases, the screening process routinely fails to identify victims of torture and victims of trafficking. In his 2012 report into the DFT, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, John Vine, found that a substantial percentage (15%) of cases placed in the DFT had to be subsequently released due to disclosures of trafficking or torture.270 There are no direct questions in the screening interview about torture or trafficking. Therefore, the amount of information available to the FIU is dependent upon the way it is elicited by the screening officer. Such a high release rate shows this process to be simply not effective.

4. According to the UKBA’s Enforcement Instructions and Guidance, those suffering from serious mental illness or serious disabilities which cannot be satisfactorily managed in detention should only be detained under exceptional circumstances.271 However, according to the Chief Inspector’s report, 5% of those taken into the DFT were subsequently released on health grounds. We would argue strongly that exclusion criteria for the DFT should go much further on the grounds of ill health, particularly when it comes to mentally unwell detainees. In the case study above, Nayomi had been a course of anti-depressants since she had been in Sri Lanka. It is no surprise, therefore, that she struggled to give a fully cogent account of her complex history. An Immigration Removal Centre is not a suitable place for someone suffering from mental trauma, so we are extremely concerned about the number of women we see entering (and remaining on) DFT with mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, PTSD and psychosis. Quite apart from the effect of being in a detention centre, the DFT is a process which is liable to exacerbate their distress and which is unable to make suitable allowances for their condition. More worrying still is the following case study, which shows a complete failure to identify a woman with learning difficulties. This is despite the Fast Track exclusion criteria explicitly stating that “[t]hose who clearly lack the mental capacity or coherence to sufficiently understand the asylum process and/or cogently present their claim” must not be placed in the DFT.

Case Study B

Ann was detained in November 2012 and placed in DFT. She was referred to YWB by her roommate who raised concern about Ann’s mental capacity and her ability to cope with detention. Ann was also a victim of rape. Ann had received an initial refusal to her asylum claim when YWB first had contact with her. Her solicitor had written to UKBA asking for her to be removed from DFT to allow more time for an expert report and raising concerns about her mental capacity. UKBA refused to withdraw her from DFT. Her solicitor then dropped her case leaving Ann to represent herself at her appeal. Medical Justice provided a letter to the court asking for time for a Doctor to examine her; further time was granted and her appeal was set for a later date. The medical report was sent to Ann’s solicitor who then agreed to provide representation at her hearing. The report stated that on initial assessment Ann appeared to have significant learning difficulties and that she was vulnerable. The court accepted the medical report and Ann was removed from DFT and released. A more detailed report now provided by a Psychologist states that she is an emotionally frail woman who should have been deemed unfit for interview

5. In his report, the Chief Inspector recommends that the UKBA “[r]educes the number of people allocated incorrectly to the detained fast-track by enabling and encouraging applicants to disclose personal information at screening interviews affecting their suitability for the Detained Fast Track.”272 In our opinion, this could be very harmful to the applicant’s right to a fair hearing unless it were accompanied by substantial legal advice. Many organisations are pressing for Legal Aid funding to be made available for the screening process, but in the current climate of Legal Aid cuts, this is unlikely to be forthcoming. Therefore the Chief Inspector’s recommendation is not a viable method of producing a fit-for-purpose screening process regulating DFT intake. Yarl’s Wood Befrienders visit women in detention who have suffered rape and other gender-related violence, many of whom only start talking about their experiences after several weeks of getting to know and trust their visitor. Therefore it is clear to us that the screening interview is not an appropriate setting for these women to be asked to disclose such sensitive details.

Legal Advice in the DFT

6. A report by Detention Action found that applicants placed in the DFT spend an average of two weeks in detention before their substantive interview, during which time they are unable to access legal advice.273 The solicitors attending the Detention Duty Advice surgeries are not able to take on cases, as the applicant will already have been allocated (though not had contact with) a Fast Track duty solicitor. The schedule for the DFT indicates that applicants should get to see their solicitor at least the day before their substantive interview. However, in practice, the Befrienders find that detainees meet their solicitor for the first time only on the morning of the interview itself, usually for less than an hour. Only one of the firms on the DFT rota at Yarl’s Wood seems to send a solicitor to meet the client before the date of the interview. The time spent with solicitors before interview in the DFT is simply insufficient for the applicant to properly establish her case and receive advice before the asylum process starts.

Case Study C

Saida and her husband Mudassar claimed asylum and were placed in the DFT in Yarl’s Wood. They had over a hundred documents, letters and reports supporting their claim, which they wished to show to their solicitor before going into their substantive interview. However, they only met their solicitor three quarters of an hour before the start of the interview and there was barely time for the solicitor to grasp the basics of their case. Mudassar said after their interview: “The solicitor who came was a very junior one. He did not seem to know anything about the situation of our people. All he was able to do was to sit and listen—nothing more.”

Decision-Making

7. A period of two days is allowed for UKBA caseworkers to make decisions. This is wholly insufficient for the caseworker to make any meaningful enquiry into the background of an asylum claim. It also provides very little time for the applicant’s legal representative to produce any form of supporting evidence, such as medical or country expert reports. Documents which are produced from an applicant’s country of origin are often dismissed without reasonable grounds for doubting their authenticity. In our experience, many of the cases determined on the DFT are indistinguishable from those determined in the mainstream asylum process, yet the DFT refusal rate is vastly superior to that in the non-detained asylum route (99% compared with approximately 70%). From hearing personal accounts and then reading interview records and letters of determination, it is apparent that an overwhelming culture of disbelief pervades the DFT, leading to a near-blanket refusal policy.

Case Study D

Amanda claimed asylum at Heathrow Airport, having fled Uganda via Kenya. She had been outed as a lesbian in a newspaper and had documentary evidence to show that she was facing a High Court case in Uganda due to her sexuality. If convicted, she faced a term of imprisonment, or a two month period of religious exorcism, purporting to “rid her of the demon of homosexuality”. Despite the fact that Amanda clearly had a fear of state persecution, she was placed in the DFT. When the Befrienders met her she had just been through the process and had exhausted her appeal rights. Her documentary evidence had all been dismissed. She desperately sought more evidence for a fresh claim, but this was rejected. On the eve of her departure, all she could think about was how she would face the Ugandan immigration officers on arrival, and what they would do to her given her police profile. Again, despite attempts to contact Amanda, we have not heard from her.

Section 2—The Detention of Pregnant Women

8. The UKBA’s Enforcement Instructions and Guidance states that pregnant women should not be detained except “where removal is imminent and medical advice does not suggest confinement before the due removal date, or, for pregnant women of less than 24 weeks gestation, at Yarl’s Wood as part of a fast track asylum process.”274 However, of the 17 pregnant women we visited in 2011 and 2012, 12 were detained for more than a month, five for more than three months and one for eight months of her pregnancy. Furthermore, of those seventeen, only four were removed from the country—12 were released and one remains in Yarl’s Wood. One woman was released and then re-detained before finally being released again at more than seven months pregnant. Clearly, pregnant women are being detained for substantial periods of time when there is little prospect of removing them from the country; not enough monitoring of their situation is taking place by the UKBA. According to the Chief Inspector of Prisons, Nick Hardwick, in his inspection report of 2011, “Too many pregnant women, who should only have been held in exceptional circumstances, were detained in [Yarl’s Wood].”275 At the time of his inspection, seven pregnant women were being held at Yarl’s Wood and in the five files which were inspected, “only one of the monthly review letters mentioned pregnancy, and even that suggested the pregnancy was disputed, even though it had been confirmed for some time.”276

Case Study E

Patricia was detained at 28 weeks pregnant and given removal directions for a flight just four days later. However, the day before her removal, she was declared “not fit to fly” by the Healthcare staff at Yarl’s Wood, a decision which appears to be taken only on very rare occasions. Despite this and her continued poor health, her detention was maintained for another month before further removal directions were issued. Only when this second removal was cancelled was Patricia released from detention, now 34 weeks pregnant.

9. Detention can have a dramatic impact upon any person’s mental health, but pregnant women can feel the effect of detention particularly severely. Separated from support networks and suddenly unable to lead an active life, pregnant women can find the situation difficult to cope with. Small worries about their pregnancy can develop into major concerns, especially as detainees often feel that they are not receiving the same quality of health care as they would in the community. Expectant mothers are anxious to be doing the best for their unborn child and feelings of inadequacy are common. We are particularly concerned by the effect of a restricted diet on the health of pregnant women. It is impossible to cater to the taste of all the nationalities in Yarl’s Wood and women often find the food they are served unappetising. The restricted mealtimes also cause difficulties for pregnant women. A five-month pregnant woman who was constantly hungry at night time was refused permission to take sandwiches from the kitchen during the evening, as these were restricted only to diabetic detainees.

Case Study F

Faridah and her husband Salim were detained in August 2012 in the DFT. Faridah discovered that she was pregnant after their detention; she suffered from severe morning sickness, which remained with her throughout her detention. Their claim was refused and they were booked on a charter flight in November. An injunction was granted for medical reasons and was still outstanding when removal directions were reset. Faridah continued to suffer from nausea and lost weight rather than gained weight as her pregnancy progressed. Her mental health deteriorated. She felt marginalised and afraid in detention and complained that she had been accused of refusing to eat and disbelieved when she complained of pain and discomfort. When removal directions were again set in March 2013 an injunction was again applied for on the grounds of her continuing ill health both mentally and physically. She was then seven months pregnant. On the day scheduled for removal her husband was transferred to the isolation unit. Faridah was repeatedly asked if she wanted to leave on the flight with her husband. At no time did anyone ask if she needed anything to eat, despite the fact that Yarl’s Wood staff were aware that the smell of food in the dining room continued to make her very nauseous and that she only ate what her husband was able to bring to their room or buy in the centre shop. An injunction was again granted and particularly stated that she should not be separated from her husband. A copy of the injunction was faxed to their case owner but Salim was taken to the airport and later to Harmondsworth, where he was held for 24 hours. They were separated for almost two days before he was returned to Yarl’s Wood. They were both released the next day.

Case Study G

Elizabeth, who told the Befrienders how she had been brought into the UK aged 15 to work in domestic servitude, was eight weeks pregnant when she was detained. She was experiencing intermittent bleeding from an early stage in her pregnancy and had already suffered a miscarriage. She was prescribed inappropriate anti-malarial prophylaxis. Removal directions were cancelled by a judicial review yet her detention was maintained for another three months, despite there being no imminent prospect of removal. During this time she was very anxious and, due to her detention, had no choice as to when or what she would eat. As a result, she was forced to eat food she did not like and at times when she did not feel hungry. In the 20th week of her pregnancy, Elizabeth lost her baby. She gave birth to her still-born son in Bedford Hospital without friends or supporters around her, with an escort present for much of the labour. Elizabeth made a suicide attempt after the birth and was transferred to a mental health unit before being released from detention four days later.

10. The separation of family members for the purpose of detention is something that the Befrienders witness all too often. Sometimes, despite space being available in the family unit at Yarl’s Wood, we have seen partners held in separate detention centres and parents in different centres to their adult children. It is particularly worrying when separation is used as a means of coercion, whether this is the transfer of family members to a different detention centre, or the use of isolation, both seen in case study F above. Pregnant women in particular should not be subject to this type of treatment, at a time when they are most in need of their child’s father.

Case Study H

Jane, a Chinese national and her partner Simon were detained in Northern Ireland and transferred to Yarl’s Wood family unit in October 2012. Jane was then three months pregnant. Jane and her partner had left China at separate times and had claimed asylum in separate European countries before meeting and starting their relationship in Northern Ireland. Under Dublin regulations, UKBA intended to remove Jane to Ireland, where she had first claimed asylum, and remove Simon to The Netherlands. They had resisted attempts to separate them. They were moved to the isolation unit before another removal attempt on January 2013 when Jane was then six months pregnant. She again resisted separation from her partner but Simon was removed to The Netherlands on 11/1/13 and later removed to China. Jane remained in Yarl’s Wood alone until her release at the end of January to have her baby alone, without the support of her baby’s father.

Section 3—Recommendations

1. The Detained Fast Track should be abolished.

2. If the DFT is to continue, the screening process must be completely overhauled to ensure that vulnerable applicants and those with complex elements to their cases are not admitted.

3. Applicants should be provided with legal advice before any interview which will have an impact on the decision on whether to place them in the DFT.

4. Gender and sexuality-based persecution must be recognised as an area giving rise to legally complex cases.

5. Detainees placed on the DFT should be provided with a solicitor from the very start of their detention.

6. The vast discrepancy between grant rates in the DFT and the mainstream asylum process must be addressed.

7. Pregnant women should not be detained under any circumstances.

8. The practice of separating or isolating members of a family group should cease.

Yarl’s Wood Befrienders

April 2013

©Parliamentary copyright

Prepared 11th October 2013