Thread by @Sile79

Not only did @JamesCleverly fail to acknowledge on #r4today the Government's practical inability to remove the people they refuse to admit to the UK asylum system, but he fundamentally misrepresented the powers in the #refugeebanbill to detain tens of thousands of people 1/

https://twitter.com/jonfeatonby/status/1634111582899785728

He characterised the purpose of this detention as being purely pre-removal i.e. for the shortest possible time in order to effect removal. This could be misunderstanding or political spin but, regardless, it incorrectly represents the number of people & length of detention 2/

3/ the bill gives Government unprecedented powers for automatic & indefinite detention of tens of thousands of people. It's estimated that up to 80k people will arrive by small boat this year. True, not all will be detained at the same time but there will be significant overlap

4/ this power to detain applies to everyone the Government considers to be subject to the removal duty in this bill: that means anyone arriving without prior authorisation, including refugees, victims of trafficking under the control of others, and those without leave to remain

5/ this will include unaccompanied children, families and pregnant women who will have no recourse to the safeguards that currently exist to prevent the unlawful & harmful detention of vulnerable people

6/ contrary to the image given by Cleverley this morning, detention will be possible from the moment of arrival, even while an immigration officer considers whether someone even falls under the removal duty

7/ there will be no immigration bail or judicial review of that detention for the first 28 days i.e. almost no way to challenge your detention. At the end of 28 days there is no automatic release, even despite the lack of any prospect of removal.....

8/ the Secretary of State will be able to detain someone for as long as she deems 'reasonably necessary' - taking a crucial power away from the courts to determine whether there is a reasonable prospect of removal within a reasonable time

9/ assuming you can even find a lawyer to challenge your detention after 28 days, there is no guarantee of success. Many tens of thousands of people will be subject to the harmful, traumatising effect of arbitrary & indefinite detention. For what?

10/ Putting aside the fact that most of these people cannot/will not be removable for reasons this bill will do nothing to address, it is inhumane, unjustifiable, unacceptable and cruel to subject people to a deprivation of liberty purely for political gain

11/ Absolutely, we do not have the infrastructure to detain all of these people safely - children too, remember. But we absolutely should not be even considering this unlawful and abhorrent proposal on principled grounds.

4.1/ an addition here: duty to remove will apply to anyone who arrives in breach of normal immigration laws but also those who arrive with leave to enter obtained through deception. My understanding is that this could include people on tourist/spousal visa who then claim asylum

4.2/ duty also applies to those who have travelled through a 'safe' country en route. Bearing in mind there are no direct flights from Hong Kong to UK, this could then include HKers with a valid visa but whose flight stopped en route to UK

....happy to be corrected.

The reason this might be spin rather than strict misunderstanding is that Government really does intend to detain people pre-removal. It's just that removal will take a really really really long time, if it happens at all. And the bill may allow detention for the entire period

9.1/ we have ample evidence of the inappropriate & profoundly harmful affect of detention on survivors of torture. It was such compelling evidence that it contributed to the introduction of safeguards to prevent their detention. These safeguards do not always currently work

9.2/ under the bill torture survivors will be automatically & immediately detained, with almost no means to challenge that detention, so will be reliant on internal Home Office safeguards (Rule 35/adults at risk) that have been proven not to work effectively

9.3/ and all at pace, as the survivor struggles to cope with the trauma of detention, find a rep, and get 'compelling evidence' of the harm they've endured or will face, in order to challenge their removal

9.4/ and remember, they haven't been admitted to any process that assesses their protection need... so no asylum interview which has always been the primary opportunity for Home Office to identify a survivor or other vulnerability

....& that assumes that Rule 35/adults at risk will even apply/be accessible from the kind of detention we're talking about. Home Office introduced a statutory instrument at the start of this year to create a new detention facility concept: 'the residential holding room'

'residential holding room' carries all the potential for longer-term detention than a usual short term holding facility but with downgraded safeguards: no legal visits, little health screening & crucially, no Rule 35 process to enable an adults at risk assessment