Challenging routine immigration detention in the UK
Who
Detention Action support people held in Immigration Removal Centres near Heathrow and people held under immigration powers in London prisons. People in immigration detention centres often have very limited understanding of English, the legal system or their rights. Detention Action provides the vital support and advice that they need to cope in detention and navigate the system.
Detention Action support people held in Immigration Removal Centres near Heathrow and people held under immigration powers in London prisons. People in immigration detention centres often have very limited understanding of English, the legal system or their rights. Detention Action provides the vital support and advice that they need to cope in detention and navigate the system.
The case
Prior to Detention Action’s legal challenge, people seeking asylum were routinely detained on arrival in the UK and kept in high security immigration detention centres as they awaited the results of their application for asylum, under the Detained Fast Track (DFT) process. The DFT was designed to accelerate timescales for claims that were considered suitable for a quick decision. However vulnerable people with complex cases were regularly detained. This included victims of torture, trafficking, gender-based violence and homophobic persecution. Wrongly entering the DFT had a significant impact on a vulnerable person’s chances of successfully claiming asylum: by 2013, nearly one in five people seeking asylum were having their claims heard via a process that had a 99 per cent rejection rate. 4,386 people seeking asylum were detained through the Fast Track in 2013, and around a quarter were under 24 years old. |
The outcome
Previous legal challenges to the DFT had failed to demonstrate unlawfulness. Detention Action and their legal team at Migrants’ Law Project, put together a series of challenges to the DFT, some of which occurred simultaneously. These culminated in the Supreme Court upholding a judgement that found the Detained Fast Track asylum appeal process to be ‘systematically unfair’. It was initially a slow, incremental process that gathered speed, finally leading to the suspension of the Detained Fast Track. |