The mass release of migrants from UK immigration detention during the COVID-19 pandemic: what can be learned?

Abstract

Summary Convincing international evidence demonstrates that immigration detention adversely affects mental health. During the COVID-19 outbreak, additional concerns were raised about the safety and appropriateness of immigration detention. Consequently, several hundred migrants were released en masse from UK immigration detention centres, and few new detentions took place. Over 70% fewer migrants were held in detention centres in June 2020 compared with December 2019. This large ‘natural experiment’ has demonstrated that detaining fewer migrants is possible and it provides an opportunity to review the necessity for large-scale detention for the purpose of immigration control, as well as its impact on health inequalities. Additionally, given that detainee release arrangements had already been considered unsafe prior to the pandemic, clinicians and service providers should take into consideration that many of those released may not be receiving adequate post-release continuity of care.

It is time to expand community alternatives to immigration detention

“…Additionally, during the early stages of the covid-19 pandemic, several hundred migrants were released from UK detention centres and almost no new detentions took place. No adverse consequences regarding immigration control were reported, demonstrating the feasibility of detaining fewer people 6. Furthermore, community alternatives in Bulgaria, Cyprus, and Poland have proved highly cost effective 7…”

Mitigating the Violence of Mass Immigration Detention Through Community-Based Case Management

“…The pandemic, while tragic, has shown that warehousing human beings may be less of a necessity than previously considered. As jails and prisons across the western world have released "lower priority" incarcerated persons from custody, so have immigration detention centers (Waterman et al, 2021). In February of 2021, the average daily detention population reached its lowest since 1997 (Kassie, 2019), with 13,258 noncitizens held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities (TRAC, 2021b), or about onequarter of the 2019 average daily detention population (ICE, 2020).…”