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Fast Track to Despair - new report on asylum detainees printable version

05 May 2011: posted by the editor - Human Rights, United Kingdom

Detention Action (formerly London Detainee Support Group) is launching its new name and a new report "Fast Track to Despair" on Thursday 12 May 2011 at Amnesty International Human Rights Action Centre. "Fast Track to Despair" is an analysis of the Detained Fast Track process, under which asylum seekers are detained throughout the asylum process. The extreme step of detaining people for administrative convenience was justified by Home Office and the courts over a decade ago in the light of the large numbers of asylum claims, the short period of detention and the low security conditions.

But "Fast Track to Despair" finds that the Detained Fast Track is outdated, unfair and unnecessary. The problematic aspects of the Detained Fast Track have become more acute, but the original justifications have largely disappeared. Numbers of asylum claims and delays in decision-making have been dramatically reduced. Yet asylum seekers on the Detained Fast Track continue to experience the confusion and disorientation of making their asylum claims in detention, in conditions that are now equivalent to a high security prison.

The research finds that new asylum seekers spend weeks in detention, without access to legal advice, waiting for the UKBA to begin the process, followed by extremely short deadlines for preparing their cases. The UKBA is increasingly developing processes that consider asylum claims quickly in the community and benefit both asylum seekers and UKBA. The Detained Fast Track is unnecessary, and its fundamental flaws have become unjustifiable.

The future of the Detained Fast Track will be debated by Alison Harvey, Secretary General of the Immigration Law Practitioners Association, Mark Voce of the Independent Chief Inspectorate of the UK Border Agency, former detainee Kirk Mwesigwa and Tamsin Alger of Detention Action, lead author of the report. Mark is the Assistant Chief Inspector who will be in charge of the upcoming inspection of the Detained Fast Track. Kirk will share his first hand experiences of going through the Detained Fast Track system and five years later finally winning his asylum case.

The event will take place at:
7:00pm - 8:30pm, 12 May 2011
Amnesty International Human Rights Action Centre
17-25 New Inn Yard
London EC2A 3EA

www.detentionaction.org.uk
www.detainedlives.org

Tags: asylum

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