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A 83-YEAR-OLD “on his death bed” was handcuffed and chained before being taken to an immigration removal centre (IRC), MP John McDonnell told the Commons yesterday.
The immigration system is ineffective, unjust and degrading, especially of those who have fled persecution and war, 25 MPs unanimously agreed during the debate.
In making the case for closing down IRCs, the Labour MP for Hayes and Harlington added: “There’ll be more self-harming, more suicides, hunger strikes and the riots [in IRCs] will come back again.
“This is no way to treat our fellow human beings.”
More than 30,000 people were held indefinitely by the Home Office in 11 IRCs last year at a cost of £164 million — £36,000 per person, MPs were told.
But 50 per cent of prisoners ended up returning to the communities they were snatched away from.
Children became severely distressed after being put in foster care for an average of 170 days even when their parents’ detention “served no purpose,” said Hornsey and Wood Green Labour MP Catherine West.
MPs agreed that immediate and drastic change to immigration procedure was necessary instead of “piecemeal tinkering.”
They renewed demands for a 28-day immigration detention time limit and for assurance that it is used “sparingly” and as a last resort.
Safeguards should be put in place to protect vulnerable women in detention who were victims of rape and trafficking, they added.
In the first quarter of this year 3,483 people were detained. Two-thirds were held for more than 28 days, 488 for more than six months, 153 for over a year, 25 for two years and one for five years.
The Movement for Justice (MFJ), which demonstrated outside Parliament on Wednesday, told the Star that it wanted IRCs to be shut down completely.
“Unchecked powers of the Home Office” allow it to imprison people in worse conditions than those of serious criminals who had the right of a fair trial, the MFJ said.
Only profiteers like Serco, which runs Yarl’s Wood IRC, benefit as they “literally profit from this misery,” said Ealing Central and Acton Labour MP Rupa Huq.
