United Kingdom: Jesuits, report on migrant detention centres. “Continued violence and abuse”

“They locked me up in a place that was a prison though they didn’t call it that. There were bars at the windows, and there were video cameras that watched you all the time”. “There being no time limit on detention has a remarkable psychological impact. You feel lost, and you feel there’s nothing you can do. Nobody tells you anything. It is as if they had forgotten you. Every day is the same, and you never know when it will end”. “A guest had chest pain, and the staff members walked by and didn’t help him”. These are some of the stories collected in “After Brook House: continued abuse in immigration detention”, the latest report on immigration detention centres published by the London’s “Jesuit Refugee Service”, the Jesuits’ shelter for refugees and asylum seekers. In their inquiry, they report cases of abuse, a toxic culture in which migrants are neglected, attacked and belittled, left without the medication they need and even denied the possibility to go to the toilet. The report follows up on a previous one, published in September 2023 and dealing with the “Brook House” detention centre, where multiple cases of abuse had happened in 2017. At the end of their file, they ask to close down detention centres, to repeal the Illegal Immigration Act 2023, and to enforce a maximum compulsory time limit of 28 days for detention.
Valentina Bombelli