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Urgent Action – Immigration Bill

Urgent Action – Immigration Bill

Latest update from Detention Forum. This action is still important.

City Of Sanctuary is calling on the network and all sanctuary supporters to support the Detention Forum action, to contact all Members of Parliament as soon as possible to ask them to support David Davis MP’s amendments to the Immigration Bill. David Davis MP (Conservative, Haltemprice and Howden) has tabled amendments to introduce a time limit for immigration detention. These are the amendments, which came so close to succeeding in the last Parliament. His amendments are receiving strong cross party support across the House of Commons.

The amendments are set out in the House of Commons Notice of Amendments Immigration Bill amendments (starting on page 3).

The proposed new law would:

  • Make sure that no one is detained for longer than 28 days
  • Put independent judges in charge not Home Office staff
  • Protect vulnerable people like torture and trafficking survivors from prolonged detention

With this wide-ranging cross party support and in the current very uncertain political climate, we feel that this is a great opportunity to push once again for a time limit to be introduced for immigration detention in the UK.

We urge all groups and supporters to reach out to as many MPs as you feel able to in the next few days. The bill committee is expected to  sit morning and afternoon on the 11th, 16th, 18th and 23rd. The committee will work its way through the bill clause-by-clause. As the detention amendments are New Clauses, they are likely to be debated towards the end of those dates.  The amendment document is expected to be published for the first time on the 11th.

In particular, it will be helpful if you can make use of any local connections to MPs.

There is more information in this Urgent Action – Time Limit helpful document from Detention Forum  and a helpful Detention Time Limit Briefing for the Immigration Bill guide.

Detention Action is also running an individual campaign action on this issue. It would be great if you could support this action too, and help to spread the word through your networks as soon as possible.

Please let City of Sanctuary UK know which MPs you are able to contact and if you get any responses. We will pass this onto Detention Forum.

Thank you for your support!