“Since 2005 Medical Justice has been alerting the Home Office, and now more recently NHS England, about repeated systemic failures in immigration detention and warned that these will lead to further deaths unless they are addressed.
Failures have not been addressed. The inability to learn from past mistakes is shameful and negligent. Predictably, more detainees have died.
10 detainees have already died in the last 12 months, four of them at Morton Hall Immigration Removal Centre.
Clients in immigration detention call us, petrified that they too might die. They say the authorities don’t care whether they live or die. Certainly, the fact that little changes would reinforce their view. There is little we can say to comfort our clients.
This death rate calls for emergency measures. The Home Office must take responsibility to protect the life of those in its care. They must immediately close all immigration removal centres and conduct a public inquiry into how conditions have led to this deaths rate, the neglect that has been found by coroners to contribute to deaths, the cases of ‘inhuman and degrading treatment’ found by high court judges, the persistent failure to identify and protect vulnerable detainees inadequate healthcare, assaults on detainees, and abuse recently revealed through undercover filming, including threats to kill a detainee.”
Guardian : 20/11/17 “Fourth death at Lincoln immigration removal centre prompts inquiry “
Medical Justice has documented deaths since 2000 – ‘Death in Immigration Detention: 2000-2015’
