As the Government launches its new Immigration Bill, Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID) today published its latest report that analyses the impact that cuts to legal aid have had on families.
Rough Justice: Children and Families affected by the 2013 legal aid cuts examines the cases of 102 parents separated from 219 children by immigration detention. On average, those parents were detained and separated from their children for 228 days. Shockingly, 22 parents were deported or removed without their children.
BID's research also found that in a third of cases, the detained parents had no access to legal representation. The one remaining avenue of financial support - exceptional case funding - was only successfully awarded in one single case, despite parents facing deportation without their mostly British citizen children.
Commenting on the research, BID director Celia Clarke said:
"The separation of children from their parents by detention continues to be a practice that should be abhorred. That in more than two-thirds of these cases parents are eventually released without being removed demonstrates that detention does not serve its stated purposes and damages families in the process."
"It's disgraceful that a third of our sample had no access to legal representation. Of the 22 parents in our study who were deported, just 5 had any kind of legal representation – that's truly shameful in cases that involve the separation of families."
"This report makes it shockingly clear that the Government's legal aid cuts are harming access to justice. Parents should not be separated from their children by detention and the Government must ensure that access to justice is fair and equal for all."
The full report can be found here.
