What we do
Learn more about our projects - including our legal help services.
Every day our dedicated team of staff, volunteers & pro bono barristers work towards our dream of a world where no one is deprived of their liberty or deported from their home. Specifically we:
- Run a telephone advice line four mornings a week to deliver legal advice and information
- Deliver legal advice sessions and workshops in detention centres and prisons
- Prepare, update and disseminate self-help materials on detention and deportation so that detainees have the tools to represent themselves if they don’t have a lawyer. These are available in over 14 languages
- Prepare applications for bail to be heard before the Tribunal
- Represent clients in their deportation appeals
- Carry out research, gather evidence from casework, and prepare reports and briefings for civil servants, parliamentarians and the general public about different aspects of immigration detention
- Refer cases to solicitors for unlawful detention actions
- Act as a third-party intervener, or provide evidence to the higher courts on detention policy and practice
- Raise awareness of immigration detention with the wider public
- Empower those with experience of detention to campaign for change to detention and deportation policy
Our Projects:
Right to Liberty Project
We provide legal advice to people held in immigration detention on how they can get released from detention.
- Our advice line helps callers understand their rights and help them apply for bail themselves.
- Our workshops and legal advice sessions in detention centres provide face-to-face advice on how to apply for bail.
- We provide representation for priority cases, including victims of trafficking, torture survivors, people with mental or physical ill-health, and people detained for longer than four months.
- We also produce self-help materials that people in detention can access, including our `How to Get out of Detention’ self-help book which is available in over 14 languages.
Separated Families' Project
We do not believe parents should be separated from their children for the purpose of immigration control.
We provide parents separated from their children by detention with legal advice and representation to secure their release so they can be reunited.
Our policy and research work advocates for an end to the practice of separating families by detention.
Prisons’ Project
Anyone without British citizenship, including many born and/or raised in the UK, can be detained at the end of their custodial sentence under immigration powers.
They are often detained in prisons and treated as if they were serving prisoners. They have no legal advice and no access to mobile phones.
Our project visits prisons and provides legal advice on bail and release from detention. We also take on cases for representation on the same basis as our Right to Liberty Project.
ADAP - Article 8 Deportation Advice Project
We provide legal advice and representation for individuals in detention and in prisons who are facing deportation and who have established a private and family life in the UK.
As with our bail work, we produce a range of self-help materials on deportation. As we are only able to provide representation to a few people, we prioritise:
- Those with long-term residence in the UK, including people who were born in the UK or came to the UK as a minor.
- Those who have a family or children in the UK.
Strategic litigation
Ever since its first intervention in 2005 in the case of ID v SSHD BID’s focus has been ensuring courts are assisted to gain a better understanding of the obstacles individuals and people who are detained under immigration powers face in gaining access to legal remedies, legal representation and redress when seeking release on bail; challenging unlawful detention; and appealing against deportation despite longstanding ties to the UK.
Research & Policy
While detention exists, we aim to influence detention policy and practice.
Our policy work, underpinned by evidence from our casework, enables us to be effective advocates for change.
