Every year around 2000 children are imprisoned by private security companies acting on behalf of the UK Borders Agency. A recent report by the Children's Commissioner for England, Professor Sir Al Aynsley-Green, describes what happens to them.1 Its findings are shocking. The children involved range from newborns to teenagers. Many have been born in Britain. The authorities can take years to process asylum claims, so children may have lived and attended schools here for up to a decade before being arrested for deportation. Some families are imprisoned before their appeals have been fully reviewed. As Professor Aynsley-Green makes clear, detention is ‘not reserved as a genuine last resort as required by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.’1
The Commissioner and his team visited Yarl's Wood in Bedfordshire, the largest detention centre. They …
