More than 100 migrants flee immigration centers
by Guneet S - January 29, 2010
United Kingdom, January 29: As per the latest figures revealed by the Home Office, more than 100 migrants have already run from the immigration detention centers in the UK and an additional three quarters are on the run.
About 150 inmates of the so-called secure detention centers have escaped form such centers in the period of last four years from 2006 till the present time. The detention centers are the places used to keep foreign immigrants many of whom are criminals completing their sentences there.
This was revealed by the ministers in reply to queries by the Conservatives in Parliament. Damian Green, official spokesperson for Tory immigration stated these figures to be alarming and asked for explanation by the government. The situation in which a large number of immigrant detainees were successful in escaping needs immediate attention, cautioned Green.
The figures for the year 2007 show the number of missing immigrant detainees to be 90, out of which 71 detainees are still on the run.
UK has a total of 11 immigration removal centers which have a capacity for holding 3,000 inmates including illegal migrants, foreigner prisoners and also failed asylum seekers. The prisons in the UK held illegal immigrants from 160 nations.
The issue of escape of increasing number of illegal immigrants is the latest scandal bothering the ministers. Earlier, way back in the year 2006, the then Home Secretary Charles Clarke was removed following the mistaken release of 1000 foreign criminals.
In the year 2008, nearly seven inmates of immigrant detention center in Campsfield House, Oxford escaped from the centre in a well-planned operation. Similarly, in the year 2007, 26 immigrants had escaped from the same center. Although, 12 were caught afterwards, fourteen of them were not caught.
Meanwhile, the immigration minister Phil Woolas maintained that there were improved security measures introduced by the government at all immigration removal centers following which a significant drop in the escapes has been notified. Last year, two detainees had escaped from the detention centers who are still to be traced.
»
- 901 reads
