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The government is still holding asylum seekers in prison without justification, campaigners claim, writes Clare Jerrom.

Home Office statistics for the first quarter of 2003 show that 130 asylum seekers are being detained in prison establishments.

A Home Office spokesperson said that while the government had outlined its policy to end the routine detention of asylum seekers in prisons in the white paper ‘Secure Borders, Safe Haven’, it had always recognised a need to hold a small number.

The spokesperson said asylum seekers were held in prisons either because they were on remand, convicted or sentenced for a criminal matter, or if for reasons of security and control they could not be held in removal centres.

But the charity Bail for Immigration Detainees said there were a number of asylum seekers who serve a brief prison sentence for minor offences, but were then kept in prisons for months after the sentence ends under immigration act powers. Others may have been picked up under suspicion of an offence, or had the charges dropped, but were still detained in prisons.

“Because of the lack of access to legal advice and representation people often remain in prisons for many months with no access to independent review of their continued detention by a court,” said a BID spokesperson, adding that unlike those on criminal charges, there wass no automatic opportunity for a bail hearing for immigration detainees.