In Border Nation, Leah Cowan documents the often horrendous conditions people face when detained in immigration processing centers across the United Kingdom. Detainees are often given inadequate nutrition and both physical and mental health issues are rampant.
“Self-harm, suicide attempts, and death are endemic in immigration detention: while only 0.01% of people die by suicide in the general population, in detention 36% of deaths are self-inflicted,” Cowan writes.
New research from Nottingham Trent University highlights how the centers provide such poor access to healthcare, with the environment people are placed within making many reluctant to access whatever help is available.
Access to care
The researchers conducted interviews with detainees and staff at immigration centers in the UK and found a number of factors that deter people from seeking help, including a poor understanding of the UK health system, feelings of powerlessness, and a lack of understanding about their right to healthcare access. What’s more, the accusatory nature of such facilities often left many people feeling like they wouldn’t be believed if they voiced any health issues.
Sadly, even when support was offered it was often found to be ineffective, which the researchers believe is indicative of the poor conditions people are detained in across the UK immigration system. That people can be detained for an unlimited and unspecified amount of time merely exacerbates these concerns.
This mutual lack of trust was found to significantly undermine the situation, with detainees worried that by speaking up about health needs they would be branded as consuming NHS resources. This concern led to disengagement with services and a general unwillingness to ask for help.
Covid concerns
This has obvious implications for the successful tackling of viruses, such as Covid-19 as it can prevent effective access to both testing and vaccinations. This can easily result in blind spots where the true condition of those held in detention centers is hidden from view.
It’s a situation that was clearly highlighted in research published last autumn by the University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor, which showed how ripe these detention centers were for the spread of Covid-19.
“Immigration detention centers are densely populated facilities in which restrictive conditions limit detainees’ abilities to engage in social distancing or hygiene practices designed to prevent the spread of COVID-19,” the authors say. “With tens of thousands of adults and children in more than 200 immigration detention centers across the United States, immigration detention centers are likely to experience COVID-19 outbreaks and add substantially to the population of those infected.”
That such facilities are so often hidden from public view often results in a lack of improvement in the conditions for those held there indefinitely. That people with so little voice are treated so poorly is a stain on the country, yet their plight so often goes unrecognized.
