Haslar Immigration Removal Centre proposal raises serious concerns due to Home Office's handling of the Manston migrant centre scandal

The Home Office is planning to reopen the Haslar Immigration Removal Centre (IRC), off Dolphin Way, with the intention of redeveloping the site and opening a new 600-bed IRC for by late 2023 at the earliest.

The site, which had been used as a removal centre until it closed in 2015, will house men who are either foreign national offenders who are to be deported after serving a prison sentence or men who are ‘immigration offenders’. There were plans to convert it to a prison but these were scrapped a year later.

But now the proposed reopening is under increasing scrutiny due to the deteriorating situation at the Manston migrant centre.

The migrant centre in Kent was designed as a short-term migrant processing camp, but it is reportedly holding 4,000 people in a space intended for 1,600.

Earlier this week the home secretary Suella Braverman, the MP for Fareham, admitted to parliament that the asylum system is ‘broken’ and that illegal migration is ‘out of control’.

Gosport Borough Council leader Peter Chegwyn has said that the growing alarm about the Manston centre is destroying confidence in the Home Office and raising concerns about how the Haslar site would be run.

The Liberal Democrat politician said: ‘The Home Office doesn’t appear to have a clue about what is a growing problem.

‘We have concerns having seen what’s going on in Manston. The government needs to get its act together.’

Regarding the Haslar site, he said: ‘I think the three concerns are that it is secure, properly managed, and (providing) appropriate welfare.

‘People are saying that Manston isn’t fit for purpose – it’s the Home Office that's not fit for purpose.’

The Home Office was previously hit by scandal in 2018 when members of the Windrush generation of migrants were wrongly detained and denied legal rights, with close to 100 individuals wrongly deported from the UK.

Portsmouth group Portsmouth City of Sanctuary, which supports refugees, asylum seekers, and vulnerable migrant communities across the city, said it would work to send in staff to a reopened Haslar centre, with concerns about the ‘immigration offenders’ who may find themselves detained at the site.

Chair of trustees Malcolm Little said: ‘The law is very, very complex. They may not have proper travel documentation or they are stateless. They could commit so called documentation crimes. It’s not surprising someone who doesn’t speak English gets them wrong.

‘They languish in places in Haslar for years. It's a real scandal.’

According to migrant detainee support charity AVID, 24,512 people were detained in prisons, processing centres, and removal sites in 2019, with 70 per cent released back into the community.

But Gosport MP Caroline Dinenage stressed that the Haslar site will be ‘largely’ used for men due to be removed after a criminal conviction, and the centre will be ‘entirely different’ in purpose to the Manston site.

The MP said: ‘I think you have to be really careful not be swept away in the bleeding heart aspect of this. The reality is that a tiny, tiny fraction of people who have been turned down from having indefinite leave to remain will end up in a situation like this.’

This week saw the MP’s support for the plans come under attack from former UKIP leader Nigel Farage on his show on GB News.

Despite preferring the site to be used for housing and commercial units, Ms Dinenage said the reopened site would still bring economic benefits to the area.

The MP, who said she can see the vacant building complex from her house, said: ‘My overwhelming concern is “what does this mean for the people in Gosport?”. It’s been costing the public purse, because it’s still a site that needs to be secured – so its haemorrhaging money.

‘It would create in excess of 200 jobs. It’s a secure unit. There's no danger to local residents.

‘It's all very well Nigel Farage standing on his soap box...but he’s not an MP.’

Maria Brul, campaigns and advocacy co-ordinator at Detention Action, which supports those in detention and campaigns for reform of the system, said: ‘Proposals to reopen Haslar show again that the Home Secretary has no long-term plan to mend her broken system. It is this lack of practical solutions which has led to the chaos at Manston, trapping people in inhumane conditions, unable to contact family or access appropriate health care. Instead of expanding detention and locking away vulnerable people seeking asylum, the Home Secretary could finally process their asylum claims so they can get on with rebuilding their lives in our communities.’

A Home Office representative said it would continue to engage with the community on the Haslar proposal.

They said: ‘This project is in its very early stages, and we are committed to discussions with local stakeholders as plans progress.’

Meanwhile, Mrs Braverman has been warned by council chiefs that Kent is at ‘breaking point’ as a result of the migrant crisis, with the potential for disorder at an overcrowded processing facility and the risk of far-right violence.

In the letter to the Home Secretary, the leaders of 14 authorities including Kent County Council and Medway called on the government to stop using the county as an ‘easy fix for what is a national, strategic issue’, claiming they were under disproportionate pressure because of their location.

‘The situation at Manston is critical,’ the local authority chiefs said, with tension among the detainees and outbreaks of diseases including coronavirus, scabies and diphtheria.

‘We now have approaching 4,000 service users contained within segregated marquees as we approach the coldest months of the year, some having been on roll mats for over a month.’