Morton Hall Detainee Visitors Group has provided emotional support and practical help to people detained indefinitely under immigration powers at the remote Immigration Removal Centre (IRC) in Lincolnshire, which houses 392 male foreign nationals, for a decade.
Since 2011, MHVG has cultivated a group of skilled and dedicated volunteers who have supported hundreds of people in detention at Morton Hall. Our primary aim is to ease isolation and anxiety – provide solidarity and signpost to services able to offer specialist advice and guidance. Our volunteers also act as unofficial human rights monitors, by providing a bigger-picture view of the reality of immigration detention, which helps inform and support national campaigns that promote progressive immigration policy reform.
In July 2020, it was announced that Morton Hall IRC would be repurposed into a prison for foreign national offenders during 2021. While our group initially welcomed this news as a sign that the use of the cruel and inhumane practice of immigration detention was strategically reducing, it has since become clear that this is not the case.
Instead, we are bearing witness to a national trend towards increasing numbers of immigration detainees being held in prisons rather than IRCs, post-sentence. It is our fear that use of prison capacity to house immigration detainees will continue to increase and that Morton Hall will serve as a microcosm for this shift. We also believe that there is a clear need to provide early intervention support to foreign national offenders before their custodial sentences end to ensure just outcomes.
We recruit and operate a trained network of dedicated volunteer visitors who provide emotional support and practical help to people being held indefinitely under immigration powers at Morton Hall. This provision will extend to include foreign national offenders serving custodial sentences, once Morton Hall becomes a prison in 2021.
Through regular, confidential and non-judgemental visits from our volunteers, we are able to build trust and friendship with people detained at the centre. While we do not dispense immigration advice, through training from the Association of Visitors to Immigration Detainees (AVID), and from our own staff, we equip our volunteers with the skills needed to offer accurate information, in confidence, and provide the best possible support and signposting to a range of specialist services. Where necessary we can also provide phone cards and basic amenities.
Another core aim of our organisation is to educate and inform the public about the historical and current experiences of people in indefinite immigration detention, and the broader legal situation for refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in the UK. By raising awareness of these issues, we aim to promote tolerance and understanding in the Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire areas.
