Support for people in detention
JRS UK’s Detention Outreach Team accompanies people held in Harmondsworth and Colnbrook Immigration Removal Centres, offering practical help, emotional support, and friendship during a time of deep uncertainty. By offering friendship and accompaniment, we seek to affirm the dignity of every person.
How we help
Our team provides:
- Practical support and casework advice including help to contact solicitors and navigate complex legal processes
- Emotional support during detention
- Regular telephone support and social visits, providing companionship and dignity
- Creative and social activities offering a space for expression and connection
- Pastoral support, walking alongside people in the uncertainty and distress of detention
If you require assistance please call us on 07856 309908.
Our advice line is open:
Monday, Wednesday, Friday: 10.30am – 1pm
Tuesday: 2 – 4pm
Thursday: CLOSED
What is immigration detention?
It’s the holding of people in prison-like conditions for administrative purposes – often without judicial oversight. Detention can be indefinite; there is no time line on the period people will be detained for.
Who can be detained?
Anyone subject to immigration control and facing removal can be detained. This can include vulnerable people, including age-disputed children and people with mental ill health.
What is detention like?
Detention centres resemble prisons, with high walls, barbed wire, and strict controls on how you can spend your time. Movement within the buildings is itself restricted, with people often unable to leave their rooms or access services in other wings. People face abuse, humiliation, and limited access to health support – despite the known harm of prolonged detention. Evidence shows that prolonged periods of detention can cause mental ill health.
News & stories
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“Even just one of these children”
What does detention look like through the eyes of someone who visits every week?
Sister Patricia shares stories of friendship, resilience, and the lasting impact of detaining children and young people seeking safety.
Together, Autumn 2026
In this edition of Together, we explore the human cost of detention and the ways people are finding hope, dignity, and support. You’ll find:
- 5 things you need to know about immigration detention
- Reflections on our casework with children caught in immigration detention
- Sr Patricia’s reflections from her chaplaincy work at Harmondsworth and Colnbrook IRCs
- Insight into how the ‘one-in-one-out’ scheme is leading to the detention of children
- Stories of accompaniment, hope, and resilience
- Reflections from young Ursuline school volunteers
Again and again, these stories show that dignity is restored through relationship. Whether through a listening ear in detention, practical support after release, or advocacy for more just policies, small acts of solidarity remind people seeking safety that they are seen, heard, and not forgotten. You make all of this possible.
Reports & briefings
Age disputed children detained under the ‘one-in-one-out’ scheme: briefing note (2026)
A new joint briefing published by JRS UK and Humans for Rights Network (HFRN) reveals a growing pattern of unaccompanied children being wrongly identified as adults, detained in immigration removal centres, and in some cases forcibly removed to France under the UK-France “one-in-one-out” agreement.
The briefing highlights systemic failures in screening, safeguarding, and access to legal support, resulting in vulnerable children being subjected to prolonged detention in conditions described as “prison-like” and profoundly harmful.
Accessing legal advice in detention: becoming an impossibility (2025)
Access to legal advice in immigration detention is rapidly disappearing. JRS UK’s latest report reveals that only 38% of people detained in Harmondsworth and Colnbrook had legal representation, exposing the urgent failure of the Detained Duty Advice Scheme. This is not justice – it must change.
Napier Barracks: the inhumane reality (2023)
JRS UK ran an outreach service to Napier for two years from October 2020. What we saw on the ground was deeply troubling: the site was bleak and rundown, the setting was securitised, the accommodation was crowded. This all took a serious toll on mental health. The report draws from the accounts of 17 forcibly displaced people supported by JRS UK held in Napier Barracks between July and November 2022.
After Brook House: continued abuses in immigration detention (2024)
JRS UK’s research – conducted with people with more recent experience of detention at different detention centres – finds clear, and deeply disturbing, parallels between practices and culture revealed by the 2017 Brook House Inquiry and recent and ongoing practices and culture across UK immigration detention.
Detained and Dehumanised (2021)
This report draws from the accounts of 27 forcibly displaced people supported by JRS UK, with direct experience of detention spanning the last 20 years. It finds that the Home Office policy of immigration detention fosters a culture of death, self-harm and ongoing trauma leaving those who are detained, or threatened by the prospect of detention, dehumanised.
How you can help
Write to your MP
Children are continuing to be wrongly treated as adults and detained in immigration removal centres. Add your voice by writing to your MP and calling for better protection for children seeking safety.
Pray
Please pray for people held in immigration detention, for those separated from family and community, and for an end to policies that cause harm and uncertainty.
Stay informed
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