Where are detainees held?
The majority of immigration detainees are held in 11 Immigration Removal Centres (IRCs) which are scattered around the UK. Other immigration detainees are held in Short Term Holding Centres and prisons.
The following 11 IRCs can hold approximately 3,000 immigration detainees in total. Global Detention Project has a very useful map showing all the UK detention sites.
- Brook House IRC near Gatwick Airport
- Campsfield House IRC in Kidlingon, Oxon
- Colnbrook IRC near Heathrow Airport
- Dover IRC in Kent
- Dugavel House IRC in South Lanarkshire
- Harmondsworth IRC near Heathrow Airport
- Hasler IRC in Gosport, near Portsmouth, Hampshire
- Lindholme IRC near Doncaster, South Yorkshire
- Mortoh Hall IRC in Lincolnshire
- Tinsley House IRC near Gatwick Airport
- Yarl’s Wood IRC in Bedford
You can find out more about each of these IRCs from the UKBA webpage here, including instructions on how to get there. A table showing current capacity of each of the IRCs can be dowloaded from AVID’s website. A similar but a more detailed table of information is provided by Global Detention Project here.
Eight out of these 11 IRCs are run by private companies: G4S, GEO Group UK Ltd, MITIE Plc and Serco. Four are run by HM Prison Service.
Over the last 10 years, about 3,000 new detention bed spaces have been created for the purpose of immigration detention.
