Controversy over immigrant child detention in U.K.

One of the sticking points in the already heated immigration debate in the U.S. centers on families split over immigration restrictions. For instance, a pro-immigrant group filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration in January to seek a halt to deportations.

A similar controversy has developed in the U.K. over the arresting and detaining the children of immigrants who seek asylum. "We are particularly concerned at what appear at times to be significant discrepancies between policy guidance and what happens in practice to children, young people and families during arrest, transportation and detention," said English Children's Commissioner Sir Al Aynsley-Green. He also made 42 recommendations for improving conditions at the Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre including developing community-based alternatives and using detention only used as "a last resort".

Speaking for the government, Justice Secretary Jack Straw rejected the recommendations and claimed that Britain “comes under criticism mainly for being too humane towards asylum seekers not the other way round.” Yet as one former detainee- a 15-year old girl- told the BBC, staying at Yarl’s Wood was like being jailed:

It was like a prison. The windows only opened four inches, and to get to the main ward there was 20 doors locked on you.

And there was just a little park, you could only see the sky because there was really big walls around it.

[I was in there for] three months. I got in a depression a lot when I was in there.

I was thinking 'why would I deserve this when every other child is outside there doing something different every day, and I do the same thing every day?'.

Image- BBC News
Online Sources- Guardian UK, BBC News, Reuters, Times Online, The Latin Americanist