European Parliament adopts new regulation on migration statistics The European Parliament has adopted a new regulation on community statistics about migration and international protection. According to the text, statistics on apprehensions of undocumented migrants will be disaggregated by age and sex, by citizenship of the persons concerned, by grounds for their apprehension and by place of apprehension. Data on returns will also be disaggregated by citizenship of the persons returned, by the type of return and assistance received, by the country of destination, by age and sex and unaccompanied children. Moreover, member states will be testing on a voluntary basis the collection of data from other areas, including border procedures, detention and alternatives to detention, the results of which will be made public. UK detention inspectors find alarming lack of oversight at immigration detention sites After visiting detention sites at eight seaports and five airports in March, the UK prisons’ inspectors found an “alarming” lack of oversight as the Border Force, part of the Home Office, was unable to tell them how many short-term detention cells it ran or how long detainees were held for. In the UK, children are being routinely handcuffed by Border Force when they arrive in the UK before they are detained in its short-term holding facilities, which according to the inspectors are often in “very poor” conditions. |