Children who are not citizens often face substantial difficulties growing up in the UK, but they are usually protected from detention and deportation until their transition to adulthood when they reach 18. Having spent a significant part of their formative years in the UK, some adults end up detained in Immigration Removal Centres while the government tries to deport them to places that feel foreign. This can be a frightening process that dramatically challenges identities and rights that they previously took for granted.

This event introduces new research by Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group (GDWG) that uncovers ways in which ‘young arrivers’ become detained as adults and explores how detention affects them as a distinctive group. The work provides a platform for the voices of people whose conceptions of safety, belonging and Britishness have been shaken by the immigration controls they are now subjected to.

There will be a presentation of the research followed by an interactive panel discussion with:

Dan Godshaw - author of the report

Ridy - expert by experience

Melanie Griffiths - researcher on detention and deportation, University of Bristol

Hindpal Singh Bhui - Detention Team Leader, HM Inspectorate of Prisons

We are very pleased to announce that the panel will be chaired by:

Thangam Debbonaire - MP for Bristol West and Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees