London-based Labour Party MP Tulip Siddiq is leading a campaign against the indefinite detention of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers in the UK.
The Opposition MP received cross-party backing for her backbench bill calling for a 28-day limit on the detention in such cases on human rights grounds.
The niece of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has found the backing of leading MPs from the ruling Conservative Party, including Dominic Grieve and David Davis, for the Ten Minute Rule Bill, which would impose a statutory time limit of 28 days on detention for immigration and asylum purposes.
“Whoever you are, wherever you’re from, you deserve to be treated with dignity and fairness,” said Siddiq, the MP for Hampstead and Kilburn.
“It should shame our nation that Britain is the only EU country to detain immigrants without a time-limit,” she said.
The bill may not pass through all stages in Parliament to become law but the intention of the MPs is to pile pressure on the government to change the rules around detention in immigration centres of the country. People without a legal right to live in the country or undergoing an asylum application are expected to be held in such centres until a decision is made on their case or they are deported.
UK home secretary Sajid Javid has already said he wants a detention policy “based on not only what works to tackle illegal migration, but what is humane”.
An online petition calling on Javid to include a 28-day limit on immigration detention in any upcoming immigration legislation has attracted over 70,000 signatures.
“Indefinite immigration detention is ineffective, costs millions and destroys lives,” the petition says.