Daily Mail is annoyed women were released from Yarl’s Wood ‘onto Britain’s streets’
Scandal-hit detention centre is panned in a new report, but the Mail implies we keep women there - or deport them
A new report has laid bare the appalling conditions for migrant women held at Yarl’s Wood detention centre in Bedfordshire, which independent inspectors called ‘a place of national concern’.
The centre hit the headlines two years ago after officials were accused of demanding sexual favours from female inmates.
Inspectors today called for ‘strict time limits’ on how long people could be held, adding:
“Decisive action is needed to ensure that women are only detained as a last resort.”
The Daily Mail, however, had a different take on the news:
Just one in three migrants held at detention centre are deported:
Only 443 were sent home in six months compared with 894 who were let on to Britain’s streets
The paper complains too few inmates were deported and too many released from the scandal-hit centre, relegating the key findings of the report to half-way down its story.
This editorial decision is all the more odd since, as the story notes, inspectors questioned whether many of the women should have been kept there in the first place!
The Mail even quotes the Home Office saying it can only hold people when there is an ‘immediate prospect of removal’ – before inviting comment from the ever-thoughtful Migration Watch.
A report exposing the dreadful conditions at a migrant detention centre? The Daily Mail implies women should either stay in there or be deported. Another triumph of compassionate conservatism!
Adam Barnett is a staff writer at Left Foot Forward. Follow MediaWatch on Twitter
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