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Detention can also have a devastating impact on children when their parents are detained, and they remain in the community, separated from their parents.

We have worked with parents who have been separated by immigration detention from children who are as young as two years old.

In many cases, these parents are the sole or primary carer in their families, so their children are placed in the care of Children's Services or private fostering arrangements. In some cases, child protection concerns have been raised about the care arrangements for this group of children.

From November 2008 to August 2010, BID's family team worked with 28 families where children who were not detained had been split from their parent who was in detention.

19 of these parents were released from detention during this period, after being detained for an average of 307 days. 

Parents often have very limited contact with their children while they are detained. For example, in one case a mother was in immigration detention for five months before Children's Services were able to negotiate for her to have half an hour's telephone contact per week with her six year old child.

In October 2010 and April 2011, the Administrative Court found that two of BID's separated family clients were detained unlawfully for part of the time which they spent in immigration detention.

We are lobbying the government to stop separating families for the purposes of immigration control. Download our briefing paper on the separation of families on the right hand side of this page.