News

BID's Travel Document Project aims to help immigration detainees who wish to return home, and their legal representatives, to understand the steps that need to be taken when applying for a travel document from a person’s national authorities.  Attempts made to obtain travel documents are taken into account by the courts and the UK Border Agency when deciding if and when to release someone from detention.  At immigration bail hearings, UKBA may oppose release on the ground that an alleged failure to cooperate with the redocumentation process makes it more likely that a person may fail to cooperate with reporting requirements – or abscond - if released from detention. 

BID believes that most immigration detainees and many legal representatives, as well as other non-detained foreign nationals, are unaware of how their enquiries must be pursued repeatedly and exhaustively over an extended period in order not to be characterised by UKBA as

•  Having failed to cooperate on an ongoing basis with attempts to remove them
• Having failed to exhaust all possible routes to getting travel documents

In the absence of published guidance from UKBA, an objective of the Travel Document Project is to fill the information gap around the type of practical steps needed both to attempt to establish identity or obtain travel documents, and to demonstrate ‘sustained effort’ to obtain evidence of identity or nationality for the purpose of  obtaining travel documents.  BID has therefore attempted to discern this from other contexts.

This new briefing offers a series of practical steps that can be taken - both the 'how' and 'how much' of re-documentation, as well as information on criminal sanctions for non-cooperation (Section 35 prosecutions) and 'reasonable excuse'.

DOWNLOAD this briefing from the very bottom of the right hand column on this page.