An average of 242 children, including babies born in Canada, are held in immigration detention in Canada each year, according to a new report by the University of Toronto.

“Conditions of detention are woefully unsuited for children. Immigration holding centres resemble medium-security prisons, with significant restrictions on privacy and liberty, inadequate access to education, insufficient recreational opportunities and poor nutrition,” said the report, “No Life for a Child,” to be released on Parliament Hill Thursday.

“Children live with their mothers in detention, and may only visit their fathers for a short period each day. Both detention and family separation have profoundly harmful mental health consequences, and neither option is in a child’s best interests.”

Based on interviews with detained mothers and children, as well as mental health professionals, social workers, lawyers and child rights activists, researchers with U of T’s international human rights program examined the legal underpinnings and practice of child immigration detention in Canada.

“The immigration detention of children does nothing to increase public safety, but has an immensely detrimental and lasting impact on an already vulnerable population,” said Samer Muscati, director of U of T’s international human rights program.

“Instead of locking children up or separating them from their detained parents, these children need meaningful protection in community-based alternatives to detention.”

Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale has been under fire this year after three immigration detainees died in custody of the Canada Border Services Agency. Concerns over the detention of children, especially unaccompanied minors, have also come under the spotlight.

In August, Ottawa announced $138 million in funding to “enhance alternatives to detention” and invest in rebuilding immigration holding facilities.

Through access to information requests, researchers identified the numbers of underage detainees, but said these were likely underestimated because they did not account for all children living with their parents in detention as “guests,” many of them children with Canadian citizenship, who were not subject to formal detention orders.

The report shows living in immigration detention causes serious psychological harm to children. Those who have lived in detention experience increased symptoms of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, and suicidal ideation, as well as developmental delays and behavioural issues.

“These mental health consequences often persist long after the children have been released, affecting their adjustment to life post-detention,” the 77-page study said.

“Living in detention is never in the best interests of children, and detention should therefore be avoided. This principle is firmly established in international law. Canada is not living up to these standards.”

While countries, including Canada, often justify the detention of children by referring to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to not separate them from their parents, others argue that the same international agreement also says children shall not be punished for the acts of their parents and family.

In one case, a boy by the name of Michel, who was born while his mother was in detention, had lived his entire life in an immigration holding centre — a period of 28 months — until they were deported in late 2015.

“This is what he thinks is a normal life. He knows the rules, the routines, the time for room search, he knows to keep the doors open,” his mother, Nadine, told researchers. During daily searches, “he just goes straight to the wall and puts his hand up. He thinks that’s just how it goes.”

The report recommends that children and families with children should be released from detention outright and offered access to community-based alternatives such as reporting obligations, financial deposits, guarantors and electronic monitoring.

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“A decision to detain migrant families with children should therefore only be taken in extremely exceptional circumstances; all families with children should be offered alternatives to detention,” François Crépeau, UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants, wrote in the report’s foreword.

“A well-researched and considered report such as this one, which permits access to the voices of children and highlights the threats that administrative detention poses to their health and well-being, is essential. Policy and decision-makers should heed the call.”