E/CN.4/2006/7/Add.2 page 19 76. Flight risk is presented as a justification for detention under another ground, too, that the person is unlikely to appear for the next hearing or for removal. The Working Group observed that, in practice, the Immigration Division occasionally maintains asylum-seekers in detention on the ground that in claiming asylum they stated that they fear persecution if deported back to their home country. As a consequence, they have strong motives to fear removal and are, allegedly, not likely to appear. The Working Group is concerned that this line of reasoning leads, in practice, to persons being detained on the basis of having claimed refugee status. 2. Practical aspects of detention under immigration law giving rise to concerns 77. In addition to the concerns arising from the IRPA provisions governing detention and their application, the Working Group is concerned by a number of practical aspects of the detention of aliens under IRPA which considerably impair their capability to effectively seek release from detention. 78. Each person detained under the immigration law is informed of the right to retain legal counsel and afforded an opportunity to contact legal aid lawyers. There is, however, no requirement that immigration detainees be assisted by a lawyer. As in the criminal law sphere, legal aid is regulated at the provincial level, and the level at which legal aid programmes cover immigration detention varies greatly from province to province (to a much greater extent than in respect of criminal legal aid). The fact that immigration detainees are mostly held in detention facilities at a fair distance from major urban centres also constitutes a practical barrier to their access to free legal representation. The distance from urban centres also renders the access of NGOs assisting asylum-seekers to persons detained in immigration holding facilities more difficult. When asylum-seekers are held in provincial prisons among the criminal population, NGO access to them is even more difficult. 79. The Working Group also noted that many of the immigration detainees do not really understand the legal process to which they are being subjected and why exactly they are being detained. The legal system and the culture underlying it are entirely unfamiliar to migrants and asylum-seekers coming from many countries, who are not accustomed to the heavy reliance on paperwork and its crucial role to obtain release from detention. In some provinces (notably British Columbia), otherwise unrepresented immigration detainees are provided with duty counsel for their first detention review hearings. But that is not the requirement under the law and not the case in the two provinces with by far the most cases, Ontario and Québec. While interpretation is provided at the detention review hearings, the detainees do not have access to an interpreter ahead of the hearing and are thus unable to adequately prepare themselves. 80. In Québec, Ontario and British Columbia, the three provinces that share more than 95 per cent of the immigration detainee population, the CBSA runs immigration detention facilities. In all other provinces, immigration detainees are placed in custody in ordinary provincial jails. Where the CBSA deems that a foreigner poses a security risk or is at risk of flight, however, it will rely on provincial correctional facilities also in Québec, Ontario and British Columbia. In the provincial detention facilities that the Working Group visited, immigration detainees are held together (co-mingled) with persons held under criminal law, mostly remand detainees, but also convicts. In Québec, immigration detainees are assessed at admission into a provincial detention centre as to the security level they require (as are remand prisoners), and will therefore be assigned to maximum or medium security quarters. In Ontario