Concerns raised over potential Home Office asylum pilot scheme

The Home Office is developing a pilot scheme to return
unaccompanied minors whose asylum claims have failed to Albania,
according to a leading figure working with asylum seeker children,
writes Amy Taylor.

Nancy Kelly, chair of the Refugee Children’s Consortium, –
a group of charities including Barnardo’s and NCH – said that
the government were also looking at running a pilot to trace family
members of unaccompanied minors whose asylum claims have failed
from Bangladesh.

Kelly said that the consortium were not against unaccompanied
minors being returned in principle, but that it would not support
such a policy under the current system.

“We are opposed to it in practice as the system currently
stands because the system for assessing [asylum] claims is
particularly poor in regards to unaccompanied children,” she
said.

Currently, the government grants leave to remain to
unaccompanied minors whose asylum claims have failed until they are
18, and then deports them.

The Home Office would only confirm that they were looking at the
possibility of returning unaccompanied minors whose asylum claims
have failed.