Home Office looks to remove minors

The Home Office is considering forcibly removing unaccompanied
minors whose asylum claims have failed, Community Care has
learned.

A Home Office spokesperson said that no decisions have been taken,
but The Refugee Children’s Consortium, a group of charities
including NCH and The Children’s Society, said the government had
been considering the plan for over a year and planned to return
unaccompanied minors to their country of origin this year.

Alison Harvey, principal policy and practice manager at the
Children’s Society, said that the consortium was not against
unaccompanied minors being removed in principle but that it must be
based on the best interests of the child.

She added that decisions on whether to return children must be
taken by somebody independent of the government or the supporting
local authority.

“No one is saying never send an under 18-year-old back. But we are
saying you must do it properly and we are not in a position to do
that at the moment,” she said.