Children may be forcibly removed from the UK in handcuffs to “overcome noncompliance” as part of proposals Home Office is considering to send more asylum seeker families back to their home countries.
Since coming into office, the government has pledged to deport more migrants and has increased both voluntary and enforced returns, although some of those who have left the UK voluntarily did so without informing the Home Office.
While some migrant families are removed each year, on Thursday the Home Office announced a new pilot scheme to target 150 families in the asylum system – primarily those whose claims have been refused – for expedited voluntary removals with enhanced cash payments of £10,000 a person up to £40,000 per family.
Families will have just seven days to decide whether or not to accept the offer. If they decline, enforced removal proceedings will begin. According to a new consultation document, proposals could include handcuffing children who resist being put on a plane and sent back to their home country.
One mother who received a pro forma email from the Home Office on Thursday morning sobbed after reading it. It states her asylum application was unsuccessful and has now been “concluded”. It adds that even families who have outstanding applications with the Home Office will be encouraged to leave.
She said: “My home country will not be safe for me. My family’s safety is more important than money.”
The email states: “Act now to request support and avoid potential forced removal from the UK.”
Families are invited to tap a button in the email to agree to leave the UK quickly. Officials say the money can be used to help families find a place to live, support their children’s education or provide funds to start a business.
The consultation document the Home Office has launched, Family Returns: Reforming Asylum Support and Enforcing Family Returns, states that, unlike previous guidance, the use of force including handcuffing children could be used for the purposes of effecting removal, not just to protect children from the risk of harming themselves or others.
The document continues: “This means that the physical handling of a child as a last resort to overcome noncompliance is an unfortunate but necessary and justified intervention.”
Griff Ferris, a spokesperson for Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, said: “The levels of violence and dehumanisation that this government will go to to persecute migrants is frightening. We can never let this be normalised. Stand up for people in your local communities, join your local anti-raids group and boycott the corporations profiting from border regimes, deportations and detention.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “A forced return will always be a last resort. But we must enforce our rules, and will return those with no right to be in this country, as long as their home country is safe to return to.
“We are now consulting on how to do so in a humane and effective way. Similar legal arrangements around children already exist across the public sector.”
