‘Sick kids could be deported even if treatment not available at home’ warning

The Home Office is consulting on plans which would see ongoing medical treatment and unavailability of care in a failed asylum seeker’s homeland not viewed as a ‘genuine obstacle’ to removal

Draconian plans could pave the way for sick children to be deported even if they cannot be treated in their homeland, horrified campaigners warn.

Under new proposals, ongoing medical treatment or unavailablity of care in a failed asylum seeker’s homeland would not be viewed as a “genuine obstacle” to deportation. It would mean families – including children – would lose accommodation and support as they wait to be removed.

Proposals being consulted on by the Home Office state that the “undesirability or inadvisability” of leaving the UK for medical reasons would not be seen as a block. It comes after Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said families could be offered up to £10,000 each – capped to four people – to voluntarily leave if their asylum claim is rejected.

READ MORE: Kids could be handcuffed during deportations as ‘terrifying’ plans spark furyREAD MORE: Shabana Mahmood defends forcibly deporting kids and offering migrants £10,000 to leave

Failure to do so would mean they face forced removal – potentially in handcuffs if they do not co-operate. Louise Calvey, executive director of Asylum Matters, told The Mirror: “The more details of these awful plans emerge, the more horrified most people will be by what this Government is trying to do to refugee families.

“If the Home Office is genuinely asking whether medical advice and treatment is a ‘genuine obstacle’ to leaving the country, we’d ask them to imagine being a parent whose child’s doctor tells you it’s not safe for them to travel abroad.

“Imagine having a child with cancer who’ll lose the only treatment that could save their life if you’re sent home. What would you do? These plans could pave the way for families like this to be stripped of all support.

“To face the choice between destitution and medical care in the UK, and serious illness or death abroad. These are fundamentally abhorrent proposals that the British public will reject.”

The department insists decisions will be made on a case-by-base basis, and has said its actions will be humane. A new consultation document on how families will be returned says housing and financial support would only be available to failed asylum seekers if they would otherwise be destitute or have accepted reasons for not leaving the UK.

These obstacles would not include ongoing medical treatment or lack of availability of similar care in their home country, it says. In a speech on Thursday Ms Mahmood said the Government’s plans would be fair and humane.

She said the current asylum and migration system needs an overhaul because it is not working and is open to abuse. Ms Mahmood unveiled a pilot scheme which will see families offered up to £10,000 a person to leave if they have no right to be in the UK.

The Home Office estimates it costs £158,000 to accommodate a family of three for a year in a hotel, and said its plans would save up to £20million annually. It is also consulting on how much force officers can use during removals, including putting children in handcuffs as a last resort.

A Home Office spokesperson told The Mirror: “As part of our sweeping reforms to restore order to our immigration system, we are ending the incentives that keep families in hotels and on support indefinitely.

“When families have no right to be in the UK, and their home country is safe for them to return to, we will enforce the rules and return them. We are consulting on how best to do this in a humane and effective way, including the safeguards required where there are medical considerations.”

On Thursday, Ms Mahmood said: “We are now consulting on precisely how the removal of families with children must take place, in a way that is humane and effective. For too long, families who have failed their claims have known that we were not enforcing our rules, which created a perverse incentive to make a channel crossing with children in a small boat.

“It is now on the parents in these families, who can safely return to the home they came from, to do the right thing, by accepting an incentive payment, rather than face an enforced return.”

The move was put forward among a raft of immigration and asylum reforms which sparked an outcry. Measures include making refugee status temporary and doubling the wait to qualify for indefinite leave to remain (ILR).

Labour MP Imran Hussain told The Mirror: “Cruelty towards immigrants and refugees is not Labour values. A growing hostile environment, fuelled by national figures on the right, risks dragging us away from the very principles that should define our party.”

And backbencher Nadia Whittome added: “These are cruel policies that will harm refugees and migrants. Instead of positively reforming the Tories’ failed, draconian asylum and immigration system, we are doubling-down along the same path in a futile attempt to attract Reform voters.

“While some of these proposals can be implemented via secondary legislation, it is likely that MPs will get to vote on others. The Home Secretary has set herself on a collision course with many MPs in our party who firmly disagree with the government’s direction of travel on these issues.”