Children born in UK to refugees will be deported under Home Secretary's sweeping immigration reforms
Shabana Mahmood’s reforms, announced on Monday, grant refugees temporary status, which is reviewed every 30 months
Children born in the UK to refugee parents could be deported as part of Shabana Mahmood’s new immigration reforms, the Home Office says.
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These children, even if they were born in the UK, will be deported if their parents have their refugee status revoked.
It comes after Ms Mahmood announced a slew of radical changes to Britain’s immigration system - in what she calls an attempt to “regain control” of the country’s borders.
Deporting children will prevent refugee parents from having “perverse incentives” to start families in the UK, a source told the Times.
Lord Dubs, a Labour peer who came to the UK after fleeing the Nazi regime, told the publication he was “depressed” by the proposed changes and accused the home secretary of using “children as a weapon.”
The Home Office says it will lay out its changes to the status of children born to refugee parents in “due course.”
Ms Mahmood’s reforms, announced on Monday, grant refugees temporary status, which is reviewed every 30 months.
They will see refugees have their right to live in the UK revoked the moment their country of origin is deemed “safe.”
Critics have pointed to countries like Yemen, which the UK has previously declared safe despite ongoing conflicts.
These changes won’t apply to children who have gained British citizenship, the Home Office says.
However, due to a lack of birthright citizenship in the UK, children of refugees are unlikely to be considered British at birth.
Instead, children are only granted citizenship if they have at least one British parent or a parent with settled status.
Ms Mahmood has made it clear to Labour colleagues that the party’s survival depends on tackling illegal migration.
Speaking to LBC, she said she has no intention of backing down over the proposals, which will see cash incentives offered to all families whose claims have been rejected to return to their home country.
If they refuse to leave, the Home Office will “escalate” their cases to forcibly remove them from the UK.
However the divisive plans have caused more than two dozen MPs to publicly criticise them, with one senior figure - chair of the women and equalities committee Sarah Owen, calling them “repugnant.”
Asked whether she might consider ‘backing down’ on some of the proposals, Ms Mahmood told LBC: “I don't believe that will be the case because I think what we saw in the House today was broad support from my colleagues across the parliamentary Labour Party for these reforms.
“For the necessity of these reforms, for the substance of these reforms and for the absence of critical need to deliver for the British people.
“That is what my colleagues, the vast majority of my colleagues were talking about today. As I said, not everybody will always agree, but there is broad support for these reforms in the Labour Party, and that is why I believe that they will be realised. “