UK-born children of failed asylum seekers to be deported with parents under new plans
A Home Office minister confirmed that failed asylum seekers' children will also be removed from the UK
Children of failed asylum seekers will be removed even if they were born in Britain, a Home Office minister has confirmed.
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Alex Norris, the asylum minister, said anyone without the right to stay in the UK would be deported.
He pledged to "ramp up" removals of families deemed not to be legitimate refugees by officials.
Speaking to the Telegraph, Alex Norris said the Government wants deportations "to be be as voluntary as possible".
He added: "We want those to be as seamless as possible, particularly with children.
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“So we are going to ramp up our appetite there. We’re working with those families and other families in the system. If they don’t have a right to be here, then they’ll be removed.”
When pressed on whether this include UK-born children, he said: “Yes, ultimately, it will be everybody’s cases on the merits under immigration law, but there are those circumstances and in those cases, people will be removed.”
The minister lauded the Government's record on migration, saying that the 50,000 migrants removed since July 2024 was the highest number in a decade.
Norris also said that enforced deportations are up 24 per cent since Labour took office.
The comment came as an eighth immigration removals centre was opened by the Home Office this week, near Oxford, to help ramp up deportation flights.
Campsfield House adds 160 beds to the 2,400 currently available across UK detention sites and is due to expand further, by another 240 spaces, in future.
The site will detain small boat arrivals alongside foreign national criminals due for deportation and immigration offenders found to be working in the UK illegally.