Home Department written question – answered at on 28 April 2014.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many unaccompanied migrant children have been forcibly removed to another country in each of the last five years.
No unaccompanied child under the age of 18 can be forcibly removed from the UK unless adequate care and reception arrangements are in place in their country of origin. The difficulty of setting up suitable reception arrangements has meant that, with the exception of transfers to other European Union countries under the Dublin Regulations1, the Home Office does not routinely enforce the return of unaccompanied children to any country. The majority of unaccompanied children whose asylum claims are rejected are granted temporary leave which is reviewed when they reach 17 and a half years of age. We believe that the vast majority of enforced returns of unaccompanied children undertaken between 2006 and 2010 were transfers under the Dublin Regulations.
1 The Dublin Regulation EC No. 343/2003 is a binding measure of European Community law to determine which State should be responsible for examining an application for asylum made within the EU territory.
Table 1: Unaccompanied asylum seeking children removals 2009 to 2013 | |
Date of removal | Total |
2009 | 31 |
2010 | 12 |
2011 | 2 |
2012 | 6 |
2013 | 2 |
Grand total | 53 |
‘Migrant children’ have been interpreted as unaccompanied asylum seeking children (UASC) in answering this question.
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