UK Home Office agrees to review child refugees asylum claims in France

The Home Office has agreed to review asylum applications from child refugees in France after it emerged that several had returned to the site of the former Calais camp in a renewed effort to make the crossing to the UK.

Up to 400 unaccompanied minors had made their way back in recent weeks. After calls from UK Prime Minister Theresa May to assess the number of children returning to the site of the camp, the Home Office said it had agreed with French authorities to “review any new information from children formerly resident in Calais”.

Last year, it was widely thought the UK government would take 3,000 lone children from European refugee camps after Lord Alfred Dubs forced the government to accept an amendment on the matter when the Immigration Act passed through Parliament.

This month Robert Goodwill, the immigration minister, told MPs in a written statement that just one further group of 150 child refugees would be brought to Britain. The Home Office confirmed that they would be the last to be transferred under the scheme and that the scheme would end, bringing total numbers to 350. 

A separate, accelerated scheme to bring unaccompanied refugee children with direct family links to Britain under the Dublin convention was also closed.

Now the Home Office has confirmed it has agreed with French authorities to reconsider some of these Dublin cases. 

A Home Office spokeswoman said: “The Calais operation has now concluded. All children present in the centres throughout France when Home Office teams visited were assessed against the family reunification criteria in the Dublin regulation and the published guidance for section 67 of the Immigration Act. Children in France may be eligible to be transferred to the UK where they have a family link as set out in the Dublin regulation.

“We have agreed with the French authorities that we will review any new information from children formerly resident in the Calais camp to assess whether it would change our determination of their eligibility under the Dublin regulation, to encourage an application.”

France moved more than 6,000 migrants, many fleeing poverty and war in their homelands, from the Calais Jungle last October to reception centres around the country.