Home Office faces legal challenge over risk of lone children being sent to Rwanda
The Home Office is being threatened with legal action over concerns that children face being sent to Rwanda because officials wrongly identify them as adults, the Observer can reveal.
With ministers desperate to see flights take off as soon as possible amid a record 181 detected Channel crossings so far this year, the department has been anticipating a flurry of legal complaints to be triggered as a result of the pledge to deport some asylum seekers to the east African country.
It has now emerged that it is being challenged over the treatment of those who say they are children but are labelled as adults by immigration officials after an initial assessment of their physical appearance and demeanour. Under the rules of the plan, ministers had promised that no children will be deported to Rwanda once the flights begin this summer.
The Home Office is being accused of taking an unlawful approach because it is proposing to deport people based only on an “initial cursory age decision” by an official. An organisation with years of experience on the issue has now issued a pre-action letter – a precursor to legal action – stating that relying on such a thin assessment is “wholly incompatible” with the government’s declared intention of not including children in its Rwanda deportation plan.
The department has been given two weeks to respond to the legal threat before further action is taken by the charity. It comes with some organisations warning that they have witnessed deeply troubling mental health issues among children they believe could be in this position.
“For years now this government has forced thousands of unaccompanied children into harm’s way, placing them