Lord Roberts: Forcing teenagers back to war zones just another example of Tory inhumanity
3 min read
Lord Roberts of Llandudno writes following his Lords question seeking further details on the deportation of failed unaccompanied asylum seekers reaching 18 years old.
Just when I thought the Government was showing some humanity, protecting refugee children across Europe, as I and other Liberal Democrats have long called for, they have abandoned a whole new group of desperately vulnerable people.
I have met with young Asylum Seekers who were on the verge of their 18th birthday, they were terrified, terrified of being returned to war zones, terrified of being left alone with no family connections or accommodation. These are young people being sent to war torn countries, being forced to return to danger zones like Damascus, Kabul, and Benghazi. It is a coming of age which no one would ask for.
When I pushed the Government on this "In the absence of adequate reception arrangements in the country of origin, our policy is not to return unaccompanied children who are refused asylum. Instead we grant leave until they reach adulthood." Essentially they are booted out as soon as they turn 18. They will have been in the UK for some years, part of our communities (In fact 2,018 such youngsters were returned to Afghanistan alone in the past nine years). Distressingly, I have heard stories of lads building a noose over their beds in case of being faced with forcible deportation.
It is essential that we know the extent of these deportations. I was told on Monday that the numbers for year 2014 the number of people ‘removed’ was 402 and for 2015 it was 333. These new figures are contrary to those I was given by the Home Office, the figures given in October last year differ from those given this March. In October they said 132 were deported in 2010 but by March the figure was 778! Similarly the 151 jumped to 445. Why the error and why the correction only after a further question from me?
To try to clarify this situation, and in the hope that the Government weren’t playing fast and loose with figures to hide their own failing, I tabled a Written Question asking for the number of deportations in each of the last 10 years. The protocol is that Written Questions are answered within 10 days. I tabled the question on 13th April, today is May 10th and I have only been met with silence. If we take an average of 600 each year that means that 6,000 youngsters have been deported, half of them forcibly, in the past decade. This is a frightening statistic, and something we should be less than proud of, the Tories have again failed to show humanity.
Lord Roberts of Llandudno is a Lib Dem peer
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