Shabana Mahmood’s proposals to detain and handcuff children during family deportations have been condemned as “abhorrent” by nearly 150 children’s charities and organisations, who warn they will cause “lasting damage”.
In a joint letter to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer on Monday, fostering groups, social care workers, and refugee charities accused the government of launching a “sustained attack on children’s rights”. The Home Secretary has announced a series of immigration reforms affecting children, including delaying settlement routes for families already in the UK and removing support from families whose asylum claims have been refused.
Ms Mahmood is currently consulting on a plan to increase deportations of failed asylum-seeking families and to allow physical force to be used against children. The government’s consultation document explicitly states that a child can be physically handled if they resist deportation. Immigration officers would be permitted to carry children and, if necessary, handcuff them. The document cites a parent refusing to release a child’s hand as an example of non-compliance with deportation.
In their letter to Sir Keir, the charities warned that these proposals would cause “distress, trauma and lasting emotional damage to children”. They added: “To describe such harm to children as ‘unfortunate but necessary and justified’ is abhorrent.” The letter continued: “We urge you to change course, and create policy that reflects simple facts we all know to be true. Children who grow up here belong here. Children need stability and certainty to thrive.”
Analysis by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) estimates that the Home Office’s changes to settlement rules—making it harder for foreign nationals to stay permanently—could prolong poverty for up to 90,000 children by 2029. Ms Mahmood is extending the current five-year pathway to settlement to ten years or more, meaning hundreds of thousands of children will have to wait at least a decade before knowing if they can remain in Britain.
Foreign nationals who have relied on public funds or entered the UK irregularly, such as via small boats, will face further penalties, having to wait 20 or 30 years before applying for permanent settlement. In March, Ms Mahmood announced that failed asylum-seeker families with children would be offered up to £40,000 to leave the country quickly or face deportation. A pilot scheme targeting 150 families living in migrant hotels offers £10,000 per member (capped at four per family) to leave voluntarily. Families have seven days to respond; if they decline, the Home Office will attempt to forcibly remove them.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “Between 2021 and 2024 this country experienced levels of migration it had historically seen over four decades. We must be honest about the scale and impact of hundreds of thousands of lower-qualified migrants getting settlement. We are reforming a broken immigration system and make no apologies for taking the necessary action to restore order, while in tandem delivering on the government’s commitment to reduce child poverty and educational inequality.”
