New Report Highlights UK Immigration Deporting Parents without Their Children

The report, Fractured Childhoods: the separation of families by immigration detention, looks at data from BID clients between 2009 and 2012. Of 111 detained migrant parents in the UK, 15 parents were deported or removed from the UK without their children. In 85 of the cases, children were placed in fostering arrangements or local authority care, which has cast concern over the process of separating children from parents and the long-term repercussions of this action.

In 1 of the 15 cases of parents deported from the UK without their children, the parent was not given any notice of his removal and was therefore unable to take legal action to prevent it. This is in direct violation of the UK Border Agency’s Enforcement Instructions and Guidance which requires a minimum of 72 hours to be allowed between notice of removal and the removal itself.

13 of the 15 cases where parents were removed by UK Immigration involved fathers, and two involved mothers. One of the mothers was also pregnant when she was deported without her husband and 2 children (both under the age of 18). While the majority of these cases involved the children being in the care of the other parent, 2 of the parents were single fathers and their children were left in foster care. These 15 cases impacted the lives of 22 children.

The children’s lives were disrupted further, as in 7 cases they did not have any leave to remain in the UK themselves, despite a number of them having been born in the UK or having lived in the UK for the majority of their lives.

Dr Maggie Atkinson, Children’s Commissioner for England, stared that “ I do not have a sense, reading the accounts of the children and family members in this report, that the government has yet fully developed a process where the interests of the child have always properly or fully been considered…”.

The report makes a number of specific recommendations, including a time limit to be placed on UK immigration detention to prevent prolonged separation, and for the best interests of the children to be a primary consideration.

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