More children will cross the Channel if government scraps family reunion

Lord Dubs joins charity warning more children will cross Channel if government scraps family reunion .

A charity which helps people transfer legally from Europe to the UK to claim asylum has warned that that more children and separated families may soon have no choice but to risk their lives crossing the Channel. The government is set to stop family reunion under the Dublin Regulation – currently the only safe transfer route for refugees on the continent – after the Brexit transition period. According to Safe Passage International, who help unaccompanied child refugees access Dublin family reunion, the closure of this route will force more children into lorries and dinghies. 

Jennine Walker, Head of UK Legal at Safe Passage International said “The government says it wants to reduce the numbers of people crossing the Channel but if children and separated families cannot access family reunion, they are going to have no choice but risk their lives.” 

“It is disgraceful that the government is closing a legal route that has protected people from smugglers and traffickers, by giving them a safe way to reach their relatives and start rebuilding their lives. Unless the government agrees a family reunion replacement that is at least as good as Dublin, smugglers and trafficking gangs will have a field day when the transition period ends.” 

Safe Passage is deeply concerned that with less than five months to apply under the current family reunion rules, many people may run out of time, or will lose faith in the system and try to cross the Channel themselves. It has received a surge in enquiries in recent months, from unaccompanied children and their families trying to access Dublin family reunion before the transition period ends.  

Jennine Walker added “It is dangerous and illogical to expect a child to sleep rough in Calais when they have a parent, sibling, aunt or uncle here in the UK. We already struggle to convince children to wait in France and trust the family reunion system, when people smugglers promise a Channel crossing that takes a matter of hours, and we know of several children who have died attempting to reach their families here. 

In May, the government published a draft Brexit proposal to replace family reunion but lawyers have described the text as a ‘blank cheque to people smugglers’ that strips people of their family reunion rights and makes the system entirely discretionary. With time running out for a UK-EU agreement, in June a cross-party group of MPs tried to table an amendment to protect current family reunion rules in the Immigration Bill, but the government voted it down. 

Campaigners are hoping that the government will be defeated when the Bill returns to the Lords this September, with Lord Alf Dubs leading efforts to rally peers in support of family reunion. 

Lord Dubs said “We must not forget that children trying to reach the UK have fled war and persecution and tragically many continue to experience unimaginable dangers one they reach Europe. The government’s draft Brexit text is completely inadequate and there are no guarantees the EU will even agree a family reunion deal. To avoid a disaster scenario that would see more children getting in dinghies to reach their relatives, I have tabled an amendment that will protect family reunion in UK legislation. I urge Peers of all parties to stand up for child refugees and support this amendment. 

The amendment would also reinstate a requirement on the government to give a legal route to the UK for child refugees who don’t have family here. Only 480 children have been able to access a safe route through the Dubs scheme, just a fraction of the thousands who have arrived in Europe and continue to languish in camps in Calais and Greece. 

Lord Dubs added “The government expects us to congratulate it on the numbers of lone child refugees it has welcomed, when the reality is most of these have arrived in the back of lorries and are now increasingly resorting to dinghies. If we want to stop this happening, we need to give more children safe and legal routes.”