Ministry of Interior Affairs United kingdom Effectively running “unregistered children’s homes,” a watchdog organization has warned of thousands of lonely migrant children living in hotels after arriving in the country. David Neal, chief inspector of borders and immigration, has given the British government until the end of the year to come up with a plan to stop using hotels located in Kent, Brighton and Hove, East Sussex and Warwickshire, to house migrants.
“The position taken by the Ministry of Interior, managing homes for unregistered children, is one (position) that officials and stakeholders have found uncomfortable. This is clearly not a place the Home Office wants or should operate in.”
The government said 3,256 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children – known as UASCs – had arrived in hotels since early October last year. Provisional data indicates that nearly 900 of them are under 16 years old. “The total number is likely to be higher, as the information provided does not include those who have already been placed in hotels before that time,” said Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council.
The Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration said in a report that neither the Ministry of Interior nor the councils where the hotels are located “bear the legal responsibility for these young people”. Furthermore, the document states that the government has been informed that it has been breaking the law for more than a year.
Despite this, the Home Office said there was a risk that the plan to end the use of hotels to house lone immigrant children “would not achieve the result at the time of increased admissions in the spring”. The children told the inspectors that they were happy and felt safe in the hotels, but that most of them were “very excited to go ahead and start their education”.
The report added: “Hotel staff told inspectors that young men were persistently asking when they would be removed from the hotel and that this was an ongoing concern.” The Refugee Board expressed concern about the results and called for an immediate halt to the use of hotels to house children.
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The foundation’s chief executive said the government has “clearly failed” in its duty to protect children and does not have a proper long-term plan to improve its operations and the way it deals with unaccompanied children. “The government must do everything in its power to ensure that all children are promptly taken into the care of local authorities.”
The Ministry of Interior said, “We accept the recommendation and will continue to work closely with the Ministry of Education and local authorities to build capacity to avoid the continued need for emergency supplies as soon as possible.” In addition, the agency said it is “committed to ensuring the safety of all young people inside the hotels” and that all adults who work directly with migrant children are subject to scrutiny, it said.
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