Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has defended the government’s plans for the removal of children under her new asylum rules, saying the process will be carried out as humanely as possible.
Speaking to Trevor Phillips on Sky News on Thursday, Ms Mahmood emphasised the importance of enforcing immigration law.
She said: “This is about immigration enforcement and it’s about being in a process where you are able to enforce your rules. If you don’t do that, the flip side is you just end up picking up the tab for hundreds of families, hundreds of thousands of pounds per family every single year. And it is the taxpayer in the end that’s paying the price of that.”
The cabinet minister acknowledged that reducing illegal immigration presents no easy solution, adding: “If you’re going to have rules, then you better enforce them. Otherwise, you might as well say to everybody, there’s no rules enforced at all. It’s an open border situation. And I don’t think that has public support either.”
Ms Mahmood said the government is consulting on exactly how the removal of families with children will be implemented.
She reassured the public that any action involving minors will follow existing legal arrangements, whether in schools, through the police, or other parts of the public service, ensuring that the process is handled “humanely.”
Ms Mahmood said a similar model in Denmark had been a “great success” and that this would reduce the cost to the taxpayer of housing asylum seekers in hotels.
In her speech she also said: “For too long, families who have failed their claims have known that we are not enforcing our rules, which created a perverse incentive to make a channel crossing with children in a small boats.”
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