Remove decisions on lone child asylum seekers from Home Office, report says | Immigration and asylum

Decisions relating to lone child asylum seekers should be removed from Home Office officials because of fundamental problems with the way they treat this vulnerable group, a report has found.

The report calls for root-and-branch reform of the treatment of thousands of children who have fled persecution in their home countries and made hazardous journeys in search of safety, often crossing the Channel in a dinghy or concealing themselves in the back of a lorry.

Once they arrive in the UK many are wrongly classified as adults by the Home Office and sent to adult accommodation where they may be exploited or locked up in adult immigration detention centres.

Research by the Helen Bamber Foundation in the first half of 2024 in England and Scotland found 53% of young people initially told by the…