The government is violating one of the “most fundamental duties of any civilised state” with its unlawful treatment of child asylum seekers, the High Court has ruled.
The Home Office has been routinely housing lone children in hotels since December 2021, despite admitting internally that the practice was illegal, after failing to provide proper care for rising numbers arriving on small boats.
A High Court judgment said that by the time of a hearing earlier this month, hundreds had disappeared from hotels and 154 children – including a 12-year-old – remained missing.
“Neither Kent County Council nor the home secretary knows where these children are, or whether they are safe or well,” Mr Justice Chamberlain said.
“All these children have travelled long distances. Some have been abused or mistreated in their country of origin or on their journey here.
“Some are victims of human trafficking, many speak little or no English and are ill-equipped to navigate life as an asylum seeker in the UK. They are especially vulnerable.”
A watchdog report released in October said that hotels housing children had been targeted and filmed by far-right activists, including one who was able to enter a premises without being stopped.
Inspectors found that the young asylum seekers were being dressed in “identical outfits” from Primark and Sports Direct, making them easily spotted by criminal gangs and sex predators.
Mr Justice Chamberlain said there was evidence that some of the missing children “have been persuaded to join gangs seeking to exploit them for criminal purposes”.
“These children have been lost and endangered here, in the United Kingdom,” his damning judgment continued.
“They are not children in care who have run away. They are children who, because of how they came to be here, never entered the care system in the first place and so were never ‘looked after’.”
The judge said ensuring the welfare of children was “among the most fundamental duties of any civilised state”, and that young asylum seekers were being “treated less favourably than other children, because of their status”.
Because all intercepted small boats are brought to shore by authorities in Kent, the local council has struggled with the demand and has announced at several points that it cannot take new child asylum seekers.
The move sparked an increase in the Home Office’s use of hotels, which had started in July 2021 but became “systematic and routine” from December that year.
More than 5,400 child asylum seekers have now been housed in hotels, including a third under 16, for as long as two months.
Documents previously published by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration showed the Home Office internally admitting the practice amounted to illegal “unregulated children’s homes”.
An entry on an “risk register” from August 2021 said: “We are running children’s homes and committing a criminal offence but relying on the defence of necessity. The mitigation is to stop doing this … advice is going to ministers.”
Another said: “[If] Home Office continues to run UASC [unaccompanied child asylum seeker hotels without any statutory responsibility .. we will be breaking the law and continuing to run unregulated children’s homes and continuing to expose HO to illegal activity, burnout and trauma.”
The borders inspectorate sent its damning report to then-home secretary Priti Patel in June 2022 but its publication was delayed for months, and a formal recommendation for a “viable and sustainable exit strategy” from hotels was only partially accepted.
