Refugee campaigner Lord Dubs has tabled a Brexit bill amendment to force the government to continue to give refugee children sanctuary post-Brexit. Dubs has tabled an amendment to the European Union (withdrawal) bill that will include a specific provision for unaccompanied refugee minors stranded on the continent who have family in the UK already. He said he found the Windrush scandal “shameful” and the amendment was important to ensure the “cold indifference” of the government was not the determining factor when it came to children seeking refuge for war and conflict zones. “If the government is serious about righting its wrongs – and not just looking for an easy sticking plaster – it should accept my amendment so that families who have fled war can be together. No one, least of all young people and children, should be living in dangerous, dirty camps or on the streets when their family in Britain is waiting to house them,” he said. The UK is obliged to reunite children with family members under the Dublin III EU regulation. This falls away next March when the UK is scheduled to leave the EU. “If the EU withdrawal bill is not amended, Britain will close off the main legal route through which young people stuck in camps in Europe can be reunited with their families in Britain,” said Dubs, who fled the Nazis on Kindertransport as a six-year-old. The Labour MP, David Lammy, who has led the political fight over Windrush, says he will fight for the amendment if it is passed in a vote in the House of Lords on Monday. “This amendment is the first test of the home secretary’s promise to take a more humane approach and change the culture of the Home Office,” he said. Dubs led the fight to secure sanctuary in the UK for lone refugee children with no family links in the UK, by forcing a change to the Immigration Act 2016. This became known as the Dubs amendment. Safe Passage, one of the key British charities involved in child refugee family reunion work, said if Dubs’ latest amendment gets through it will help children like Boy D, stranded in Calais. He is a 13-year-old Eritrean in Calais waiting for a transfer to London where his older brother, Tekle, already has refugee status. The charity says he fled his home a year ago and ended up in the French port trying to reach London to be with his brother but has been stuck there for months because of Home Office delays. The Home Office came under attack in November 2016 when it refused to give children caught up in the Calais camp demolition sanctuary in the UK.
Lord Dubs, a campaigner for refugee rights, has tabled an amendment to the Brexit bill urging the government to continue reuniting unaccompanied refugee minors stranded on the continent with family members in the Britain. UK is currently obliged to offer this sanctuary under the Dublin III EU regulation. But this obligation will end after it exits the EU in March.