Powers allowing the government to lock up unaccompanied children arriving in the UK were brought in with the Illegal Migration Act 2023, though had not yet been commenced.
Coram Children’s Legal Centre (CCLC) worked with partners leading efforts to limit powers and following the publication of the recent bill on 30 January, the organisation said: “We are now delighted to see them repealed.
“Babies and children do not belong in indefinite administrative detention and this draconian power has no place on the statute book.”
It said the latest move preserves the status quo of the Immigration Act 2014, meaning that unaccompanied children can only be detained for 24 hours in airport and other short-term facilities and children in families can only be detained for 72 hours, or a week if personally authorised by the minister and in special facilities and with certain safeguards.
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