Children will be forcibly deported if their families refuse to take a £40,000 offer to leave the UK voluntarily. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is offering 150 failed asylum seeker families living in hotels vast sums of taxpayers’ cash to leave.
Each person will be offered £10,000 if they agree to leave within seven days, but the handouts are being capped at £40,000. And Home Office sources have admitted they are willing to forcibly remove families, including women and children, if they do not have the legal right to remain in the UK.
As part of the plan, the Home Office is consulting with experts on how to “physically handle children during the removal, where it is appropriate”.
A source said: “The average cost to a taxpayer, of each family, is £158,000 a year.
“They will have seven days to reply to that offer and then leave the country.
“Crucially, if they do not take this offer, we will look to forcibly remove them from the country. That includes children, but we will never separate parents from their children.
“This has been an incredibly successful model in Denmark, in terms of using incentives smartly to increase the removals of failed asylum seekers.
“We estimate, should the pilot be successful, we will save £20million for the taxpayer.”
Migrants will not be deported to unsafe countries, Ms Mahmood insisted.
