Watchdog for children to visit Manston asylum centre

The children's commissioner for England is due to visit Manston, the Home Office centre in Kent where small boat arrivals are processed, after concerns were raised about the treatment of children there, the Guardian has learned.

- Diane Taylor

It is not the first time the commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza, has intervened over the welfare of child asylum seekers. In a letter in January 2023 to the then home secretary, Suella Braverman, she raised concerns about reports that children had gone missing from Home Office accommodation.

The Guardian understands that De Souza now has concerns about how children are processed at Manston - both those who are part of family units and those who are unaccompanied and are determined by Home Office officials to be adults despite insisting they are children.

"The Home Office's own guidelines on processing children at Manston are not being followed," one source working at Manston told the Guardian.