Help keep a safety route open for child refugees

Calais Action - a refugee aid and advocacy group - is requesting people to lobby MPs and local councils about an important amendment to the 'Brexit Bill' sponsored by Lord Alf Dubs. If accepted by the Commons it will ensure that legal mechanisms for the reunion of refugee families will remain in place once the UK leaves the EU. It urges people to take action now because the first opportunity for a vote in the Commons is only a week away.

MPs are scheduled to vote on this on 21 May.

The #DubsII amendment to the Brexit Bill has passed in the Lords. This is designed to safeguard family reunion rights for unaccompanied children and adults to join family in the UK AFTER Brexit (the EU 'Dublin Regulation'). But he seeks help to get this protection through the Commons. The Dublin Regulation is a vital, life-saving route to asylum, without which many children will continue to risk their lives with trains, lorries and traffickers.

Action

Please book a meeting with your MP asking them to turn up and vote for Lord Dubs' amendment to the EU Withdrawal Bill which preserves the Dublin 3 Regulation on family reunion

If your MP is already on side, ask them if they can help get other, undecided MPs on board. If your MP is against it, you can tell them that 10,000 refugees were brought to Britain via the Kindertransport on the eve of WW2, when the country was facing an even more difficult economy than now. Britain mustn't turn its back on unaccompanied child refugees seeking to join family here after Brexit.

Get your Council to pledge extra 'Dubs' places so we have 1,000 by the Autumn, and we can offer an extension to the government's allocation for unaccompanied children.

You can also tweet about it using the hashtag #DubsII encouraging others to contact their MPs. In 2016 Calais Action campaigned successfully in Parliament to provide more safe and legal routes for refugees, and supported the Dubs Amendment to the Immigration Bill, created by Labour peer Alf Dubs to allow 3,000 unaccompanied child refugees into the UK. It resulted in hundreds of unaccompanied minors being brought to safety. "Let's do it again!"

Phil Kerton is a founder of 'Seeking Sanctuary' which assists refugees in north-western France.

Links:

A template form through which people can write to their MP can be found here:
http://safepassage.org.uk/get-involved/support-dubs-2-amendment/?sp_ref=410349314.392.187975.t.0.2

Calais action blog: www.calaisaction.com/blog/post/8152244899888766451

Text of the Dublin Amendment: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/…

Seeking Sanctuary www.seekingsanctuary.weebly.com