The has government announced 130 more places under the Dubs scheme, following the realisation of what was described as an ‘administrative error’. We, along with many others who have been campaigning on this issue, welcome this news. It is down the the pressure of campaigns that the government have admitted their shocking mistake. While the news comes just two weeks after over 120 unaccompanied children were made homeless when the Dunkirk camp burnt to the ground, we must continue to apply pressure to ensure the most vulnerable children can access the scheme. 

We are deeply shocked by the devastating events that began on Monday 10 April. A fire has destroyed 80% of the camp and all the residents evacuated, 1600 homeless. Our volunteers are trying to track down the unaccompanied minors we have identified as possible to try and ensure they can go to emergency accommodation. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/11/hundreds-of-refugees-missing-after-dunkirk-camp-fire

Thank you to everyone who has supported our campaign over the last few months. The energy and momentum created has helped our team to raise the profile of the dire situation in the Dunkirk camp, in particular the awful conditions and the risks that unaccompanied children are exposed to.    

The UK government published new guidance for the Dubs Scheme last month which does not obviously exclude the Dunkirk children.  However, it remains unclear how the guidance will be implemented so we have written to the Home Office seeking information on how they intend the guidance to operate in Dunkirk.  We are extending our campaign while we await their reply.

You may have heard that the government has recently published new Dubs guidance for the remaining 150 places for the scheme. 

On the face of it the guidance appears to be less restrictive and it does not obviously exclude the Dunkirk children. However, the way this new guidance is implemented is very important – the scheme must be meaningful for the children. We are considering the guidance carefully with our legal team and we will provide a further update on our case soon. 

Thank you for your continuing support.

A heartfelt thanks to all those who have pledged.

The court has stayed our case which essentially means that it has been put on hold and that it might not be heard until autumn. That is too long for the vulnerable children currently living in camp - our case needs to be heard urgently - so we will be asking for an interim hearing to argue why the stay should be lifted.

You might have heard that yesterday in the House of Commons MPs voted against Heidi Allen’s amendment to the Children and Social Work Bill by just 20 votes (287-267). The bill would have forced the government to assess local councils’ capacity to take in more child refugees from Europe.  It was hoped that this would restart the Dubs Scheme beyond the remaining 150 places. We are devastated by the result of the vote in Parliament yesterday, along with many other who were fighting so hard for this.

We will keep fighting to try to make the voices of the Dunkirk children heard and we will continue to campaign for the Government to recognise the vulnerability of these children.

Thank you for supporting us to do so.

Thank you to everyone who has supported our campaign!

We expect to receive a response from the Home Office on Tuesday 28 February, and then we will hear from the court, hopefully within a few weeks, as to whether our case has been given permission to be heard.

We are extending our campaign for a further 30 days so that if we are granted permission we can continue to raise funds to protect us against the legal costs run up by Home Secretary (if we lose the case it is likely that the court would order us to pay at least some of the Home Secretary’s legal costs; if we are successful surplus funds will be returned to Crowd Justice and donated to another case, in accordance with their terms and conditions).

With the Government appearing reluctant to concede on their decision to close the Scheme after only 150 more children are transferred, there is still lots of work to be done! Write to your MP ahead of the 1 March when Parliament will be voting on the motion - Let them know you want them to reopen the Dubs Scheme!!

Thank you for the overwhelming support!  We have now served our claim! 

It is inspiring to know that hundreds of people want to see our Government do something to protect these children. 

Our lawyers have now submitted our claim at the High Court and served it upon the Home Secretary.  We are asking the Court to rule that the Home Office’s exclusion of the Dunkirk children is unlawful and to publish new criteria to apply to Dunkirk children who want to be considered under the Dubs Amendment Scheme. 

You will have heard about the Government’s appalling decision to withdraw the Dubs scheme altogether.  We understand this is likely to be the subject of separate legal challenge. In any case, even if the Government does continue with its policy of withdrawing the scheme, it has confirmed that there are at least 150 places remaining. We see this as an opportunity for the Government to show that it has not forgotten the children of Dunkirk by ensuring any new Guidance does not unlawfully exclude them again. 

Next steps: 

• A judge has looked at our case today and has ordered the Home Secretary to respond within 14 days        
• A judge will then decide whether our case can proceed to a hearing where our barristers will put forward our arguments in court        
• In the meantime, there will be a debate in Parliament on the Dubs Scheme on 23 February 2017 – write to your MP - if enough MPs speak up, the Home Secretary might be shamed into changing her mind! 

Dear Supporters,

This week has been very eventful for our campaign!

Thanks to your generous support, our lawyers have been able to prepare our legal claim and we will shortly be serving it on the Government. 

This is a huge moment for us: as a small team of volunteers, we never imagined we would be able to take legal action of this kind, supported by hundreds of people.

The Government's announcement this week that they are closing the Dubs Amendment scheme after taking only 150 more unaccompanied refugee children from Europe has deeply concerned us.

We have signed Lord Alf Dubs' petition against this decision. We hope you will too.

We are determined to not let this halt our challenge and we will continue to ask the Government to look again at the vulnerability of the children of and to publish criteria to enable some of these desperately vulnerable children to benefit. 

In the words of Barbara Winton, "Every single child’s life is worth every single thing we can give."

Next steps 

With your support, we are now ready to take our case to the next stage: asking the court for permission to proceed with the case.  We still need to raise significant sums to cover the costs of this stage of the case and to help us with our costs exposure, if we do not succeed.

We are at a critical point now with the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd under extreme pressure to review her position on Dubs.  We have lots of work to do to take our case to the next stage and to keep up the momentum to ensure that the Dunkirk children are not forgotten.  Please help us to fight on.  You can help by:

• Sharing a link to our campaign with friends, family and colleagues
• Sharing the link on your Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts
• Following us on Twitter - we're new!
• Liking our Facebook page!
• Chipping in again - every little makes a big difference!

We have reached our first target! We are blown away by the support everyone has shown - in just four days, we managed to raise over £12,000!  We are so proud to be part of an amazing community of people who want to see this change happen. 

THANK YOU to everyone who has pledged and shared our campaign far and wide. 

We're off to a promising start and now gathering speed towards our stretch target (more detail about the additional funds needed to come with next update). 

Disappointingly, the Home Office has asked for more time to respond to our pre-action letter.  We are now expecting their response on Wednesday afternoon, 1 February 2017.

A massive thank you for your continued support. A further update to follow soon!