The Home Office is being threatened with legal action over concerns that children face being sent to Rwanda because officials wrongly identify them as adults, the Observer can reveal.
With ministers desperate to see flights take off as soon as possible amid a record 181 detected Channel crossings so far this year, the department has been anticipating a flurry of legal complaints to be triggered as a result of the pledge to deport some asylum seekers to the east African country.
It has now emerged that it is being challenged over the treatment of those who say they are children but are labelled as adults by immigration officials after an initial assessment of their physical appearance and demeanour. Under the rules of the plan, ministers had promised that no children will be deported to Rwanda once the flights begin this summer.