BRITAIN and the US share a proud history of welcoming to their shores people who are seeking sanctuary and helping them to rebuild their lives.

After Donald Trump’s recent refugee ban it was shocking to see the UK this week send out another deeply worrying message to the rest of the world that we are refusing to save the lives of children caught up in the ongoing humanitarian crisis.

The government had promised to take lone under-18s from the Continent after Labour’s Lord Alf Dubs, who came to the UK on the Kindertransport programme for Jewish children during the Second World War, led a campaign to take 3,000 of the unaccompanied children.

But ministers had not put a number on the amount of child refugees the UK would take until now.

In a low-key announcement, immigration minister Robert Goodwill said the scheme will close once another 150 refugees have been brought to Britain after it was revealed 200 have arrived through the route.

This is a deplorable decision which flies in the face of the principles of human rights, child protection and doing what is right.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd suggested that the Dubs scheme could encourage people traffickers. “I am clear that when working with my French counterparts they do not want us to indefinitely continue to accept children under the Dubs amendment because they specify, and I agree with them, that it acts as a draw,” she told MPs.

This argument is fatally flawed. Far from deterring traffickers, the decision will push children back into the arms of smuggling and trafficking gangs, and make them vulnerable to being drawn into the horrors of slavery and prostitution.

Theresa May and her government need to be showing President Trump how a modern, ethically-driven democracy works, rather than following his race to the bottom.