A senior Tory MP has likened the government’s immigration plan to Donald Trump’s “caging of children”.
Caroline Nokes said elements of Rishi Sunak’s legislation to stop small boat crossings are “absolutely appalling”.
It comes as the Illegal Migration Bill cleared its first Commons hurdle, despite dozens of Tory MPs refusing to vote for it.
The legislation aims to stop people claiming asylum in the UK if they arrive through unauthorised means, deporting them and banning them from returning.
The bill allows the detention of illegal arrivals without bail or judicial review within the first 28 days of detention, until they can be removed.
However, a number of unhappy Tory MPs have called for amendments to protect trafficked women, children and modern slavery victims.
Nokes, chair of the women and equalities committee, was among 44 Tory backbenchers who did not vote for the Illegal Migration Bill on Monday night.
She told TalkTV: “I listened to the words that the home secretary said last week raising the spectre - I think it started off at 100 million displaced people all coming here. Well, that simply is a fallacy, they’re not coming here.
“73% of displaced people around the world are in the neighbouring country to their country of origin.
“As chair of the women and equalities select committee I looked at those provisions in the bill which would have given the home secretary powers to lock up pregnant women, to incarcerate children with their families.
“Although there was a carve-out for unaccompanied children, it would have given rise to the ability of the home secretary to remove to other countries - places like Rwanda - children.
“Which I thought was in conflict with our responsibilities under the 1989 Children Act, which to be quite frank, did we not learn from Donald Trump and his caging of children that this is a horrendous thing to do - to incarcerate children?”
Trump’s administration carried out a policy that took thousands of children from their parents as part of an crackdown on immigration.
His “zero tolerance” policy on unauthorised border crossings - used in a 2017 pilot program and expanded more broadly in 2018 - led to the criminal prosecution of parents and locking up their children separately.
There was outrage as footage emerged of youngsters held in cages in a detention warehouse in Texas, just over the border with Mexico.
When presenter Tom Newton Dunn pressed her on whether she was equating the UK government with Trump’s actions, she replied: “Well, I think when you saw his willingness to separate families and when I look at the content of this bill - which would allow children to be detained with no chance of immigration bail for a minimum of 28 days - to me that just appalling.
“Absolutely appalling. I couldn’t bring myself to vote for this bill.
“I don’t think it’s going to have the impact that the government has suggested. I don’t think this is going to deter a single migrant from making that crossing.”
The House of Commons voted 312 to 250, majority 62, to give the bill a second reading.
Tory former justice secretary Sir Robert Buckland voted for the bill but warned the government he has “great concern” at the prospect of detaining children.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “As I said, in my speech (in the Commons on Monday), I said that the issue relating to particularly women and children needs to be directly addressed.
“I do not support the detention of unaccompanied children or indeed the splitting up of families; that was a government policy that has been followed since 2010.
“And I think that those parts of the bill should be removed. Voting to allow the principle of a bill to go forwards is different from the detail of the bill and I would expect it to be scrutinised carefully.”
Speaking in America, Sunak defended the bill. He said: “I’m confident that our bill represents the best way to grip this problem.
“I’ve also always been clear that there is no...one simple solution to what is a complicated problem. It will take lots of different interventions.”