Legal News

The Migrant and Refugee Children's Legal Unit (MiCLU) says that undocumented children are falling through bureaucratic, legislative and systemic cracks because the immigration system is not child friendly.

The MiCLU is based at Islington Law Centre and has released a comprehensive new report on the problems faced by undocumented children without legal immigration status.

The report – Precarious Citizenship: Unseen, Settled and Alone - The Legal and Protection Needs of 'Undocumented' Children and Young People in England and Wales – covers the findings of more than four years of specialist casework with 52 children and young people (CYP), who are unable to prove that they are British or otherwise lawfully allowed to remain in the UK.

MiCLU says that the combination of legal aid cuts, the government's “hostile environment” strategy and the ever-shifting field of immigration and asylum law means undocumented children and young people are falling through bureaucratic, legislative and systemic cracks that are not covered by the asylum system, mainstream welfare services, or existing children's legislation and procedural guidelines.

According to the report, a 2012 paper published by the University of Oxford's Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) estimates that there are 120,000 children living in the UK without legal immigration status. More than half of these children were born in the UK – and another large proportion of them have lived in the UK for most of their lives.

The MiCLU reports says:

“In our immigration practice, the cases of lone children and young people were often the most complicated to navigate, investigate, prepare and advise on. In addition to the capacity and participation issues faced by CYP's in complex legal proceedings, as legal advisors we would frequently encounter highly complex and interconnected legal problems faced by this group because of their precarious immigration and citizenship status: for example, their precarious immigration status or lack of documented status placed them at risk of removal from the UK and unable to access financial support."

“If left unresolved, these problems had the potential to impede, obstruct and even damage their ability to survive and develop fully. Prior to the introduction of LASPO [Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012], these legal problems could be individually and collectively tackled. However, after LASPO came into force, CYP's could only access advice and representation in relation to limited aspects of these legal issues."

“Once the cuts were announced, we recognised the importance of mapping the experiences of undocumented CYP's and the legal problems they experienced, in order to preserve vital information that would contribute to the debate around and challenges legal aid cuts posed to CYP's before the opportunity was lost, when they were left unrepresented.”

The report’s key findings include access to justice for this group of children and young people is extremely restricted following cuts to legal aid provision. Without qualified specialist representation, CYP's lives can be placed in danger, their wellbeing jeopardised and it can prove difficult for statutory and non-statutory agencies to protect them against the risk of injustice.

Many CYP's do not fully realise the constraints of their status in their lives until they become older teenagers and young adults – many CYP's face multiple vulnerability factors and legal needs which, when combined, increase their vulnerability and create further legal problems whilst also exacerbating welfare and social problems, such as support provision and relationship issues.

The report states that the current immigration process fails to acknowledge the needs of this group of children as immigration applicants in their own right “in the immigration system”, in comparison to formal acceptance and recognition in the “asylum system” – and does not address the implications of family breakdown upon CYP's, who may have been dependent on those family, or adult, applications.

Routes to regularisation of immigration status that are available to CYP's – and to which they have an entitlement – are overly complicated, bureaucratic, expensive and are also not “child friendly”, states the report.

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