Broken refugee family reunion policy fails to provide safe route
Amidst the Government’s plan to send refugees to Rwanda, the Government’s leading approach to tackling Channel crossings, the Refugee Council and Safe Passage International are calling attention to the broken family reunion route - one of the very few alternatives refugees have to dangerous crossings.
In a new report, published today, the charities find refugee family reunion policy is failing people fleeing war and persecution who are seeking to reunite with family in safety. Refugee Council and Safe Passage International estimate their proposed changes to Immigration Rules could help around 1000 additional people to reunite with loved ones every year, including overmore than 300 separated children.
Through their work supporting families to reunite, Refugee Council and Safe Passage International have found several gaps in the existing restrictive and narrow rules which that are leaveing refugees with no way to safely reunite. According to the charities, key gaps include:
Unaccompanied children outside of the UK are prevented from joining refugee aunts, uncles, grandparents and adult siblings due to strict requirements, including having to pay unaffordable huge fees. that are unaffordable.
Separated children in the UK do not have the right to bring their parents or siblings to join them in safety under the existing family reunion rules.
Afghans evacuated during Operation Pitting in August 2021, resettled under Pathway 1 of the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS), are entirely excluded from refugee family reunion - breaking promises made by the Government.
Ukrainianians in the UK under the schemes for Ukrainians have no options to sponsor any family members to join them here in safety, including their own children.
The charities also highlight poor decision-making and the huge backlog of family reunion cases, which they say are being ignored, with over 11,000 cases waiting for a decision, as of July last year*. Most of them are taking longer than six months, despite the previous standard time being 12 weeks.
Dr Wanda Wyporska, CEO at Safe Passage International, said: “The unaccompanied children we work with are experiencing depression, PTSD, anxiety and are even self harming. They should be cared for by what little g their family remains. Without accessible family reunion, families are left in an impossible position: endure indefinite separation or risk their lives on dangerous journeys in the hopes of reuniting with family.
“This Government continues to punish people who cross the Channel, yet it refuses to open new safe routes or fix the family reunion system. This is a mess of the Government’s own making. We know the Government can quickly open safe routes, as it did for Ukrainians. There are simple changes the Government can make to the family reunion rules which could help so many more people fleeing war and persecution to find safety with their family in the UK.”
Enver Solomon, CEO of the Refugee Council, said: "The UK must urgently allow refugees to safely reunite with their families and rebuild their lives together. The UK's failure to provide adequate family reunion routes has serious human consequences. At the Refugee Council, we work with separated refugee children who are unable to concentrate in school and who have become withdrawn — even losing interest in playing and eating — because they miss their parents and siblings so much. Refusing child refugees the right to family reunion makes the UK an outlier among other European states and puts the country at odds with national and international law, contravening the principle of the best interests of the child.
The Refugee Council and Safe Passage International recommend five non-legislative changes to the Immigration Rules that the Government can easily make:
Amend the Immigration Rules to remove the barriers to children joining refugee non-parent adult relatives in the UK.
Amend the Immigration Rules to allow refugee children in the UK to sponsor parents and siblings.
Open a pathway to resettle the family members of people evacuated under Pathway 1 of the Afghan Citizens’ Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) by June 2024, as promised
Open a free pathway, to allow Ukrainians with temporary status in the UK to sponsor their close family members.
Improve decision making so that by the end of September 2024 no refugee family reunion application is waiting longer than 12 weeks for a decision, in line with the Department’s service standard.