Immigration lawyers London confirm that high fees from the Home Office remove the rights of many to UK citizenship, and the recent court hearing put forward by the Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens (PRCBC) that represents two children identified as A and O could affect thousands across the UK.
The PRCBC, who supported by Amnesty International UK, is arguing in the case that the £1012 registration for an application that only cost the Home Office £372 to process is unlawfully high and above the threshold that many can meet. Our team of immigration Solicitors London agree that many are affected by such high Home Office fees including lower-income families and especially children of such families who have lived in the UK for their first ten years but still cannot apply because of the extraordinarily high costs.
Moreover, British citizenship lawyers UK state that the consequences of not being able to pay your way are very sad and can be dire for many, but for children, this can especially scary. Children have in may cases been detained in detention centres and deported from the UK to countries they have never been to before. Many live in fear every day because without citizenship they feel insecure in the UK. They do not meet the same level of equality of many of their friends and it is right to assume that their families can not plan properly for their future in the UK.
British citizenship is really important and is something you cannot put a price on, and to be a child in this kind of immigration limbo must be quite a brutal experience. In a recent study carried out by the Times Newspaper in July of this year (read our article on it here), it was found that the Home Office made a profit of £500 million in 2018 from increasing the fees of many UK immigration applications and processes. The research went on to indicate that the Home Office has actually doubled its profits from 2014-2018 through fee increases. This is almost like selling visas and passports for profits which leaves the most vulnerable members of society such as lower-income families and children of such families unable to afford their rights to stay in the UK.
Wealthier members of society, on the other hand, have no problem in affording these fees. There are even extremely easy visa routes laid out for those from the top tier of society who want to move to the UK, such as, the Tier 1 Investor Visa that allows individuals to qualify for indefinite leave to remain after a minimum of 2-5 years depending on how much money they can invest in the country.
Stories like this demonstrate the unfair nature of the UK immigration system and the changing behaviour of the Home Office in recent decades. Set rules should be put in place to protect the most vulnerable in society against such immigration based consequences such as being deported from the only country that they know. Following the Windrush scandal and also recent problems with the how EU Migrants are being treated because of Brexit and the limitations of the EU Settlement Scheme, it does not paint the best picture of how things are moving forward in the UK from an immigration perspective.
The court hearing that has been put forward by the Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens (PRCBC) will be heard over the next three days. We will keep you updated on the outcome in our legal blog.
Ask our team of Immigration Lawyers UK
For further information about the issues discussed above or for information surrounding your immigration situation with regards to obtaining UK Citizenship please do not hesitate to contact us on +44 (0) 20 7269 9590 or fill out the form below (we will reply to you within 24 hours on working days).
Our team of immigration lawyers and solicitors can help you with your application process and provide you with answers to any questions you may have.
