The British Red Cross reported on Tuesday that its Torn Apart campaign for refugee family reunion achieved a major success after the Home Office revised its policy guidance.
Refugee parents are legally entitled to bring their children to the UK, but not if those children are 18 or over.
The Torn Apart campaign sought to change that by calling for family reunion to be expanded to include children up to the age of 25 who were living with their parents when they were forced to leave their home country.
Parliament debated refugee family reunion rules on 9 June.
According to the British Red Cross, the revised Home Office guidance now explicitly widens the 'exceptional and compassionate circumstances' in which to reunite these young people with their families, so it now includes children over the age of 18.
The guidance says visas should now be granted to adult children who would otherwise be: "…left in a conflict zone or dangerous situation, and become destitute on their own; have no other relatives that they could live with or turn to for support in their country; [or] are not leading an independent life and the rest of the family intend to travel to the UK."
The Home Office guidance can be read here.
While the Red Cross called the changes a step forward and a major success for its campaign, it says they do not go far enough.
"One crucial caveat is that these visas will be issued outside immigration rules. The guidance is effectively only advice issued on behalf of the Home Office to those who assess family reunion cases. It allows them to use their discretion to grant a visa outside the rules. We want the government to go further and enshrine the guidance in the rules. Only then can we be sure that errors of judgement don't continue to leave families torn apart," the British Red Cross said in a statement.
The British Red Cross says that just 65 visas have been granted outside the rules due to exceptional circumstances in the last three years.