The Coram Children's Legal Centre warns in a new report that the government's desire to create a 'hostile environment' for migrants in the UK is having a significant and damaging impact on undocumented migrant children.
You can read the report, Growing Up In A Hostile Environment: The rights of undocumented migrant children in the UK, here.
The report examines the ways in which a lack of immigration status is an obstacle to children and young people accessing their basic rights and entitlements, with undocumented migrant children seen as not being entitled to the same treatment as other children and young people in the UK.
It also covers the difficulties undocumented migrant children face in obtaining essential legal advice and regularising their status.
According to the Coram Children's Legal Centre's report, many undocumented migrants currently living in the UK have very strong legal claims to remain, but face obstacles to regularising their status. These obstacles include:
• Lack of awareness of their legal rights
• Inability to understand the extremely complex Immigration Rules
• Misinformation about legal rights and routes to regularisation
• Lack of access to legal advice and representation, including the absence of legal aid for non-protection immigration cases
• Reluctance on the part of solicitors and legal representatives to take on certain cases
• Unaffordable application fees for Home Office applications
• Lack of co-operation by partners, including in situations of abuse and domestic violence
• Fear.
This leaves a population of children in limbo without a regular immigration status or access to services, but unable to leave the UK.
The report calls for the issue to be addressed with great urgency if the UK is to fulfil its legal obligations towards children.
According to the report, a recent estimate put the number of undocumented migrant children in the UK at 120,000, with over half born here.