The Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium (RMCC) is deeply concerned about the government’s proposed asylum and settlement reforms, as outlined in Restoring Order and Control and A Fairer Pathway to Settlement. Key proposals include replacing five-year refugee status with short, renewable periods of “core protection”, extending routes to settlement to up to 20 years; restricting family reunion; making asylum support discretionary; weakening appeal rights; and narrowing the interpretation of family and private life under Article 8 ECHR. Children make up a significant proportion of those seeking asylum and settlement in the UK, yet the reforms risk treating them primarily through a lens of deterrence and control rather than protection and safeguarding.
These changes would have profound and damaging consequences for children’s rights, wellbeing, and long-term integration. Prolonged insecurity, repeated status reviews, restricted access to family reunion and public funds, and extended routes to settlement would undermine children’s need for stability, disrupt education and development, exacerbate poverty and harms mental health.
The RMCC is extremely concerned about the introduction of “earned” settlement based on income and contribution on children, young people, families and communities; the retrospective application of reforms, and the risk that children growing up in the UK will be left in prolonged legal limbo or lose pathways to British citizenship. The proposed settlement reforms are huge in extent; will dramatically change immigration pathways across the system; and risk damaging integration in the UK, impacting thousands of children and young people who have made the UK home.
Read more in RMCC’s briefing on the government’s asylum and settlement reforms