Friday 17 June 2016
Do you remember your 18th birthday? Was it a time of anticipation, excitement and joy? Your whole life ahead of you and so much to look forward to.
Not so much if you are an unaccompanied asylum-seeking child in the UK. You might have been here for a few years, done well in school, be happily settled
with your wonderful foster parents – but your life is about to be turned upside down.
Your journey to the UK is likely to have been harsh, cruel and unforgiving. The country you left was at best impoverished; at worst, war-torn and dangerous.
But you made it here and we cared for you. Social workers, teachers and foster carers have helped you to recover from the trauma suffered. Unaccompanied
asylum-seeking children (UASC) tend to learn English quickly, engage positively at school and many could go on to university if allowed.
However, your 18th birthday looms. You are about to stop being a vulnerable child deserving of our care and support and start being a statistic in our
Alice in Wonderland immigration system.
The 2016 Immigration Act seeks to: “Reduce pressures
on local authorities and simplify support for migrants pending resolution of their immigration status or their departure from the UK.”
They have achieved the second part, because they have all but removed support for UASC who turn 18 while leaving local authorities in the invidious position
whereby: “Local authorities will continue to provide support under section 17 of the Children Act 1989 to meet any other needs of a child, or their family, in order to safeguard and promote the child’s welfare.”
You do not become less vulnerable by being 24 hours older. It beggars belief that while we allow foster children to stay put until 21, we are deliberately sabotaging good work undertaken with unaccompanied
children by removing support at a critical juncture.
At a meeting last week, I asked the immigration minister James Brokenshire if it would not be simpler and more humane to offer the same leaving care support
to unaccompanied children as to other care leavers. His answer was that this would “not be appropriate as we are not preparing them for adult life
in the UK so the approach must be different”.
This is as casually callous as it is nonsensical. Is he seriously suggesting that allowing an unaccompanied child to stay in their foster home until 21
and attend further education college or university (for however short a time) is a worse preparation for returning to their country of origin than
being made functionally destitute? Or maybe he just accepts that destitution is what we are sending the young person back to?
Our whole approach to UASC is confused, grudging and wrong. It seems there has been a very cynical political calculation made that we can’t deport children
so must be seen to be caring and magnanimous but, at 18, all bets are off.
The only reasonable approach to returning UASC to countries of origin is to do it soon after they arrive in the UK. This would be after a proper best interests
determination by a family court which has also been given control over the immigration decision. If a young person has a viable situation to return
to in their country of origin, or with a relative in another country, then that can be pursued. If not then the local authority should take a care
order and the young person be given permanent leave to remain.
The Home Office will howl that this will encourage more children to travel to the UK. This totally misunderstands why children travel; it is often to escape
an existential threat. We live in a dangerous, desperately unequal and uncertain world. Our corner of it is safe, prosperous and, despite the best
efforts of successive home secretaries, tolerant and welcoming. This is why children travel, not because of this benefit or that service.
Today, in the Lords, The Adolescent and Children’s Trust – the charity where I am chief executive – will try to undo the damage done to vulnerable unaccompanied
and refugee children who turn 18. We are introducing an amendment to the children and social work bill to give unaccompanied young people the same
access to leaving care services, university and further education and training as all other care leavers until they leave the UK.
These are our children. Every child leaving care matters and we must not let the government divide up care leavers into the deserving and undeserving for
narrow and cynical political ends.
Acknowledgement: Article by Andy Elviin- The Guardian: June 2016