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Hello fellow reader, I hope everyone is doing great. Today I wanted to talk about a very personal topic that has been on my heart for a very long time but I just haven't found the way to speak about until today. Last night I was watching a documentary on Channel 4 on the impact of Brexit especially on children and adults who are born in the UK or live in the UK but are not British citizens. Due to this they are at the risk of either being deported or are just left in a limbo of having to give up on their dreams of going to university, unable to afford paying to get their citizenship or unemployed because they have are considered as illegal even though they have lived in the country most of their lives. This is a reality for many children in the UK who are faced with countless legal battles in order to ensure their safety and security. These are stories that are not small cases but is the reality for many children and young adults like myself who are not British.
I moved to the UK from Nigeria at the age of 10 along with my family in the hope of building a new future for ourselves, and as I mentioned in my previous blog post on self-identity this was a very exciting experience. However, as exciting it was to be in the UK, we also had to fight to gain residency in the UK which took years of paying lawyers, paying to process applications to the home office and living in fear of not being deported by the home office. Thankfully, We were granted a discretionary leave to remain on a 6 year pathway to gaining our indefinite leave to remain which allows permanent status and the hope of applying for a British citizenship. This has meant renewing our status every 3 years and paying about £8000 every time in the hope that our application would be approved by the home office. However for many children and families this is not possible and because they cannot afford to renew their status or even if they can, their application can still be rejected and the £8000 or more they have used cannot be refunded leaving many in children without a status, families in financial constraint which could become worse with application fees increasing every year. Many are left with the difficult decisions of choosing which family member get a British citizenship and who has to wait to gain their status.
According to Channel 4 Dispatches, there are already 120,000 children and young people born or raised in the UK who think that they are British but will not automatically gain citizenship. Of the 120,000 it is estimated that there are 65,000 young people born in the UK with no legal residence. It costs £973 to register a child for British Citizenship - it costs the government £386 to process the paperwork. The remainder, £587, is profit. Since the time Theresa May was Home Secretary fees for citizenship have risen more than 9x the rate of inflation. Between 2012 and 2015 only 6,130 children registered themselves as British. I also feel it is important to understand that the cost is not just the only barrier but granting citizenship is based on a good behaviour, even for children, the complexity of the laws and policy but also taking a life in the UK test if over 18 which I am sure even most british citizens couldn't answer all questions correctly. I managed to find a mock test on The Guardian and couldn't answer some of the questions. Many of which were wild guesses or knowledge from what i'd learnt in British politics at A-level.
In addition, many of us are left in a limbo when making life decisions such as going to university, which for thousands of young people is no longer a reality because they are not eligible for student finance. This is not only painful to hear especially if you have spent most of your life assimilating and being a part of British society like you are expected to, abiding to the laws of the country and then told that you aren't eligible to work, go to university or even entitled to a citizenship when you and your parents have practised the very duties of a citizen.
The road to gain a British citizenship is not an easy one and for many children this might be a fight for the rest of their lives in order to get their citizenship to ensure they live safely in the UK. Many of these children will grow up and will be constantly trapped in a limbo of having to make many sacrifices, parents having to choose which child get british citizenship because they cannot pay for everyone or even one family member being at risk of being deported because their application is rejected. This is not only unfair to those children who have spent all their lives in a country where they call home but also to their parents and guardians who have exercised their duties as citizen by paying taxes, working if they can to provide but also following the law as they are expected to. At the end of the day, they are told that they cannot be granted citizenship or simply cannot afford it. I honestly see this getting worse
I would advise everyone to watch the documentary on Channel 4 but also if you would like to know more and support I have found some charities and organisation raising awareness and standing up for many children as well as young adults. Coram Children’s Legal Centre; THIS IS MY HOME: OUR REPORT ON PERMANENCE FOR UNDOCUMENTED CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE http://www.childrenslegalcentre.com/
Let us Learn: http://www.justforkidslaw.org/let-us-learn- Agnes in the documentary is also a core team member in encouraging schemes, programmes and as well as scholarship at universities for young people to access higher education The Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens (PRCBC): https://prcbc.wordpress.com/