By Sonia Sodha
Young people born or raised in the UK are being ensnared by Kafkaesque bureaucracy – and paying an extortionate price for it.
The new home secretary, Sajid Javid, has wasted no time in disowning the phrase “hostile environment”. But the real test he faces isn’t one of superficial terminology. First, there is the question of whether he will do anything to dismantle the day-to-day reality of prejudice that ensnared the Windrush generation with such appalling consequences; whether he will concede that obliging landlords to check people’s papers under the threat of fines or imprisonment drags us backwards to a world where people with dark skin routinely face discrimination; or that cutting off access to housing and work risks forcing people into exploitation on the black market.
But there’s another dirty secret buried in the Home Office. The government’s futile, arbitrary target to reduce net immigration to the tens of thousands means it is not just imposing further restrictions on who can come to the UK from abroad (no matter that the NHS is desperate for doctors). It is making it harder for people here legally, including those who’ve grown up here, to become permanently settled.
First, the eye-watering fees mean it costs more than £1,000 just to claim a child’s legal entitlement to citizenship if they were born in Britain to parents not settled here (they get this entitlement either when a parent becomes permanently settled or after they’ve lived here for 10 years). The Home Office makes a profit of £640 on each case. Some parents just don’t have the money, which means their British-born children may later be unable to work, go to university or use the NHS. Astonishingly, local authorities are obliged to fork out this fee for affected children in their care: a big financial disincentive to sorting this out before they turn 18. And if they don’t make citizenship applications for children – not born here, but who’ve spent most of their lives in care – they lose the right to apply altogether when they turn 18.
For more read the full of article at The Guardian
