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Children and refugee status

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Just a quick warning to practitioners. There have been a small number of examples recently of UKBA granting five years’ status to children recognised as refugees on the basis of their membership of a particular social group based on their age, but in the letter accompanying the status papers warning that status may be reviewed once the child reaches the age of 18. This seems most likely to arise in Afghan cases where the refugee case succeeds on the basis of LQ (Afghanistan).

Having had a quick look at the cessation policy, this is not obviously outside it, although there is a large question mark over UKBA’s involvement of UNHCR in such cases, which is a policy commitment.

An example letter can be found here.

It would be wise to be pushing arguments for there being both risk and a Convention reason other than for reasons of age, otherwise there is a chance the client will end up with unnecessary problems later.

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The Free Movement blog was founded in 2007 by Colin Yeo, a barrister at Garden Court Chambers specialising in immigration law. The blog provides updates and commentary on immigration and asylum law by a variety of authors.

Comments

3 responses

  1. Could you not have done the caseowner the same courtesy as the applicant and blacked out her name and direct phone number?

  2. I’m sorry about that, it was an oversight and as you’ll have seen I blanked details from the end of the letter. It is more than a courtesy for children and asylum seekers to anonymise their details, though, it is absolutely essential.