Home Office Challenged

PILC have issued a judicial review challenge to the Home Office after it refused to grant our client, a young single mother who was brought here as a child and has lived here for over 20 years, discretionary settlement.

The Home Office has refused to grant our client, who is a young single mother who was brought to England as a child and has lived here for over 20 years, discretionary settlement.

Earlier this month, we issued a challenge in the Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) to the office on the following ground:

Our client qualifies for settlement as a young person who has had continuous leave to remain for five years but is unable to afford the application fee of £2,885.00 as a young, single parent with childcare responsibilities.

The Home Office doesn’t allow for a fee waiver for young people to apply for settlement, so she has no choice but request that the Home Office grant her discretionary settlement.  The Home Office has refused this as they have said that her circumstances aren’t ‘exceptional and compelling’ enough.

We have challenged this and await a decision from the tribunal as to whether we have permission to bring the claim.

We have previously brought a successful discrimination challenge resulting in the Home Office changing the law to allow Bereaved Partners to make fee waiver applications when applying for Indefinite Leave to Remain. For more, see here.

The client is represented by PILC solicitor Sarah Looney who is working with the Refugee & Migrant Forum of Essex and London (RAMFEL) on the Challenge.

''Sadly, this case is not unique and we routinely encounter people who are priced out of the permanent immigration status to which they’re otherwise entitled. Until a fee waiver is introduced for indefinite leave to remain applications, or fees are reduced to a much more sustainable level, it is inevitable that children born here, young adults who’ve lived here since they were toddlers and parents of British children will continue to be denied secure immigration status. This benefits no one, stifles peoples’ long-term prospects and creates even more work for an already under-resourced Home Office.
RAMFEL

This is the private life guidance where it sets out that she is entitled to settlement

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/private-life-caseworker-guidance/private-life-caseworker-guidance-accessible--2