UNITED KINGDOM CHILD CITIZENSHIP APPLICATIONS DENIED BY HOME OFFICE
It is reported that hundreds of children had had applications denied previous year.
The government has modified its support on how the “good character” obligation should be utilized to children in citizenship applications, but activists state that the attempt does not go to a sufficient amount and are protesting for it to be cancelled completely.
Activists had in the past opposed the rules for deteriorating to distinguish between young people who had matured up in the United Kingdom and required to apply as British citizens, and grown up arrivals considering to naturalise.
In the latest publication, caseworkers have been informed to take into account “the child’s age and specific conditions and any justifying issues such as their competence to comprehend the effects of their actions”.
It was found in 2018 that hundreds of youngsters, some as juvenile as 10, who were born or raised in the United Kingdom were having their British citizenship applications rejected on the origins of condemnations for law-breaking such as petty robbery.
In the last few years, at least one kid a week had their application denied. Activists have projected that as many as 500 kids have had their application denied because they were unable to gratify the good character obligations since it was announced in 2006.
The latest guidelines answer to the 2017 assessment of the good character obligation by David Bolt, the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, which asked the Home Office to reassess the regulation and safeguard it “makes clear the room for caseworkers to practice prudence”.
Solange Valdez-Symonds, the director of the movement group the Project for Registration of Children as British Citizens (PRCBC) said “Sticking a couple of badly prepared paragraphs citing children into a 50-page guidance about naturalisation of adult immigrants is not what was obligated by the chief inspector’s approval that has been sat on for well over a year,”.
In 2018, PRCBC, Amnesty International and the Runnymede Trust launched a campaign to scrap the good character necessity in child citizenship applications. In a meeting given to MPs, they documented: “Barring children from the citizenship of the country of their home, and the only nation they know, is not in the finest interests of any child.”
Furthermore Valdez-Symonds stated : “These children have privileges to enlist as British citizens, having grown up in this country and in many situations having been born here too. The rejection to identify this with precise direction on these children’s statutory rights to British citizenship is reckless, offensive to children and in complete disrespect of the home secretary’s responsibilities to safe guard and encourage their best interests.”
A Home Office spokesman responded: “All citizenship applications are evaluated on their distinct facts. In the instance of applications from children, the child’s best welfares are always a key consideration in decision making. The good character obligation applies to those aged 10 and over as that is the age of criminal accountability.”
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