Thousands of vulnerable EU children risk falling foul to hostile environment due to ‘woefully inadequate’ support

Exclusive: Lack of government funding to help children in care apply for EU settled status could leave many undocumented and without access to state care, charities warn

Some looked-after children who need to apply for EU settlement are being wrongly denied residency because the scheme is “blind” to their complex cases and fails to recognise that they are eligible, charities said (Getty)

Thousands of vulnerable EU children in Britain face losing their rights after Brexit because support from the Home Office is “woefully inadequate”, campaigners have warned.

There are an estimated 5,000 youngsters in British local authority care who need to apply for settled status by June 2021 to remain in the country legally – or by the end of 2020 if Britain crashes out of the bloc on 31 October.

But The Independent has learnt that the number of these youngsters who have so far applied is “in at most the low hundreds”. Social workers are struggling to navigate the system and the designated funding to help vulnerable EU nationals falls short of reaching all those in need.

Some of the children, particularly those for whom it is difficult to obtain proof of their length of residency, are being wrongly denied settled status because the scheme is “blind” to their complex cases and fails to recognise they are eligible, charities said.

Without settled status, these children risk becoming undocumented, which would leave them unable to access state support and could make them liable to detention and deportation in the coming years.

In April, ministers allocated £9m to 57 organisations to support an estimated 200,000 vulnerable or hard to reach EU citizens – but charities have said this is “woefully inadequate for the task at hand”.

According to Home Office data, 12 per cent of EU settlement applications have so far come from children aged under 16, meaning around 107,000 children have applied.

There were an estimated 700,000 EU under-18s in the UK in 2018, meaning hundreds of thousands of children may still need to apply to secure their status.

Concerns have also been raised about EU national children and young people in custody, as there is no mechanism in place to assist them in registering for settled status.

Chai Patel, legal director at the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI), which liaises with the organisations granted funding, said: “The Home Office says over and over again, like a sick parrot, that the scheme is simple and easy to use and doesn’t require any information. That’s just not true for everyone.

“In fact, the department seems to be sort of blind to certain categories of third country nationals, particularly where a child has obtained permanent residence previously through a now over relationship with an EU national.

“There’s just nothing in the way the scheme is written that takes into account that situation. It’s like they just don’t exist to them. And that’s a lot of vulnerable people. It is thousands.”

Mr Patel criticised the government for not making children in care eligible for legal aid when applying for settled status, highlighting the fact that local authorities were often unable to afford lawyers to assist with processing complex cases.

He added: “The way the funding has turned out, it is geared towards information outreach, rather than specialist support for people who need it. But outreach is not enough and even the outreach budget is miniscule compared to the scale of the issue.

“It’s now more acute because there’s a great ticking time bomb at the end, where there won’t be an arguable right that they can be here. And for children in care there’s a second ticking time bomb, which is that when they leave care, they risk being cut off from all support. These problems will go on for decades.

“Windrush was awful – but the scale of what we could face here is terrifying.”

Ilona Pinter, policy and research manager at The Children’s Society, one of the organisations awarded the Home Office funding, said: “Hundreds of thousands of children may still need to apply for settled status or secure British citizenship.

“If they do not, they risk being left without a lawful status in the UK which means being unable to access education, employment, healthcare, housing and other vital services.”

Marianne Lagrue, policy manager at Migrant Children’s Project at Coram, another charity awarded funding to help vulnerable EU nationals apply for the scheme, echoed her concerns, saying it was “absolutely crucial” that vulnerable children received the practical and legal support they needed.

The warnings come ahead of a debate in Westminster Hall on the issue scheduled for Tuesday.

The SNP’s Stuart Mcdonald, one of the cross-party MPs leading the debate, said it was “shocking” that the government was “underfunding” support for children to navigate complex issues of immigration and nationality law.

He added: “Utterly contrary to the Home Office spin, the experience of charities on the front line confirms […] the design of the settled status scheme risks a Windrush-style disaster, and it will be vulnerable groups such as looked-after children who are the most likely to be impacted.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “As of the end of June, EU settlement scheme statistics confirm that not a single person had been refused. It is especially important to ensure that children – as some of the most vulnerable people in our society – are given the support they need to obtain status.

“That is why we are providing grant funding of up to £9m for voluntary and community organisations across the UK to support EU citizens who need help applying. Dedicated Home Office staff are also working closely with local authorities and other stakeholders to help make sure children in care apply for the scheme.”