The government is under increasing pressure from MP’s and charities to ease up on some of the rules that are currently prohibiting refugee families from reuniting.
The current rules only allow for adult refugees to apply for their married or civil partners and children under 18 years old. Grandparents, siblings and children over 18 are not eligible.
What’s more is that children with refugee status who are in the UK do not hold the right to be reunited with even their closest family members.
Many MP’s and campaigners are not happy with this and are demanding the government takes some action, either through amendments to the governments post-Brexit immigration bill or through a private members bill put forward by SNP’s Agnus MacNeil.
The charity Oxfam is also calling on its supporters to put pressure on the government.
Stuart McDonald, the SNP’s spokesman for immigration, told the Commons:
“The UK is once more an outlier in terms of the refugee family reunion rules it has in place. Sadly, the [immigration] bill does not mention asylum at all, and gives us little chance to address those issues.”
Sajid Javid has said that the government “constantly review the rules to make sure they are fair.” However, the attention is growing on this issue and it may prove to be the cause of some civil unrest is the government don’t address it soon.
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