The Project for Registration of Children as British Citizens (PRCBC) has been granted permission by the High Court to challenge the legality of the fees charged for children to obtain British citizenship.
Spiralling visa fees are part of the UK Home Office hostile environment policy.
The policy is a set of administrative and legislative measures designed to make staying in the United Kingdom as difficult as possible for migrants and children born to migrants in the UK.
Fees are set at commercial levels, meaning that British-born children who are eligible for citizenship (because a parent gets settled status or because they have lived here for ten years) face exorbitant fees with no waiver for those who cannot afford the fee, preventing them from registering.
There are an estimated 120,000 vulnerable children who are being detrimentally affected due to the fact that they cannot afford the fee of £1,012 to make an application for British citizenship.
PRCBC is specifically challenging the profit, of over £600, the Home Office makes on each application that a child makes for citizenship.
Sadly there are thousands of children in the UK who are priced out of their rights and may not be able to join friends on a school trip, work, study, or even get hospital treatment.
These children find it difficult to access education and medical care and face social isolation from friends.
Further, they could face detention and deportation to a country they do not know.
The PRCBC challenge is therefore an extremely important case on securing the rights and futures of children to obtain citizenship.
Study, settlement and UK citizenship are increasingly affordable only to the wealthy.
The bitter irony is that the government profits by hindering the rights of the already marginalised very poor to propel up the better off.
The Home Office makes up to 800 percent profit in some cases.
A Home Affairs Committee review reveals that the department made £800 million from fees in six years.
You can have your say for children born in the UK, for whom it is home, who are unable to register as British citizens because they can’t afford the fees, by signing an Amnesty International petition here.
The BaRE UK 