92% of refugee family reunion visas are issued to women and children fleeing conflict. Today, that vital safe route has been suspended.
A Home Secretary who once endorsed #FamilyReunion as a safe and legal route to sanctuary, for those who need it desperately, has now chosen to close it down.
This Government pledged to expand safe and legal immigration routes to deter dangerous Channel crossings and maintain control over who comes to the UK. Yet the Government has already closed the resettlement schemes for Afghans who helped British forces, and it has refused to open smaller programmes to respond to crises like Gaza. Unless you are Ukrainian or from Hong Kong, there are virtually no safe routes left to seek refuge in the UK. The UK’s worldwide resettlement programme with the UNHCR last year resettled less than 900 people.
Children, having already survived the horrors of war and persecution, need their parents and siblings. But this decision will leave them stuck alone, often in camps, with no way to reach family or safety. We are talking about children from countries including Afghanistan, Sudan and Gaza, who have experienced the chaos of war and human rights abuses. Refugee family reunion is often the only lifeline. Without it, they must choose between staying in danger and war, or making the dangerous journey through the smugglers this UK Government claims it is seeking to stop.
This has all the hallmarks of appeasing far right scaremongering, something that all politicians should be extremely careful about. In the meantime, people who are already desperate pay the human cost.
We urge the UK Government to think again.
Protecting family reunion is a humanitarian commitment. Closing safe routes won’t solve system pressures; it will push more people toward dangerous journeys and take the UK further away from compassion and its legal and moral obligations. Surely, it is not who we are as a country.
