Leave to Remain – But No Home to Remain in After Fees Treble

Young people who have grown up in the UK are being forced into destitution as a result of Home Office fees that have more than trebled in the past five years. The cost of renewing an application for a resident with limited leave to remain has increased by 238% in five years – from £601 per person in 2014 to £2,033 in January 2019.

Let us Learn, which is part of the charity Just for Kids Law, compiled the data as part of a report by young UK migrants about life on the Home Office’s 10-year route to British citizenship.Limited leave to remain is granted to people with a strong connection to the UK including those who have lived in Britain for number of years or who have family or property here.

The length of time that a resident must wait before becoming eligible to apply for British citizenship has almost doubled since 2012, from six years to 10 – pushing thousands of lawful migrants into an increasingly precarious existence. Fees for a limited leave to remain application are applied per person rather than per household, and status must be renewed every 30 months – meaning that some families are paying tens of thousands of pounds every two and a half years to stay on track.

Let Us Learn said it had seen cases where parents were forced to choose which child’s status they could afford to maintain, without enough money to pay fees for the whole family, causing further insecurity.

Read more: Poppy Noor, Guardian, https://is.gd/kDMHru