Positive thinking

Aoife Daly, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Liverpool   The US policy of separating children from parents entering the country without permission was rightly met with global outrage. After weeks of heart-wrenching stories, images and audio recordings of children crying for their detained parents, Donald Trump finally bowed to pressure and signed an executive order to end family separations. In the UK, while children of immigrant families are not routinely wrenched from parents nor held in cages , many aspects of their treatment are nevertheless inhumane and in breach of international children’s rights law. The UK ended indefinite detention of immigrant families with children in 2010. But there remain what Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister who was a proponent of the change, described as “exceptional cases and border cases” where families are still detained. This might happen, for example, where their removal from the UK is pending and they have ...

Adrienne Yong, City, University of London   The process for approximately 3.5m EU citizens currently living in the UK to apply for a new “settled status” after Brexit has now become clearer, after the Home Office published details of the scheme. But there are still some issues that EU citizens will need to watch out for. There are four steps to a successful settlement scheme application: A digital application form Fee of £65, or £32.50 for children Proof of identity/nationality A photo There are a further three “simple” requirements to satisfy the settlement scheme: Proof of identity Proof of eligibility Proof of suitability Eligibility looks at whether the EU citizen is a resident in the UK, or if they are actually a family member of an EU citizen. Suitability is a criminal background check to ensure the individual is not a threat to public security. Settled and pre-settled status The official date of withdrawal...

   Nando Sigona, University of Birmingham Theresa May , the UK prime minister, and Amber Rudd , home secretary, have both apologised for the distress caused by the treatment of the so-called “Windrush generation”, in the face of mounting pressure from MPs and the wider public. Having been accused by the Home Office of residing in the UK without authorisation, these Commonwealth-born, long-term British residents have been denied access to services and threatened with deportation. Now, the unfolding scandal is stoking concerns among EU nationals in the UK, who also exercised freedom of movement to come to the UK, and are being asked to produce retroactive proof of their right to remain in the emerging post-Brexit scenario. The Windrush generation arrived in the UK, not as migrants, but as British subjects exercising a form of “freedom of movement” within the borders of the British territories. The British Nationality Act 1948 imparted the status of citizensh...