QARN criticises new Home Office guidance
'A citizenship application currently costs £1,630 and there is no right to appeal’
The Quaker Asylum and Refugee Network (QARN) has urged the government to reverse its decision to close off citizenship to people arriving irregularly.
Urging Friends to write to their MPs, QARN criticised new Home Office changes to the ‘good character’ guidance, which immigration staff use to assess whether people applying for citizenship should have their application approved or denied. The main change is the addition of the sentence: ‘Any person applying for citizenship from 10 February 2025, who previously entered the UK illegally, will normally be refused.’
The updated guidance adds that people ‘arriving without a required valid entry clearance or electronic travel authorisation, having made a dangerous journey, will normally be refused citizenship’. Travelling by small boat or being concealed in a vehicle are cited as examples of a dangerous journey.
‘Before this change, refugees who had arrived “irregularly” would need to wait ten years before being considered for naturalisation. A citizenship application currently costs £1,630 and there is no right to appeal,’ it said, on the Quakers in Britain website.
‘There are very limited safe and legal routes available for people to travel to the UK to claim asylum, and it is not possible to apply for asylum in the UK without being here.’
Under international law, applying for asylum is not ‘illegal’, regardless of how the person arrived, QARN has pointed out. Article 31 of the Refugee Convention prohibits countries from penalising refugees because they have entered a country irregularly, if they meet certain requirements.
