In a statement published today, the Jesuit Refugee Service UK (JRS UK), the European Network on Statelessness (ENS), stateless communities, and other leading experts have called for the government to rethink its proposals on earned settlement, which would increase the length of time most migrants have to wait before they can get settlement in the UK, and create extra barriers to settlement for refugees, people arriving informally, and people in low paid work, among others. Most refugees would have an especially long wait – a default period of 20 years – before they can apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain. The proposals would lock stateless people out of nationality for longer – keeping them stateless and in limbo.
The statement notes that “Extending and complicating settlement pathways would prolong statelessness, increase the likelihood of falling into irregularity, heighten barriers to work and integration, and—because stateless people have no other country to turn to for protection—trap individuals and families indefinitely in insecurity,” and also that, as a whole, “the proposals risk entrenching insecurity, poverty and exclusion, undermining integration and social cohesion”.
Sophie Cartwright, JRS UK’s Senior Policy Officer, said: “The government’s earned settlement proposals are utterly cruel, unworkable, and damaging for society as a whole. They would force people who have already lost everything to spend years in limbo, unable to rebuild their lives in security. And they risk trapping stateless people in statelessness.”
The proposals heavily penalise people for arriving informally, immigration infractions, accruing debt, or accessing public funds. The statement notes that they “both create and punish vulnerability.”
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