The British government will face legal action on Wednesday over extensive delays in child asylum cases amid mounting criticism of the way the Home Office is dealing with thousands of unaccompanied minors in the UK.
Lawyers and mental health experts are warning that child survivors of rape, torture and trafficking are suffering mental health problems because they must wait months, even years, for their cases to be addressed.
Even the young people brought by the Home Office directly from Calais are affected by delays and wider problems in the asylum process. The Guardian has heard of least two cases of young people threatened with removal despite being brought over legally to join their family.
Now delays have become so widespread, lawyers say, that they are bringing a judicial review case against the Home Office, based on two test cases. The Home Office says it is committed to resolving 98% of cases within six months, but says some child asylum cases are complex and take longer to resolve.
The government moved in late 2016 to rescue 750 children from Calais and reunite them with family members in the UK. A further 350 came on the “Dubs” scheme that Lord Dubs championed in order to bring over some of the most vulnerable unaccompanied children.
But those children, and about 5,000 more who have arrived in Britain irregularly since early 2016, have faced a difficult reception in the UK. There have been delays of up to two years in cases being resolved.
One boy, whom the Home Office brought to the UK from Calais in order to join his brother, faces the prospect of being sent back to Afghanistan. His sibling has full refugee status in the UK because he was targeted by the Taliban for working closely with Nato troops in Afghanistan.
Elaine Ortiz of the Hummingbird Project in Brighton knew the boy in Calais and went to his Home Office interview with him.
“When he got here the Home Office said he was 19 and he was refused. He had evidence of his age that he had already shown as part of the process of coming to the UK. We knew him in Calais and never doubted he was a child.”
She told the Guardian the interview process was upsetting for the boy. “He was so deeply traumatised he couldn’t remember really simple information like the date he left. He was really, really nervous but the questioner wasn’t child-friendly at all. The whole family are totally crumbling at not knowing what will happen and his mental health is deteriorating.”
The Guardian also spoke to brothers reunited through the family reunion process who were told their case would be resolved in six weeks but have not had an outcome 18 months later.
Annette Elder of Elder Rahimi solicitors has been collecting evidence on the mental health impact of delays of up to two years on vulnerable young asylum seekers. She sees the impact clearly in her young clients.
She said: “It’s just horrific; you have a distressed angry young person who says why aren’t you doing anything? We say we will escalate this, so we threaten to take the Home Office to court, we get a letter back saying ‘a decision will be taken in six months’... the date comes and the date goes and the young person thinks you have been lying to them.”
Elder added: “Damage is being caused but the Home Office is not giving these requests individual consideration. We just get standard responses that bear no relation to the facts of the case and that is not compliant with their legal obligations.”
The number of applications from unaccompanied asylum seeking children in the UK was 2,206 in 2017, down from 3,290 the previous year.
The Home Office has a published target for completing asylum claims of all kinds within six months, but freedom of information requests made by Elder and her colleagues showed that between 2015 and the end of 2017 most child cases were not processed from claim to decision within that target.
The Guardian spoke to the young man whose case is being looked at as part of the judicial review to be heard at the high court on Wednesday.
The boy, known as N in court proceedings, is from Eritrea and arrived alone in the UK at 15. His asylum claim took two years to be processed and was only resolved after lawyers brought legal proceedings against the Home Office. This was despite him being recognised as a victim of trafficking.
N first waited three months for a screening interview and was then given a date for a substantive interview. “When I was told that there was a date for asylum interview to take place I was so happy, so very happy. I felt that I could begin to finally look towards the future.
“I was also told that the decision on the asylum claim would come within 21 days of the asylum interview, so by 25 October 2017.”
But N was identified as a victim of trafficking and he was referred into the national referral mechanism, causing further delays.
“Of course I was disappointed when by 25 October there was still no decision. I felt so bad and confused. Then we received a letter from the Home Office saying that there was no time frame for a decision. I would just have to wait. Things just went black for me then.
“It is like the indefinite Eritrean national service, it is endless. I have problems with my sleep, sometimes I didn’t sleep for 24 hours I just stayed awake worrying.”
N has now been given asylum although he has yet to receive his papers that allow him to move on with his life.
Sheila Melzak is consultant child and adolescent psychotherapist at Baobab, a group supporting young refugees in London, and has submitted evidence to the judicial review hearing at the high court.
She told the Guardian that the young people being affected by delays were being traumatised by the uncertainty in the asylum system.
“I’ve been in this field a long time I’ve never seen young people waiting so long for their substantive interview. There are delays at every level, some of the [children who came legally from Calais] are still waiting for substantive interviews, many are still waiting for results, others are still waiting for court hearings.
“Mental health issues to do with trauma and loss are exacerbated by these incredible delays.”
Elder said she was concerned that the situation would get worse when free movement came to an end. “Given the pressures the Home Office will be under in the coming years with the demands of Brexit this raises concerns about the risk of the situation for young people deteriorating even from what it is now.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “The Home Office is committed to ensuring all those awaiting asylum decisions do not face unnecessary delays. However, cases involving unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are often more complex. A number of barriers can prevent an initial asylum decision being made, including the resolution of medical issues or the preparation of reports to support the individual’s claims.”