Refugee Family Reunion Routes: Sudan

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Stuart C. McDonald]

“Computer says no” is pretty close to the bone. The Home Office has a policy on biometric enrolment, and it sticks rigidly to it even when dramatic circumstances such as those persisting in Sudan mean that a different approach should be taken.

The Home Office can take a different approach, and it has done so in certain circumstances. The Minister would not like it if I made a comparison with Ukraine, and I do not want to do so, but I simply point out that, in those incredible circumstances, the Home Office was able to take a different approach. I am not asking for anything remotely approaching what was done in that situation; I am just asking the Home Office to be a little more deft, a wee bit more responsive, and to think about the considerations that should apply for people applying from Sudan.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

I am sure my hon. Friend is aware that there is a big Sudanese community in Glasgow, and I remember a meeting I had with a number of Sudanese people who made that very point about Ukraine. They said, “We want this country to look after Ukrainians. Of course, it has to look after them; they are going through a terrible war and they are being attacked—but so are our families. What is the difference?” Does my hon. Friend understand how important this debate will be to Sudanese people living in this country? At last, somebody is talking about their pain and cares enough to secure a debate in the House of Commons. I know they really appreciate everything he is trying to do.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her remarks, but the tribute should be paid to RAMFEL and the other organisations out there that do amazing work on behalf of the Sudanese community.

There are people who would make a legitimate argument that there should be some sort of equivalence in the treatment of Ukraine and Sudan, but that is not the case I am making tonight. I am simply saying that the Home Office showed in the case of Ukraine that it was willing to apply different rules, or to apply the same rules differently. It was able to be nimble and to respond accordingly to a grave situation. This, too, is a grave situation and there should be some sort of flexibility in the response.

On this point, the solution is pretty obvious: we need a more generous set of exceptions to the rule that requires biometric information be provided in advance. I am not the only one saying that. The House of Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee recently reported on family migration:

“The Home Office should exercise its discretion to lift or delay the requirement to submit biometrics when this would involve travelling in dangerous conditions or outside the applicant’s country of residence. The Home Office should allow biometrics to be completed on arrival in the UK for a wider range of nationalities in crisis situations.”

That seems to be the compassionate and common-sense thing to do. If the Minister is not willing to go as far as the Committee suggests, surely he must see that the application of the rules in the types of circumstances I have described is gravely unsettling and must be revisited in some form.

I turn next to rules in relation to siblings. Even those who ultimately are able to jump through the first administrative hoop are far from guaranteed success in their family reunion application. Existing rules focus on family reunion for spouses and for children under 18. I have spoken in previous debates about various problems with what I regard as the overly restrictive category of relationships that can benefit from family reunion without further tests applying, but today I will focus on siblings.

Given the situation prevailing in Sudan and neighbouring countries, many children find themselves either orphaned or without any contact with their parents. For these kids, their siblings here in the UK are essentially their only remaining family. That said, if a 15-year-old seeks to join their 20-year-old brother here, they must first pay a fee and a health surcharge, unless they are granted a waiver, which adds an additional hurdle. Then, as well as proving their relationship, they must show that there are exceptional circumstances and that the refusal of their application would result in unjustifiably harsh consequences for the applicant.

Meeting those tests can be surprisingly difficult. It often seems that the general country situation, however hellish, will never be enough to make a person’s circumstances—even a child’s circumstances—exceptional enough to overcome that hurdle. A person seems to need to be able to show that their circumstances are exceptional, even compared with other individuals in that country—in that warzone. That is a hugely difficult prospect, likely requiring legal advice and lawyers, and it is difficult to obtain the necessary evidence.

Surely the Home Office can be more responsive to the situation on the ground in Sudan. At the very least, could we not have clear guidance that any child living unaccompanied in Sudan should be treated as meeting the necessary tests of exceptionality and harsh consequences, and therefore should, in principle, be allowed to be reunited with a UK-based sibling? Surely that is the bare minimum we can do.

As I said, even if those tests are overcome, the fact that siblings are not considered “core” family members for the purposes of the rules has other consequences. I turn to another case study. Two unaccompanied Eritrean children saw a household member killed. One of the kids was beaten up during the same raid. They submitted applications for family reunion in November 2022, some months before the most recent upsurge in fighting. The applications were originally refused, but an appeal was lodged and the Home Office eventually conceded it. That was welcome, but the Home Office is now insisting on payment of the immigration health surcharge, which, of course, the family simply cannot afford. Surely in such circumstances any fee or health surcharge should be waived.

Finally, I turn to processing times. If one of these kids is somehow in a position to jump through all the hoops I have described, surely the least we will offer is a speedy priority service. The service standard for family reunion applications is 12 weeks, but I am told that many applications take six months to a year. If an appeal is required in order to overturn a refusal—we have just heard about an example of that—the wait can be more than doubled. Family separation will always be painful, but for unaccompanied children in Sudan, and even in some of the neighbouring countries, it is also seriously dangerous. Surely some sort of priority processing has to be given to cases where the applicant is directly in danger.

Another case study involves Wissam, who is 17, and Abdul, who is 14. They applied to join their older brother just before war broke out and had an appointment to enrol their biometrics in Khartoum. That could not happen, as the centre closed down. Struggling to access food and water, and at risk of kidnapping, trafficking or exploitation, the brothers were victims of robbery. Ultimately, they decided to flee again and make a dangerous, irregular journey to Uganda. They now live unaccompanied in cramped conditions and, because of their age and nationality, face regular discrimination in accessing sanitation, including clean water. The 14-year-old is struggling with mental health issues and suffering night terrors because of his experiences in Sudan and on the journey to Uganda. Surely we cannot leave those two brothers, who are now in a position to submit their application, to wait for months and perhaps years. Surely applications have to be given priority in those circumstances.

The Minister will no doubt tell us about the significant number of people who do arrive here in the UK under our family reunion arrangements. I acknowledge that fact and I welcome it. However, it would be totally wrong to say that the system is functioning well; various reports by the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration testify to that. Lots of improvements still have to be made. I am not asking for a revolution today, although perhaps I will pursue that further in the months to come. Today, I simply ask that the Home Office accepts that it has to be nimble, to respond and to tweak its rules and processes where circumstances require. The utterly dire circumstances in Sudan surely justify such a response.

In summary, I am asking the Home Office three things. First, I ask it to rethink the requirement for people trapped in Sudan—particularly children—to provide biometrics in advance at a visa application centre. Please look at alternatives, whether waiting until people’s arrival in the UK before requiring biometrics, or some other compromise that does not hold up the consideration of applications.

Secondly, I ask the Home Office, either by tweaking the rules or, perhaps more realistically, by issuing guidance for cases such as those I have described, to make it clear that, as a general rule, children from Sudan seeking to join siblings or other family members in the UK should be treated as meeting the “exceptional” test for the family reunion rules. I would like to think that that would be applied to siblings more generally, but for today’s purposes I make a special case for those seeking to leave Sudan. I also ask the Home Office not to make any such applications subject to fees and health surcharges.

Thirdly, I ask the Home Office to prioritise these applications, in recognition of the dangers that the people making them face. Do not leave them waiting for months. Finally, if possible, seek to work with international organisations and non-governmental organisations to help support safe passage from Sudan, as and when applications are allowed.

I close with a warning, because the danger is that if we do not facilitate their applications, these youngsters will end up seeking to make their own way to the UK, irregularly and dangerously. That brings me to the final case I want to mention, which is that of 16-year-old Daoud, who fled Eritrea to Sudan. In the light of the situation there, he fled again, to South Sudan. With no progress on securing refugee family reunion from there, he took matters into his own hands and started making his way towards the Mediterranean. He is currently arbitrarily detained in Libya. Some might say he made his own choices, but I think we left him with no choice at all.

I do not want to have to come back here in a few months with another Adjournment debate on this subject and to have to provide similar—or even worse—updates on the other children I have mentioned in this debate. I know the Minister cannot make policy on the hoof, but I urge him to speak with officials, to rethink the Home Office strategy in relation to those who are suffering in Sudan, and to ensure that we are doing all we can to facilitate and support family reunion.