Coram Children’s Legal Centre welcomes new Head of Legal Practice

Coram Children’s Legal Centre is delighted to announce the appointment of Rosalyn Akar Grams as the new head of our Legal Practice Unit. Rosalyn succeeds Noel Arnold, who held the position for the last seven years. Rosalyn is an experienced solicitor specialising in asylum, immigration and human rights cases and is an accredited supervisor under…


Kafalah adoption and EU free movement legal challenge

The Court of Justice of the European Union in this case considered the position of children placed under guardianship in the Algerian Kafalah system. The Court decided that such a child can be treated as a family member for the purpose of EU free movement law. SM, known as Susana in the UK courts, is…


Home Office must not make profit from children’s immigration and citizenship applications

Coram Children’s Legal Centre (CCLC) has today joined Citizens UK, Let Us Learn and others to call for the Home Office to stop making a profit on children’s immigration and citizenship applications, on the day the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI) publishes his report on fees. CCLC welcomes the ICIBI’s report and…



Labour pledges to end ‘rip off’ Home Office fees in immigration cases

Let Us Learn and Coram Children’s Legal Centre, working together on the ‘We Belong’ campaign, welcome today’s pledge from Labour to end the current ‘rip off’ of immigration application fees by reducing them to closer reflect the actual cost price of processing applications. As noted in the speech by Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott, many…



Separated children to be eligible for legal aid funding prior to LASPO amendment

The government has issued guidance for legal aid caseworkers confirming that those representing unaccompanied and separated children should apply for legal aid via the exceptional case funding scheme, prior to LASPO amendment. This was confirmed following the Ministry of Justice announcement to reinstate legal aid for unaccompanied and separated children with immigration matters last month,…



Victory for victims of trafficking and modern slavery in legal aid dispute

UK government confirms legal aid available for victims of trafficking following court challenge Legal aid is vital for children and young people to realise their rights. However, legal aid was cut for a number of areas of law – the negative impact of which is explored in our recent report. One area where it was still available was for victims…


Studying and immigration bail

We have published an information page on studying, ‘no study’ conditions and immigration bail. In January 2018, changes were made to the law regarding immigration bail. Anyone without leave to remain to enter will be subject to immigration bail. This includes asylum seekers, unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, undocumented children and young people and care leavers without…


Mayor of London outlines support for young migrants in new social integration strategy

CCLC welcomes the Mayor of London’s strategy for social integration and the Mayor’s commitment to working towards a shorter, more affordable route to citizenship. The strategy, published today, recognises that: thousands of young Londoners have grown up here but cannot fulfil their potential because of insecure immigration status. Despite London being their home, these young people…


CCLC intervenes in Supreme Court case for family members of EU citizens

The Supreme Court has published its judgment on an important case about international adoption in which CCLC intervened to emphasise the importance of considering the best interests of children. The case, SM (Algeria), was about a young Algerian, abandoned by her parents, who was adopted by way of a Kefalah adoption by a French couple.…