Fighting to Keep Families Together Against All Odds

Our clients were the parents of two young children, both of whom were born in the UK, yet had no nationality. Our clients had met each other in 2007 whilst studying in the UK, and then became married in 2013, against the will of their families abroad. As a result of this, our clients were ostracised by their families, and were living in the UK without any ties to their home country or any support.

When our clients came to us, as a family they had no further leave to remain. However, we advised them that as their eldest daughter was born in the UK and had been living here for almost 5 years, that she could be eligible to apply for British Citizenship as a stateless person. Our client had previously applied for further leave to remain as a stateless person, however this had failed since our client had been unable to prove that their daughter was officially stateless, and that they had attempted to register her nationality with the High Commission of their home country. Our client had in fact attempted to register their daughter’s birth with the High Commission, however had been unable to do so, as their documents at the time were held by the Home Office as the result of a previous application, and so they were not able to provide the relevant documentation to complete the registration.

We were able to advise our clients that they would not succumb to the same hurdle when applying for British Citizenship as a stateless person, since it was determined in the case MK v SSHD (2017) that a person is stateless if he or she has no nationality, and that the ability to acquire nationality is irrelevant.

Once we were able to prove that our client’s eldest daughter was able to satisfy the other requirements, namely that she had been living in the UK for the past five years, and that she was under the age of 22, we completed the remaining formalities and within three months we received the decision that the application had been granted, alongside the Certificate of Registration as a British Citizenship for our client’s daughter.

This was fantastic news for the family, since it meant that our clients’ daughter could continue her life undisrupted in the UK and continue to attend primary school with her friends without fear of being removed from the country. Since both children were born in the UK, and were not nationals of any country, it would not have been possible to remove them to another environment, where they would not have known the language or culture.

Furthermore, now that our clients’ daughter has been granted British Citizenship, we can work to regularise the leave of her parents and younger sister, based on her British nationality and her dependency to them. We’ll fighting to keep families together.