Legal Update: Migrant looked-after children

In February, a vulnerable care leaver – a young black man with significant learning difficulties – was threatened with deportation to a country he has not lived in since he was four years old. The young man, Osime Brown, was saved from deportation following a crime he maintains he did not commit after tireless campaigning from his mother. How did Brown, like so many others, leave care with such a profound safeguarding concern as a lack of British citizenship unaddressed?

New research published by Coram Children’s Legal Centre and South London Refugee Association shows that of the more than 80,000 looked-after children in England, 7,817 were not British in July 2021. The research also found that the numbers are much higher for teenagers who have already left care. A staggering 11,519 care leavers aged between 18 and 25 in England are not British, compared with an estimated 42,950 care leavers aged between 18 and 21 receiving ongoing support from local authorities.