New change to Home Office policy permanently blocks refugees from citizenship

Change is bad in principle and breaches the Refugee Convention

Photo by Ethan Wilkinson on Unsplash

Over on Free Movement, Sonia has just put out a short article on a change to the Home Office policy guidance to its own caseworkers on how to interpret the law on acquiring British citizenship. I don’t normally duplicate content between here and Free Movement but this is important. Really important.

One of the requirements to naturalise as a British citizen is to show you are of “good character”. This criterion has always been ambiguous vague problematic flexible and has been reinterpreted by the Home Office several times in the past.

Now this has been added to page 50 of the guidance:

Any person applying for citizenship from 10 February 2025, who previously entered the UK illegally will normally be refused, regardless of the time that has passed since the illegal entry took place.

Any person applying for citizenship before 10 February 2025 where illegal entry is a factor, will continue to have their application reviewed to determine whether that immigration breach should be disregarded for the purpose of the character assessment.

And this has been added to page 51:

Arriving without a required valid entry clearance or electronic travel authorisation, having made a dangerous journey

A person who applies for citizenship from 10 February 2025 who has previously arrived without a required valid entry clearance or electronic travel authorisation, having made a dangerous journey will normally be refused citizenship.

A dangerous journey includes, but is not limited to, travelling by small boat or concealed in a vehicle or other conveyance. It does not include, for example, arrival as a passenger with a commercial airline.

Sonia has put together a side by side comparison if you want to see the change for yourself.

At first I hoped this was some sort of accident, a residue of the Illegal Migration Act, which legislated to have this same effect, still making its way through the system. But it doesn't look like it. It looks deliberate. Even though those provisions of the Illegal Migration Act are being scrapped by this government.

A permanent bar on citizenship for illegal entrants is a bad idea. It creates a permanent group on non citizens who are forever excluded from civic life no matter how long they live here and no matter what they do.

It also has zero deterrent effect. This is never going to stop someone coming here. It merely punishes them for doing so. It’s punishment without rehabilitation. It’s spiteful.

And, although this is hardly the main point, it’s also in breach of international law. I’m wary of making claims for international law but I struggle to see how this could not be a breach of the Refugee Convention. Article 31 says:

The Contracting States shall not impose penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees who, coming directly from a territory where their life or freedom was threatened in the sense of Article 1, enter or are present in their territory without authorization, provided they present themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence

That’s known as the non-penalisation clause. Denial of citizenship for reason of illegal entry is penalisation.

And then there’s also Article 34:

The Contracting States shall as far as possible facilitate the assimilation and naturalization of refugees. They shall in particular make every effort to expedite naturalization proceedings and to reduce as far as possible the charges and costs of such proceedings.

The Refugee Convention is binding on the United Kingdom. But it is also unenforceable, because it is not incorporated into domestic law. There is no international court, nor any domestic court, which can say “that’s a breach, I order you to comply”.

So a government can, in practice, often get away with breaches like this. But I thought this new government was supposed to be taking international law seriously.

Apparently not.

The word “normally” has been used in the new guidance, which appears to give some wiggle room to officials and to ministers, who could disingenuously claim that allowance will be made for refugees.

As Sonia says, though, the application fee for naturalisation is a king’s ransom: currently £1,630. No-one is going to risk that money making an application which will “normally” be refused.

This change should be reversed. That’s not easy for any government to do but it is important here.

Failing that, new guidance is rapidly needed stating that this change will not be applied to refugees. We’ve been here before in 2015, when a past Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, John Vine, went far, far beyond his brief and criticised policy on naturalisation, leading to a similar change being put in place back then, although it was not a permanent ban but for 10 years. Eventually some clarification was added stating that refugees would be exempt.

Finally, if it is not already plain from what goes before, this is a terrible, terrible change. It’s extremely disappointing, to put it mildly.