What is it?
Our immigration service at Just for Kids Law (JfKL) offers a telephone advice line in order to provide advice, on a one-off basis, to young migrants aged between 10 and 25 who need assistance in relation to their legal immigration matters.
The advice is provided directly by our Immigration lawyer. Due to the strict regulatory requirements regarding the provision of immigration advice; immigration legal advice should always be provided directly by a regulated lawyer and, shouldn’t be passed through a third party.
The provision of one-off advice seeks to provide a better understanding of children and young people’s full rights and entitlements, in relation to their immigration matters. This is provided through our immigration lawyer’s legal expertise which is applied to the information provided about the facts of their situation and explained in accessible, youth friendly language.
Why do we have it?
Due to the restrictions on public funding (Legal Aid), most young people have to pay for legal advice about their immigration issues. There is a high demand for good, free immigration legal advice.
Many of the young people we work with are affected, either directly or indirectly, by immigration issues and the hostile environment for migrants in the UK. We have seen a deterioration in the circumstances faced by young migrants since the UK voted to leave the EU in July 2016. The Coronavirus pandemic has disproportionately affected the most vulnerable members of our society, including young migrants with insecure immigration status, or young people are vulnerable because of their nationality. The service we provide is more important than ever.
The intended outcome of providing our telephone advice service is that young migrants have improved knowledge of their rights and entitlements. We want young migrants to experience reduced uncertainty about their immigration status and enable and empower young people to make more informed choices about their immigration status.
How does it work?
At JfKL we operate a ‘New Client Enquiry’ service (NCE for short.) Anyone who contacts us who needs assistance with an immigration-related matter is asked to provide some basic information to our central administration team. We do not offer a same-day emergency service.
Our immigration lawyer then seeks to respond to the enquiry within 3 working days. She provides advice on a one-off basis. This means that she will do her best to find out as much information about your situation as possible and then provide information and advice about your options. This could be about the rights you have to remain in the country, the type of application you might need to make to stay in the country, or, how to challenge a negative decision from the Home Office. Our lawyer can advise on a whole range of issues. If she is not able to offer advice, she will help you find someone with more expertise in the area that you need help in.
Our telephone advice line is not a gateway to JfKL providing representation for your legal case. We do offer legal representation, but our capacity is very limited. We are currently reviewing the ways in which we can offer legal representation to a greater number of young people.
