Children, fleeing the camps of Calais and taking refuge with relatives in the UK, are proving a financial burden as relatives find they must pay for immigration lawyers. Photo credit: Rusty Stewart via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND). Some rights reserved.
It was a cold winter day last year and the small waiting room at Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit is cramped as usual with clients waiting to be seen by their lawyers. Among those in the crowded space are two teenage Afghan boys. They stand up when their names are called, and are accompanied by their sister, her husband and the couple's young child. There is also a smartly dressed white British male in tow.
They all troop through to the interview room. The teenagers arrived recently from a refugee camp in Calais, allowed into the UK because their older sister lives here and is married to a settled British national.
