Raza Halim of the Garden Court Public Law Team is instructed by Duncan Lewis Solicitors on behalf of the claimants. The Duncan Lewis team consists of Gina Skandari, Kristen Allison, Susannah Eley and Ilana Thurgood, under Toufique Hossain.
Following a legal challenge, the High Court has ordered the Home Secretary to retain, and not treat a family’s Refugee Family Reunion application, as void.
The Home Office must await the outcome of a judicial review challenging the Home Office’s ‘Unsafe Journeys Guidance’.
Background
This claim has been brought by a Palestinian family who applied to join a family member in the UK under the Refugee Family Reunion route, prior to the (then) Home Secretary’s indefinite pause of that route on September 4, 2025.
As part of the application, the sponsor also sought a biometric exemption for his family in Gaza. This was on the basis that the biometric enrolment centre in the Gaza Strip was closed, and it was practically impossible for his family to leave Gaza to attend an alternative centre without consular support. This request was refused by the Home Secretary.
However, in an out of hours interim relief hearing in the High Court in April, Mr Justice Griffiths recorded the Home Secretary’s concession, upon being pressed, that the claimant’s family reunion applications could be retained on the Home Office’s computer system. This was despite statements to the contrary in pre-action correspondence and the Unsafe Journeys Guidance.
Without the biometric waiver, the claimants faced the Home Office’s strict 240-day biometric enrolment deadline. If applicants fail to enrol biometrics within that timeframe, their applications are automatically deleted, voided and Home Office caseworkers are directed to refuse the applications.
Refugee Family Reunion Policy
Prior to the suspension of the Refugee Family Reunion route, this deletion was frustrating but not irredeemable, as applicants could re-submit their applications. Post September 2025, there is no remedy available. If applications under the (withdrawn) Refugee Family Reunion Policy are automatically deleted and voided after 240 days, and no biometrics are enrolled, there is no way back onto the withdrawn policy.
That is potentially fatal for many in Gaza, one of the most vulnerable populations in the world, still facing widespread child malnutrition, as well as significant injuries and psychological trauma.
Despite repeatedly seeking the preservation of their family reunion applications, the Home Secretary refused to do so, only to concede during the out of hours hearing that she could, in fact, provide a ‘workaround’ that would avoid this fatal outcome for the claimants’ applications.
Challenge to Unsafe Journeys Guidance
This interim relief order is an enormous win for the present claimants. However, there are many more individuals facing the same deletion of their Refugee Family Reunion applications.
This claim continues as it challenges the lawfulness of the Unsafe Journeys Guidance, which not only fails to account for the consequences of the suspension of Refugee Family Reunion, but also directly contradicts the concessions made by the Home Secretary in this claim.
