UK Government Policy and Unaccompanied Adolescents Seeking Asylum

A series of decisions made by successive UK governments with the aim of reducing the flow of immigration has impacted in countless ways on those seeking asylum. The recently published 5-year strategy for asylum and immigration (Home Office, 2005) has potentially very serious implications for unaccompanied asylum seeking children with the government making plans to commence routine detention and deportation of these children if their asylum claim is not accepted. This paper aims to lay out recent legislation in relation to the treatment of unaccompanied 16- and 17-year old young people seeking asylum and to outline the complex asylum process negotiated by these young people.