Our family reunion project aims to assist those with refugee status and humanitarian protection to prepare their own family reunion applications for family members. Our law student volunteers will assist you to gather the correct documentation, fill in the application form and prepare your own covering letter.

Criteria for our family reunion project

To be eligible for our project you must:

  • Have refugee status or humanitarian protection status. We cannot accept referrals from British Citizens
  • Be applying for family reunion for your spouse, civil partner, unmarried partner (with whom you have co-habited for at least 2 years) and/or your biological child under 18 years
  • Have married/began cohabiting with your partner before you left your country and/or your child was born/conceived before you left your country

Referrals to our project

We take referrals for our project via our General Advice Service.

You will be given a list of documents when you are referred to our project. You must bring these to your first appointment.

We do not offer legal representation in your family reunion case. We will assist you to make the application yourself with assistance from our volunteers.

You will have an initial appointment with an OISC L2/3 immigration caseworker. They will provide one-off legal advice and determine whether you meet the criteria for our project. They will tell you what further documents you need to provide.

You will then be paired with a law student volunteer who will assist you to complete the online and paper application form. They will also assist you to gather documents and prepare a cover letter.

Your application will be checked by an OISC Level 2/3 caseworker before you submit it.

Fees and expenses

We do not charge fees for our service. There will be costs relating to your application that you will have to pay. Examples are passport application fees, fees for TB tests, translation fees, travel to the embassy etc.

We can refer you to our grants team at NNRF to help you to apply for funding to meet these costs.

Appeals

Unfortunately we will not be able to assist you further if your claim is unsuccessful. We can refer you to a solicitor but they will charge a fee.

Confidentiality

We will always treat your information with the strictest confidence. Anything disclosed to us will not be passed onto anyone outside the Project without your explicit consent, unless there are circumstances where we believe there may be a risk to yourself or other people, in which case we may be obliged to speak to relevant authorities.

Interpreters

You can request an interpreter for any meeting at the NNRF. An NNRF trained interpreter will be provided. If at any time you are not happy with your interpreter please tell us.