All children and young people in the UK should be kept safe and have equal access to justice, regardless of where they were born. However, sweeping changes made to legal aid provision for immigration cases have put some of the most vulnerable children in this country at serious risk and unable to get the help they need.

This report, written in partnership with Dr Helen Connolly, University of Bedfordshire, highlights the needs of unaccompanied and separated children in a system that often renders them invisible, harming both their childhood and their future. It updates our findings in Cut Off from Justice (2015), four years after the introduction of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act, and provides recommendations to help address the issues raised in our research.