Tag: UKBA

So, it has come to this.

Oh, the irony

Here, by way of an update, is the terrible story of the last week, along with some background…..

A couple of months ago, due to a minor administrative mistake, Rhonda and Audrey’s resident visa applications were rejected as invalid, despite our repeated attempts to clarify what the problem was.

A great many wonderful people generously donated money to help us meet the extortionate costs of making the application, for which we are eternally grateful and most of that fee was refunded when the application was turned down.

We have since been communicating with the UKBA and the Home Office via our MP, who offered to help and who had requested that they review our case for an appeal. He told us last weekend that a letter had been written to us on Friday and would arrive this week.

The letter arrived on Wednesday: “right of appeal denied”.

It informed us in no uncertain terms, that they would not consider our case for appeal, as we had failed to register our biometrics on time, (due to them neglecting to point out that we could have done so at any time, on the MULTIPLE OCCASIONS I spoke to them about our identity documents) but we could reapply whenever we liked.

They also pointed out that any new application would likely be turned down, as my wife and daughter have overstayed their visa deadline (whilst waiting for the Home Office to get back to us) and were now considered illegal immigrants.

AND, this Monday, Rhonda’s boss, who knew her visa expired in April and had still happily been employing her since, (while she continued to make all her tax and NI contributions, I might add) announced that he could no longer have her working there and told her to leave until our appeal reference number arrived.

All of this, just two days before our right to appeal was denied.

This effectively cuts our family income in half overnight.

So yesterday we spoke to a lawyer, who didn’t bother to sugar coat the bad news.

To drive the point home that we really are in rather deep shit, he led with this terrifying announcement;

*The UKBA could turn up any time and take my family away to a transit centre, prior to deportation*

Now he had my attention, in fact I think my heart briefly stopped.

Our only options are as follows:

1) They return to the States immediately to a life of destitution and poverty, with the tenuous possibility that I could join them at some distant point in the future somehow.

2) We pay the solicitors £1500 to put our case to the highest appeal court in the land as a judicial review, admit our stupid admin error and plead family life, human rights, etc, which would also mean paying the newly inflated fees, about another £3500, when the application is submitted by the solicitors, hopefully sometime next week.

Even then, the visa would only be granted on a discretionary basis and there is as good a chance as any that they will reject it.

If you have to leave the country as the result of a “rejected” (as opposed to “invalid”) visa application, there is no refund and no return to the UK for ten years.

Fortunately, it’s payday, so we paid the lawyers my last month’s wages this morning and have a phone consultation booked for Monday at 11.00.

Assuming we don’t get a knock on the door before that.

Any crossed fingers, tribal offerings, lucky rabbit’s feet, or general good vibes would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Peace.
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That was the week that was…dreadful.

There have been a lot of stories in the news recently about the Windrush generation and the appalling way in which the British government has treated those brave families, who left their homes to help build a better life for themselves and to enrich our society.

The scandal that followed; an attempt to cover up the way our immigration system has failed so many people so catastrophically, is shocking, but sadly not a surprise, especially for those of us who have to deal with it on a regular basis.

Over two months ago, Rhonda and I resumed the brain-melting, soul-destroying process of applying for the renewal of her and Audrey’s resident visas, a very particular form of torture which is becoming more inhumane and unnecessarily incomprehensible each time.

Our original application was posted to the UKBA on March 5th, but not before we discovered an additional charge which wasn’t mentioned until we printed off the forms…

…so we went to their website and retrieved the two personal IHS numbers required for Rhonda and Audrey to access the National Health Service (despite the fact we have been married for three years, during which time Rhonda has paid full tax and national insurance contributions) only to find they cost £500 EACH!

Another thousand pounds we don’t have, on top of the two and a half grand I had only just managed to finance with a bank loan. And we could only complete the form by applying for the numbers and paying for them online, immediately leaving us a grand short for the actual visa application.

Needless to say, that was a very fraught afternoon.

After several heated phone calls and much stressed-out swearing, I posted a ranting status update on Facebook, concerning the injustice of the system in general and the blatant extortion by the UKBA and Home Office specifically, which yielded a suggestion by my cousin to start a GoFundMe campaign.

I know crowdfunding is popular these days, but the idea of begging friends, family and strangers alike for money has never been a pleasant one, no matter what the reason, but desperate times require desperate measures, so I set one up.

With utter astonishment and eternal gratitude, we watched donations come pouring in from around the world; from family and friends old and new, to total strangers and friends-of-friends, we eventually raised just over £900 of the ambitious £2000 goal I’d set, just about covering the extra fees and returning us to square one.

Fortunately, the bureaucrats hadn’t got around to taking payment, using the card details I had supplied with our application, so I was able to top up my account with the donations and then we just waited for news.

Until, that is, a couple of days later, when I got a call from my bank.

I reproduce here for you, one of my Facebook posts from that day, which for those of you with delicate sensibilities, does contain some rather robust language…

***Visa update***

Ok, all you lovely people have overwhelmed us with your generosity and we have finally sent off the application (including my bank card details, so they can take payment when they process the forms) leaving us to wait for their decision, hoping they get round to it soon.

Anyway, I was sitting here, waiting for Rhonda to get home from work last night, when I got a text from the bank;

“Halifax has noticed your Halifax Debit card ending **** was used on 14-03-2018 20:32:31, at ARGOS LTD for £44.99. This payment has not been debited from your account. Please confirm if this transaction was made by you by replying Yes or No. Replying with Yes will NOT cause the payment to leave your account.”

Oh, Fuck!

I rang them immediately and, long story short, they told me there had now been three tries at taking money and they would have to cancel my card, otherwise they couldn’t be responsible for blocking any further fraudulent attempts on my account.

The card that is about to be used to pay for the visas!

Oh, double-FUCK!

So, today I rang the Home Office enquiries line (there is, of course, no way to get in touch with the actual visa application department, that would be too easy) and they basically told me that they couldn’t tell me anything definite, but there are two likely options;

1 – They could contact us and request an alternate payment method (I should have a new card by Monday) after which the application will continue as before.

2 – We may have to reapply from scratch, meaning we’ll need to pay for TWO MORE FUCKING IHS NUMBERS. (they “should” refund the first ones, since we didn’t use them)

All this, AFTER Rhonda and Audrey’s current visas have expired.

So there you have it; the nightmare continues.

All of which brings us up to the last week or so.

Things really couldn’t go any more wrong, that would just be ridiculous…right?

Yeah, right.

Because next come the biometrics; all that personal data which must be reaffirmed each time a visa is renewed.

Here are the bullet points of that fiasco:

– We need our identity documents to apply for the biometrics in person.

– But the UKBA still have them, so I wrote (and rang, and emailed and filled in online forms) to have the documents returned to us.

– The UKBA send us a letter telling us we must apply for our biometrics in ten days or our application will be rejected.

– I ring to explain in great and patient detail (and email and fill in online forms) to “escalate” our request; during which time NOT ONE PERSON says anything about not requiring identification for biometric registration.

– We finally get a package of documents back from the Home Office, minus Rhonda and Audrey’s passports, but including a letter which calmly tells us that, because we haven’t registered our biometrics in time, they now consider our application invalid and that my wife and daughter are now “liable for removal”. That’s the polite term for deportation, in case you’re in any doubt.

– I ring and have a markedly less patient but equally detailed conversation with an immigration robot drone and am informed that we; must make an appeal to the Home Office by post, or apply again, although they are incapable or unwilling to tell us which would be the correct procedure.

– They will refund the price of the visas (less a £50 “administration fee) but apparently not the £1000 IHS charge.

– Rhonda has written to our local MP who has promised to help if he can, as well as sending an appeal letter to the Home Office, asking if we can simply reapply for the visas and biometrics and that they excuse us our unintentional (but perfectly understandable) clerical error.

So now all we can do is wait, anxiously and with no way to tell if we’re going to get a knock at the door, signaling that my family is about to be torn apart.

On top of all that, Rhonda and Audrey were supposed to be in America right now, to welcome their new grandson/nephew into the world, a trip which is currently impossible even if we could afford it (and the government hadn’t retained their passports) because with their immigration status in limbo, they’d never be allowed to return.

And, to really put the rotten cherry on top of the poisoned cake; last week’s bank holiday was ruined by the need to call the police again on the world’s most obnoxious neighbours, who once more seemed intent on very noisily killing each other.

Despite the fact that half the neighborhood was standing outside spectating, or that several other residents had already reported the violent screaming and crashing noises coming from the upstairs windows of our building, neither the police nor their absentee landlord seem prepared to do anything. He even had the fucking cheek to tell our landlady that, “I’m not throwing them out, they’re good tenants, they always pay their rent.”

Leaving us with three options; put up with it, move out, or I let Rhonda have the baseball bat she’s been asking for and then take Audrey for a long walk while her mum dispenses some rough justice.

Option three doesn’t seem a very sensible idea at the moment, given our politically precarious position, so I hope my upcoming summit with the Environmental Health people gives us an alternative avenue to explore.

Which, I hope, goes some way to explaining why I have neglected some of my blogging duties in the last couple of months.

I am hoping that the possibility of long summer days in the garden, away from most of life’s distractions, will allow me more time to blog, promote the newly republished edition of The Wrong Stuff and get back into the swing of all things authorial.

But life does have a habit of getting in the way, so you’ll have to bear with me.

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Stream of Consciousness Sunday: Occupancy extortion occurrence.

For this week’s SoCS post, I thought I’d take another break from fiction and have a quick rant, using Linda G Hill‘s prompt to inspire me;

” “oc.” Find a word that starts with “oc” and use it in your post. Bonus points if you start and end with your post with an “oc” word. “

Yes, I can do that…

Occasional occurrence of occupancy extortion.

Occasionally, you have to accept that the Powers That Be have you over a barrel and you just have to pay the piper when he calls the tune.

Well, we’re almost at that point again; (where does the time go?) when Rhonda and I have to bow to the UK Border Agency’s immigration regulations, go through the hideously complicated process of renewing her and Audrey’s resident visas and try to find the extortionate amount of money they demand in exchange for our continued happiness.

As many of you know, Rhonda and Audrey are American and have only been in the UK since 2014, after we began our unconventional relationship on Facebook, from opposite sides of the Atlantic.

The process of getting them here was bad enough, but it doesn’t end there, oh no. Following the pair of “fiancé visas”, for Rhonda to come here with Audrey in the first place, we had to get resident visas immediately after we got married, which have to be renewed after two and a half years. And it doesn’t come cheap.

Yesterday I went to the library and paid £15.80 to have all 158 pages of the forms printed, that Rhonda will need to fill in for the two of them…

…after I spent the last few days trying to secure an extension on my personal loan, (which was obtained for the aforementioned official extortion last time round) to pay the frankly obscene price of £993 EACH! And that’s just for permission for them to remain here, contribute to society and continue paying the government income tax. While, I might point out, (for anyone who may have accidentally read a Daily Mail article) being totally ineligible for any state benefits whatsoever. Because we also have to jointly meet the income threshold requirements, to make sure we can support ourselves with “no access to public funds”, as it says so bluntly on their visas.

We have to submit this mountain of paperwork without the slightest error or omission, along with the money, for acceptance by some faceless bureaucrat, who has the ultimate say in whether or not our family stays together on the same continent.

No appeal, no refund.

How they justify that ridiculous expense is beyond me, but we’re now aware that their primary concern is to make money, whilst simultaneously making it as difficult as possible for anyone to come here to start with.

Hopefully the next time we have to go through this, two and a half years from now, it will be to grant my family “indefinite leave to remain”, finally giving us peace of mind until we decide/can afford to pay the even more jaw-dropping price to make them full British citizens.

I am constantly amazed at how fortunate I am, to have found these two amazing people by chance, (a nudge from The Universe may have been involved) but it must seem very harsh to them, especially since they have come to love this country, when the system seems intent on breaking the spirit of people whose only wish is to become a permanent occupant.

*************

#SoCS

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