After our violent robbery in June and subsequently being told by local police that I and my son were in danger of kidnapping unless we moved house, all I wanted to do was get back to the UK.
But our UK immigration lawyer told us it would be too risky to bring two "foreigners" in our party of three into the UK. Instead, following his advice, we spent a fortune in money, time and stress applying for a visa allowing my son a "right of settlement" in the UK. It was flatly rejected, along with the first appeal.
Because that visa application failed, we were stopped at Heathrow in August and treated with great suspicion - Sam and P kept in isolation for 10 hours and almost deported immediately. As I said in my previous post, hopefully all this cr@p is behind us but when I read news reports about what went on with UK border control while we were being locked out of my own country, my mouth drops in utter disbelief and the anger comes flooding back. Today's news tells us as follows:
"On Monday, Mrs (Home Secretary Theresa) May admitted she personally authorised border controls to be relaxed during the summer months for Britons and other EU nationals.
But she insisted that UK Border Agency (UKBA) officials had gone further than she had intended, by scaling back key checks on travellers from outside Europe without ministerial approval.
The number of suspected terrorists, criminals and illegal immigrants who entered the country as a result of the move will never be known, Mrs May admitted."
But our UK immigration lawyer told us it would be too risky to bring two "foreigners" in our party of three into the UK. Instead, following his advice, we spent a fortune in money, time and stress applying for a visa allowing my son a "right of settlement" in the UK. It was flatly rejected, along with the first appeal.
Because that visa application failed, we were stopped at Heathrow in August and treated with great suspicion - Sam and P kept in isolation for 10 hours and almost deported immediately. As I said in my previous post, hopefully all this cr@p is behind us but when I read news reports about what went on with UK border control while we were being locked out of my own country, my mouth drops in utter disbelief and the anger comes flooding back. Today's news tells us as follows:
"On Monday, Mrs (Home Secretary Theresa) May admitted she personally authorised border controls to be relaxed during the summer months for Britons and other EU nationals.
But she insisted that UK Border Agency (UKBA) officials had gone further than she had intended, by scaling back key checks on travellers from outside Europe without ministerial approval.
The number of suspected terrorists, criminals and illegal immigrants who entered the country as a result of the move will never be known, Mrs May admitted."
Update: "It's frightening how many slip through the net"
Update 2: "Border checks suspended regularly since 2007".
Update 3: "500,000 let into UK with no checks".
So Theresa May told UKBA to relax the border controls for UK and EU citizens, but they took this to mean that they should relax controls for suspected terrorists, criminals and illegal immigrants? Seems like they both need to attend a course on how to communicate clearly. But what can you expect from a government agency?
ReplyDeleteIndeed Manfred. Just another cock-up in an endless parade of cock-ups, seemingly designed to keep the good out and the bad in. This latest cock-up was obviously a knee-jerk attempt to save money by saving time. How do these people get to be in such jobs / positions of responsibility ??!
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