There have been plenty of stories in the media about refugees’ claims to settle in Australia being rejected by immigration authorities, but one from the United Kingdom surely trumps the lot.
Press photographer Craig Colville has been told he has to leave Britain even though he has a Welsh mother and an English father; was born there; has worked overseas on a UK/EU passport and has a twin brother who is accepted as British.
The problem appears to be his Canadian wife, Crystal Levy, who he met when they were both working on a cruise ship. She moved to the United Kingdom on a special youth visa in October 2010 and they married last year. She then applied to stay in the country as the wife of a UK citizen.
But the application, to Home Secretary Theresa May, was refused on the ground Colville “does not hold settled status, is not a British citizen and is not a person with refugee or humanitarian protection”.
Colville said he read this with utter disbelief. His attempts to contact the Home Office by phone met with a refusal to speak to him.
His case has been taken up in the UK media and his local MP has approached the Home Office. There is now a grudging admission that there “might have been a mistake”.
However, Ms Levy’s case remains unresolved. Her visa is running out and so far she has not been accepted as the legitimate spouse of a British national.
Ironically, she could qualify to live in Britain under the grandparent rule – she has both English and Scottish grandparents– but that would require her returning to Canada and making an application there, a process that could take up to a year.
A leading immigration lawyer suggests the couple have fallen foul of over-zealous Home Office attempts to restrict the number of people coming into the country.
“I believe the bureaucrats are under instruction to take a really tough line on applications to live in Britain,” he said.
“In this case someone has stepped over the line.”
No comments:
Post a Comment