UK Home Office is more inhumane now than it has ever been
THE first story I wrote about the UK Home Office and what became its ‘hostile environment’ was more than a decade ago and the department has shown no sign of changing course.
In fact, over the years, it has gotten worse, as the story below illustrates.
A Syrian student in Glasgow is appealing against a refusal by the Home Office to allow a family reunion with his mother – who has Stage 4 cancer – and his brother and sister.
Obada Eid, who lives in Glasgow’s Saltmarket, left Syria four years ago to study in Scotland, but late last year his world was rocked when his mother Hoda was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
She is in Syria with her other son and daughter and feared for their safety amid the ongoing conflict there.
Hoda had to make her way to the Lebanese capital Beirut in November to deliver to the nearest UK consular office the necessary paperwork to enable her to come to Scotland to see her son for what could be the last time.
The documents became caught up in a Home Office logjam and Obada’s MP Alison Thewliss raised the case with then immigration minister Robert Jenrick in November.
When the Home Office decision eventually came through in December, the family were refused permission to come to the UK.
However, Obada is now appealing to the First Tier Tribunal, and told me: “To be honest I have more hopes in the judge than the Home Office.
I had to withdraw from my Masters degree because of the stress. The plan was to do a PhD and I was talking about it to my university advisor.
“I have to do Masters first, but I couldn’t – mentally it was too much to cope with studying on top of the situation with my family. It’s been very difficult.
“I’ve been trying to find a job but it’s been very difficult to get one and even if I get an interview or an assessment, It’s very hard for me to study for it.”
The UK Government’s family reunion route to the UK allows individual family members of those who have previously been granted protection status in the UK to join them here, if they were part of the family unit before the sponsor fled their home country.
Immigration lawyer Usman Aslam, who lodged Obada’s appeal, has long been critical of the Home Office and its procedures.
He told me: “It is surprising that the compelling/compassionate circumstances test was not, in my view applied here.
“It cannot be any more compelling or compassionate than a person given a few months to live.
“Furthermore, this family are skilled, one of them with nursing qualifications, all speak English, all with a place to live in Scotland.
‘Whilst I cannot comment on proceedings, we are pleased that our request for an expedited hearing has been accepted.
“We hope to reunite this family so that they can be together again, especially given the tragic circumstances.”
I approached the The Home Office for comment and was given the same response as in dozens of other inquiries – they don’t comment on individual cases.
That is no unless they have something to gain by it.
We in Scotland are way beyond the point where the Home Office is of any use to us whatsoever.
The SNP has long argued that we should have control over our own immigration, but all they are able to do is continue bleating in Westminster.
There will be no solution until we are fully in control of our country’s own affairs – including immigration – and that can’t happen soon enough.