UK tells blind Nigerian pensioner to go home to India
A blind Nigerian pensioner who has lived in the UK for 26 years has been told by the Home Office she can safely “go home” to India.
Comfort, a 67-year-old Nigerian woman, arrived in the UK in 2000 and suddenly went blind due to acute glaucoma shortly after. She was granted leave to remain under long residence rules, which require a 10-year wait for indefinite leave to remain, with visa renewals every 30 months.
Under the new settlement rules announced by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, the wait for indefinite leave to remain has been extended from 10 years to 20 years. Comfort’s lawyers applied for an exception to fast-track her application, citing her age and disability, but the Home Office rejected it.
“Your circumstances are not so severe or lacking in potential treatment in India that it would warrant indefinite leave to remain in this case.”
The Home Office letter informed Comfort that she could return to Nigeria because there are services for blind people there. However, Comfort has never visited India or Nigeria and has no connection to either country. She has built a life in the UK, with friends, a church, and voluntary work.
Comfort expressed her disheartenment at the decision, stating that she is a good citizen who has lived in the UK for a quarter of a century. She is pleading with the Home Office to have mercy on her and grant her indefinite leave to remain now, rather than making her wait 20 more years.
“I don’t know why the Home Office said I could go back to India. It’s a country I have never visited and have no connection with.”
Cruel new rules
The new settlement rules, announced by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, have been criticised for making the wait for settlement significantly longer. For some migrants, the wait has increased sixfold, and the Home Office data shows that many people of pensionable age will die before they become eligible.
One person on the Home Office data is a woman from Pakistan aged 103, who will not be eligible for settlement until she is 123 years old. Nick Beales, head of campaigning at Migrant and Refugee Justice, has condemned the government’s approach as cruel and counter-productive.
“Rather than viewing these vulnerable people as human beings, the government is fixated on appearing tough. Shabana Mahmood’s plans to double settlement routes will clearly make these problems even worse, especially as her decision-makers cannot even differentiate between India and Nigeria.”
Beales noted that the government data shows people over 80 are applying to enter these settlement routes. He questioned what the Home Office hopes to achieve by making octogenarians and older wait two decades before having settlement, suggesting the plans are cruel and counter-productive.
Home Office response
Home Office sources have confirmed that corrective action is being taken to re-issue an updated letter to Comfort. The spokesperson stated that all applications for permission to stay in the UK are carefully considered on their individual merits, in line with the immigration rules and based on the information and evidence provided by the applicant.
The Home Office does not routinely comment on individual cases. The decision to reject Comfort’s application has been met with widespread concern from numerous migrants’ rights organisations, who have raised concerns about the increase in the period of time some will now have to wait for settlement here.
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