Immigration Block Traps Zimbaweans In Britain

The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 11-14-2005 | Stewart Payne

[blam]

Immigration block traps Zimbabweans in Britain

By Stewart Payne
(Filed: 14/11/2005)

The Government was accused yesterday of ignoring the plight of hundreds of white Zimbabweans living in Britain on ancestral visas whose applications to remain in the country have been blocked by the Home Office.

Janine Pringle with Reg and Charmaine Stephens with a pile of some of their visa application paperwork

The immigration service has retained their travel documents but has suspended consideration of their applications for indefinite leave to remain (ILR) in the UK. As a result, many Zimbabweans have been unable to return home for weddings, funerals and other family occasions.

With their travel papers lodged with the Home Office, their only hope of being able to leave Britain is to request emergency travel documents from the Zimbabwean Embassy in London.

However, requests from whites planning to set up home in the UK are unlikely to be treated sympathetically by the Mugabe regime. Most are in Britain to escape repression at home.

"We have effectively become prisoners of the country we hoped to make our homes in," said Reg Stephens, 46, who arrived in Britain on an ancestral visa in 2001 with his wife Charmaine, 43, and son Liam, 17. Their travel documents have been with the Home Office for more than a year, yet they still do not know if they will be granted ILR. In that time they have been unable to attend the funerals of his wife's sister and eldest son in South Africa.

Janine Pringle, 25, came to Britain to study and applied for ILR almost a year ago. Her British grandfather was a decorated Second World War veteran. She has been unable to return home for her brother's graduation and uncle's funeral.

Richard Benyon, the Conservative MP for Newbury, where Mr Stephens lives, has taken up the case on behalf of several hundred Zimbabweans in the same position. "It is a disgraceful situation," he said.

"These people have strong family links to the UK and have arrived on a very well established route of entry. The Home Office position is totally lacking in compassion."

Current rules allow for citizens of Commonwealth countries who have a grandparent who was British to enter the country on an ancestral visa. This is valid for four years during which time they must support themselves financially. They may then apply for ILR.

The government plans to move to a points-based managed migration system, under which ancestral visas may be scrapped. But the problem affecting Zimbabweans is more specific.

Two years ago the Home Office identified abuses in the ancestral visas system, particularly from Zimbabwe. As a consequence, it blocked all applications by Zimbabwean nationals for ILR.

Mr Stephens said: "We never anticipated this problem when we came to the UK. We still want to settle here but need our documents back."

Every attempt to get information about the progress of their applications has been "met with a wall of silence".

Miss Pringle, who lives with her partner in Leytonstone, east London, said: "I have only dealt with the British authorities, so how can there be any abuse in my ILR application?

"If I was to withdraw my documents from the Home Office then my application would fail. I can't go home, yet I don't know if I will be allowed to stay."

Andy Burnham, a Home Office minister, said the investigation into abuses of the system had concluded.

It had been carried out to ensure that procedures for ancestral visas were "robust", he said. "We hope that we will soon be able to reconsider applications."

[blam]

Ping.

[Mears]

"It had been carried out to ensure that procedures for ancestral visas were "robust", he said."

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Nothing like a robust procedure I always say.

[thoughtomator]

Why don't they simply apply for asylum?

[ZOOKER]

I don't know what assets they have back in Zimbabwe, but for me, I would rather sit in a British jail than return there.

Could they apply for political asylum due to Mugabe's oppression of whites? Deporting them to Zim could be a death sentence...

[Agog]

I think the problem with asylum is that they've already expressed a desire to go back temporarily for family reasons. Thus the desire for asylum, while legitimate, is in opposition to their stated willingness to return to the country of oppression, even if temporarily.

One thing I'm curious about is what abuses the Home Office was concerned about and whether it involved fraud by blacks claiming to have a British grandparent. The article dances around the question, but it seemed to me that there was an elephant in the tent no one wanted to talk about.

[Clive]

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