The Home Office has rejected a request for immediate permanent settlement from a blind Nigerian pensioner, referring in its refusal letter to the availability of treatment in India. Comfort, whose name has been changed, is 67 and has lived in the UK for 26 years. She says she has never visited India and has no connection to the country.
Comfort arrived in Britain in 2000 and lost her sight suddenly soon afterwards because of acute glaucoma. She said she received permission to stay in 2022 through the long residence route. That route requires people to renew their visas every 30 months over a 10-year period before they can seek indefinite leave to remain.
Changes to settlement rules announced this week by home secretary Shabana Mahmood are likely to leave Comfort facing nearly another 20 years of visa renewals before she can qualify for permanent status. Her lawyers at Refugee and Migrant Justice asked the Home Office to grant settlement immediately because of her age and disability, using a provision that allows applications to be fast-tracked in exceptional circumstances.
The refusal initially referred to Nigeria, saying services for blind people were available there and that Comfort could return. Its conclusion, however, assessed whether her circumstances and potential treatment in India justified granting indefinite leave to remain. Home Office sources said an updated letter was being prepared to correct the response.
Comfort said the prospect of a further lengthy wait had left her disheartened. She described Britain as her home, where she has friends, attends church and volunteers. After more than a quarter of a century in the country, she appealed to the Home Office to grant her permanent status now.
Migrant rights organisations have expressed concern about the longer settlement periods following Mahmood’s announcement. Some people face waits six times longer than before. Freedom of information data obtained by Refugee and Migrant Justice includes applicants of pensionable age who are likely to die before completing the new waiting periods. One is a 103-year-old Pakistani woman who would not qualify for settlement until she was 123.
Nick Beales, head of campaigning at Migrant and Refugee Justice, who is supporting Comfort, argued that there was no public interest in requiring her to continue renewing her visa when she meets the rules to stay. He said doubling settlement routes would worsen difficulties for vulnerable applicants and questioned the purpose of making people in their 80s or older wait two decades. He urged the government to abandon its earned settlement plans.
A Home Office spokesperson said the department did not routinely discuss individual cases. Applications for permission to remain in Britain were assessed individually under immigration rules, the spokesperson said, using the information and evidence supplied by each applicant.
