Who should get to stay in the UK? Part 2

The programme title may make you think that you are tuning into watch some bizarre reality TV show where contestants no longer compete for prizes but for a Home Office visa and the right to remain in the UK. However, the show gives a hard-hitting look at the normally hidden work of Immigration solicitors and the work they do.

Last night’s TV show was special to all at OTS Solicitors because it featured Stephen Slater, in-house advocate at OTS Solicitors and his client, Nancy and her two daughters. If you missed the programme, it is well worth watching it on BBC i-player as all of us at OTS Solicitors think Nancy’s story would move most people and help them understand the full impact of Windrush.

Although we have all read about Windrush it is not until you hear how Windrush has affected people like Nancy and her daughters that you realise just how people’s lives have been blighted and understand why people fear that the EU Settlement Scheme will create a new “Windrush generation”.

OTS Solicitors are specialist in Immigration law matters and the firm is recommended for Immigration law in the Legal 500 publication of leading UK lawyers. OTS Solicitors have Law Society accredited solicitors status as trusted specialists in Immigration law.

If you need any advice about your Immigration status or business immigration law please call us on 0203 959 9123 to arrange an appointment to speak to one of our experienced London immigration solicitors who will be happy to help.

At OTS Solicitors, we have to admit that when our Immigration solicitors and caseworkers meet someone like Nancy it is hard not to be moved by their story. As Stephen Slater said on the programme, Nancy faced a David and Goliath battle against the Home Office to prove that she had the right to stay in the UK. We all rooted for Nancy because if her Immigration status were not sorted it would affect the lives of her daughters. To use Stephen Slater’s words “cascading down the generations”.

For Stephen Slater, there have been many “Nancy’s”, victims of circumstances outside their control and needing the help of top London immigration solicitors to protect them and their family.

The Nancy in the BBC2 programme “Who should get to stay in the UK?” came to the UK from Gambia at age of six. Her mother, a commonwealth citizen, was invited to the UK where she spent her life working as a nurse. Nancy became a makeup artist and envisaged travelling the world as her career took off.

Nancy’s Windrush problems, and the effective stop to her career ambitions, stemmed from the theft of her passport in 2007. To most of us losing our passport is a hassle. However, to Nancy, the loss of that one document blighted her family’s happiness for a decade. The passport contained a vital stamp saying that she was entitled to be in the UK. For Nancy, the request for a replacement passport and stamp brought her to the attention of Home Office officials who said that as she had no paperwork to prove that she had a right to be living and working in the UK she must be an “illegal”.

Most of us would panic if we found ourselves in Nancy’s position. Stephen Slater and the Immigration team at OTS Solicitors never fail to be impressed by the quiet dignity and stoicism that some of the Windrush victims, like Nancy, display.

If you have not read up about Windrush you will be forgiven for thinking that maybe Nancy’s problems stemmed from her parent’s not completing the Immigration paperwork correctly on behalf of their six year old daughter. However, all the best London immigration solicitors will tell you that Nancy, and many others like her, are the victims of incompetent bureaucracy. When assessing whether Nancy should be able to stay in the UK Home Office caseworkers applied current Immigration Rules to Nancy’s circumstances and assumed the same Immigration regulations had been in force when Nancy had arrived in the UK, age six.

Stephen Slater was able to uncover a catalogue of errors including:

• The Home Office destroying historical paperwork that would have proved that Nancy had the right to live and work in the UK;

• The Home Office assuming that Nancy did not have the right to remain in the UK based on current Immigration Rules, without researching the relevant regulations years earlier. Those rules were not easy to find as they are not on-line, the Home Office does not keep copies and nor does parliament.

Thankfully, the detective traits in Stephen Slater led him to find the historical paperwork about Nancy’s mother and the 1988 Immigration Rules. Page 13 of a very dry and dusty tome said that a child should get leave to remain in the UK for the same length of time as their parents. In Nancy’s case that meant she had Indefinite Leave to Remain.

Sadly, Nancy and other Windrush victims have been treated as “guilty” until proved otherwise. That meant, under the hostile environment policy, Nancy lost her council accommodation, with devastating consequences for her children’s health and education because they were placed into temporary London council accommodation and denied the opportunity to attend to university because as their mother could not prove she had permission to be in the UK, nor could they .

For Stephen Slater and the individual immigration team at OTS Solicitors the search for the answer to Nancy’s legal nightmare involved painstaking research and the location of an obscure bit of legislation at a legal library. For Stephen Slater that was the eureka moment that benefitted not only Nancy but also the estimated 50,000 Windrush victims and their children.

Nancy and her children’s story does not end with confirmation that she and her family should get to stay in the UK. Her daughter said she and her mother had not “won” anything; they just had what was theirs in the first place but had been taken away from them by the Home Office.

The next battle for Nancy, and her advocate Stephen Slater, is to ensure that Nancy and her children receive some recompense for their “Windrush years”. Nancy would say that nothing would compensate her and her family for the lost years of quality family time and the educational opportunities missed by her daughters.

For Stephen Slater, the campaign is not over. First the fight for proper civil compensation (under the government scheme the maximum compensation is only £10,000) and then the battle to ensure that victims of Windrush, like Nancy, are not forgotten. In Stephen Slater’s view, an Immigration solicitor should never give up as it only by ensuring that individuals like Nancy have the legal advice they need that they can assert their individual entitlements and, in turn, throw a light on systematic Home Office failures. By remembering those mistakes and failures and through programmes like “Who should get to stay in the UK?” the best London immigration solicitors may help to prevent another lost “Windrush generation”.

OTS Solicitors are not the only top London immigration solicitors who see the EU Settlement Scheme as the potential next Windrush. That is because it has all the hallmarks of a future Windrush; EU migrants with little or no historical paperwork, a confusing Immigration scheme and Immigration Rules and harried Home Office officials.

Stephen Slater hopes the fears about Brexit and the EU Settlement Scheme are misplaced. However, if the top London immigration solicitors’ fears are justified, then at least the BBC2 series “Who should get to stay in the UK?” proves that there are tenacious Immigration solicitors ready to challenge the Home Office to protect people like Nancy and her family. After all, people like Nancy are the backbone of the twenty first century UK and a real example of who should get to stay in the UK.

For advice about how OTS Solicitors can help you please call us on 0203 959 9123.