Families kept apart

SIR – My wife and I empathise with Commander Simon Rawlins and his American wife, who endured months of uncertainty over her UK visa application (Letters, October 19).

I am a British expat returning to Britain from Australia. I came over on my own in May to secure a job and get ready for my wife and child, who are Australian, to join me later.

It has now been 12 weeks since the settlement visa submission. No information is forthcoming from the immigration services other than that a decision is pending. Last week, they finally said they would escalate the application, but then said this process takes four weeks and that I should not contact the service until this time has expired.

We have already shipped our furniture, and my wife and child have been living with friends for the past five weeks, never anticipating it would take this long. Next week we get the keys to our new home and my family is not going to be here. The service is pathetic and we have been treated with no empathy whatsoever.

Dean Evans

Aberdare, Glamorgan

SIR – Ambrose Evans-pritchard (Business, October 19) wrote: “My Korean daughter-in-law has no automatic right to live in the UK – and therefore nor does my grandchild – and she has to pay for NHS care. Yet the Asian spouse of a Latvian or Bulgarian national with no deep ties to this country enjoys both. Brussels insists this anomaly should be upheld after Brexit by the European Court.”

Meanwhile, Commander Rawlins, a decorated Royal Navy pilot, was unable to bring his American wife home for several months due to her application not being “straightforward”.

Were his ties with this country not considered “deep” enough by the Home Office?

Simon Bathurst Brown

Camberley, Surrey