Lecturer all set to host family criticises Home Office over visas delay
A LECTURER who wants to help a Ukrainian family find safety in Wales has criticised the Home Office for “unexplained and disproportionate” delays with their visa process.
Rosemary Toll, a commercial law lecturer at Aberystwyth University, decided to sponsor a family fleeing from war in Ukraine back in March.
The family, consisting of a mother called Iryna, a grandmother called Nina and two boys aged 16 and 10, are currently in the Polish city of Warsaw.
According to Rosemary, the family have attended a Visa Application Centre in the city in order to submit data for biometric documents as three out of the four family members do not have international passports to enter the UK.
Due to delays in their visa process, however, Rosemary has had to use her own money and consequently launch a crowdfund in order to help out the family with accommodation.
As time goes on, though, Rosemary has said she is deeply concerned and anxious about how long the visa process is taking for the family.
Despite repeated calls to the Home Office, she said, she and the family were no closer to getting an answer about the completing of the visas.
Thirty-six-year-old Rosemary and her partner, Jonathan, live near Criccieth. According to the lecturer, the couple considered housing refugees after they moved to their new home last year.
She said: “I’d tentatively looked into the possibility of offering accommodation to a refugee last year when we moved into our new house.
“We were very lucky in the fact that there are only two of us in the house and the house is bigger than what we thought we’d get with our money.
“I did a bit of research into this about having a Syrian or Afghan refugee. At the time, when I looked into this, I basically hit a brick wall because you must have excellent links to public transport and so on, and as you may know, north-west Wales doesn’t have a load of public transport.
“Life went on and then this happened and I thought ‘we have a home in a lovely safe space, in a great community’, and not only that but I was aware that people would be able to give a room but not a lot people would be able to give space for a family that otherwise would have to go into two separate homes.
“We were able to take four people, so in essence, we should. There are not many spaces where people can take that many on.”
Rosemary signed up for Homes for Ukraine but found that she heard nothing for a long time after.
Determined to help out with the
refugee crisis, however, Rosemary took matters into her own hands and started looking online and joined Facebook groups.
“I saw a post by Iryna, basically saying that there was her, her mother and her two sons, and they were from the city in the east of Ukraine,” she said.
“They were looking to come to the UK or Ireland as they essentially don’t have a second language except for some English.
“I actually sent her a direct message rather than commenting on the post. I had already done it a few times and I think people feel better or are more secure if you message them directly, introduce and explain yourself.
“We sent photos and clarified how many rooms were available. I explained Universal Credit and our access to healthcare, while Iryna said she was very keen to work.
“Then, we had a video call – and we then explained all the documents that we needed.”
Rosemary completed the family’s application at the end of March. By April 1, the family had travelled to Warsaw, where they attended appointments at a visa application centre in the city.
Following the appointments, however, Rosemary says that neither she nor the family have received any information or updates about the visa process.
As a result, Rosemary has had to find accommodation for the family while they temporarily stay in Warsaw for over a month, but fears she will be unable to sustain the expenses in the long term.
The family has had to use their savings to buy food and other supplies, according to Rosemary.
She said: “I still didn’t have a visa for the one with the international passport – I don’t know what the excuse is there because I know other people that got them through three to four days. How it has taken them this amount of time, I have no idea.”
In response, a UK Government spokesman said: “Nearly 95,500 visas have been granted with almost 37,400 Ukrainians arriving safely in the UK.
“We are processing thousands of visas a day – we’ll continue to build on this so we can speed up the process even further.”