The hopes of asylum seekers aiming to be reunited with their loved ones in the UK have been shattered after the home secretary announced on Monday that new applications to the family reunion scheme were to be suspended. The prospect of reuniting with spouses and children after reaching safety is often what sustains those trying to reach Britain during their difficult journeys.
Immigration lawyers are urgently working to lodge applications while the scheme remains open in cases of people who have been granted refugee status. The suspension will last until the spring and it is likely that any new scheme will be more restrictive than the current one, the Home Office said.
Ahmed (not his real name), an Afghan man who worked as a bodyguard for the team of the country’s vice-president under Hamid Karzai, fled to the UK to claim asylum after the Taliban takeover.
His lawyer has advised that his claim is likely to be accepted by the Home Office because of his direct association with the upper echelons of the previous Afghan government. His wife was a university student when the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan and forced her to abandon her studies. She escaped to neighbouring Pakistan, where she is at risk of deportation back to her home country. She and her husband had been pinning all their hopes on a family reunion application and had been planning a future together in the UK.
Ahmed said that every asylum seeker he had spoken to was in a state of shock about the sudden change in government policy.
He said: “This is going to impact on every single asylum seeker who is hoping to reunite with their family. I heard something about it yesterday but I did not believe it was true. I heard it again on the news today and now know the information is correct.
“I had to break the news to my wife. She hasn’t been able to stop crying since she heard the news. What is the value of this life if you have to be separated from the people you love? Both of us are completely shattered by this.
“My journey from Afghanistan was a matter of death and life with hundreds of challenges along the way. What kept me going was that I could reach safety, bring my wife here and then we could build a future together.
“We were both hoping to continue our education. My wife was only in the first year of her degree when the Taliban took over. But now our plans and dreams are destroyed. I would rather go back to Afghanistan with my wife so we can die there together than spend my life separated from her.
“I knew that the journey I went on from Afghanistan to the UK had a 99% risk of death. Nobody makes that journey unless they have no other choice.
“I’m in shock. I thought this was the country of human rights but the government is not treating us like humans. I have no plan B. This announcement is going to destroy families and destroy hope.”
