2 days Ago By The Guardian
A Polish woman is facing enforced separation from her son in the UK and has been threatened with deportation by the Home Office because her application form to stay was accidentally filled in online instead of on paper. Elzbieta Olszewska, 80, has been living alone in her flat in Warsaw. Her only child, Michal Olszewski, 52, an aeronautical engineer who lives in Lincoln with his wife, has been travelling regularly to the Polish capital to support her.
Olszewski has been living in the UK since 2006, initially as a EU citizen. He subsequently became a British citizen and has dual Polish-UK nationality. As his mother has become increasingly frail he wanted her to move to the UK so he and his wife can care for her properly.
There is a legal route under the EU settlement scheme for people in Olszewski’s situation to bring parents here. Olszewska arrived in the UK last September on a six-month visitor visa and shortly afterwards the application, containing all the correct information, was made for her to live permanently in Britain with her son and his wife. Until a few days ago the family had heard nothing from the Home Office although the application had been lodged in good time before the six-month visa expired.
But on 25 March the Home Office finally responded, informing the family: “Unfortunately your application is not valid and we are unable to accept it.” The rejection letter went on to say: “The required application process for someone applying as a family member of a relevant naturalised British citizen is to use the appropriate paper form. Your application was made online.
There is no right of appeal in respect of an invalid application.” The rejection letter informed Olszewska that she did not have the right to be in the UK as her visitor visa had expired and that the consequences of staying here unlawfully included being detained, fined, imprisoned, along with being removed and banned from returning to the UK. The paper form of an application to stay must be requested from the Home Office who print the person’s name on it and then send it by email to the applicant, who must print it out, fill it in and post it back to the Home Office.
The Home Office has said it is moving its immigration system to online and that not everyone is aware that some applications are still required to be done on paper. Olszewski said: “This is a big disgrace from the Home Office. It was only after almost six months that they told us the application was invalid.
My mum is very distressed about this. I’m her only child, we’re very close and we want to spend her last few years together. “My wife and I will be looking after her in our home.
I pay my taxes and I’m a good citizen. This makes me very angry. This is a country of law and democracy but this decision feels like it was made by a Soviet bureaucracy.
” The family’s solicitor Katherine Smith, from Redwing Immigration, said: “The implications of an application being rejected as invalid are very drastic. It was harsh the Home Office wouldn’t accept the online application or allow time for a paper form to be completed. Elzbieta is now without legal status in the UK due to the delay in reaching this decision and is distressed by this.
” As there is no right of appeal against the Home Office decision, Smith is planning to start judicial review proceedings against them. A Home Office spokesperson said: “It is our longstanding policy not to comment on individual cases.”.
