Widows ordered to pay nearly £3,000 or face being kicked out of the UK are legally challenging the “shameless” charge.
Under current rules it costs £2,885 for bereaved partners to obtain indefinite leave to remain - a sum that rose by over £400 last year. Fifty MPs called the fee “irrational”. They say granting leave to remain costs just £491.
In a heartbreaking letter to the Home Office, three widows wrote: “We have all made the UK our home, have worked, paid taxes and paid visa application fees. It is not our fault that our husbands have passed away.”
Campaigners have now been told High Court judges are prepared to carry out a judicial review into the fees. But responding to pleas to scrap the charge, newly-appointed Legal Migration Minister Tom Pursglove wrote that there are “no plans” to reduce or waive the fees.
He wrote: “I appreciate the anguish caused in addition to the grief the women are going through, and I wish to relay my sincere condolences to them for their losses, but the Home Office believes that those who use and benefit directly from the migration and borders system should contribute towards the cost of operating the system...”
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'I don’t understand how it’s fair,' said one victim of the fees (Getty Images/iStockphoto)He said the department “does not offer fee exemptions, waivers, or reductions for applications, except in very limited circumstances”.
The court action follows a legal campaign by the Refugee & Migrant Forum of Essex and London (RAMFEL). So far 50 MPs have signed an early day motion (EDM) branding the charge “irrational” and warning it discriminates against women.
RAMFEL head of campaigning Nick Beales said: “Successive Immigration Ministers, from Robert Jenrick to Tom Pursglove, have now made it clear that they have no sympathy for these grieving women.
“They instead want to shamelessly charge them thousands of pounds in a cost of living crisis to secure their future in the UK, despite everyone agreeing they should be allowed to settle here. Introducing a fee waiver for this application would probably allow no more than a couple of hundred people, primarily grieving women, to secure their status in the UK.”
“It would cost the government almost nothing in lost application fees, yet they are wasting public money defending their position in court, where they will effectively be trying to convince a judge that it is in the public interest to profit of these vulnerable women in their hour of need.”
Last year mum-of-four Christiana, whose British husband died in July after a short cancer battle, told The Mirror she’s struggling to feed and clothe her children and has no means to pay. “I don’t understand how it’s fair,” the mother, who earns less than £11 an hour as a healthcare assistant, said. “My husband was British and I’ve lived in the UK for 17 years. I don’t think they understand how the law’s being applied and how it’s affecting people.”
A Home Office spokeswoman said: “All applications for indefinite leave to remain are carefully considered on their individual merits, on the basis of the evidence provided and in accordance with the Immigration Rules.”
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