May I please go home for Christmas?
You see, it might seem ridiculous that I am asking you that question, but it has been more than a year since I was "allowed" out of this country, since you - via an incompetent team of your employed Border Agents and Home Office staff who have "dealt"(or not dealt) with me thus far - began holding me hostage, imprisoning me so that I could not hold my family in my arms - all because I also happen to have fallen in love with and married one of your fellow English citizens, and would very much like to work alongside and share the rest of my life with him.
My husband may not be the Home Secretary, Ms. May, but he is just as English as you are. If I matter little because I happened to be born elsewhere, then know that you also have Andrew Passmore, an iconic musician, exceptional teacher, and once-proud and still outstanding Englishman in your hands. There is nothing I can say or write to wholly explain the weight of this burden of uncertainty and imprisonment on a young couple, no matter how strong that relationship, as is our own. The first year of marriage is meant to be bliss, but so far we have spent the first ten months of ours fighting a government that we have long had faith in to give us a document that will let us exist. You are paid and thus bestowed the incredible obligation to enable us to move on with our life. We have demonstrated that we meet the financial threshold, and are surpassing it even further now, so what else remains to be dealt with?
You and your Home Office are effectively not only damaging our lives, but destroying our first year of marriage. Imagine, if you can, having the one you love bombarded on a daily basis with texts, phone calls, emails, and more of each, for nearly a year, being told they are here illegally, being threatened that if they do not leave they will not be allowed back into the country, and will face prosecution....all when, in fact, they have already won a battle they were forced to fight against your Home Office in which they proved they have every right, according to the immigration laws they understand, uphold, and respect, to settle and sustain their life here. This is our story, Theresa May. And these are the sorts of harassment we have been enduring for nearly a year, since the Border Agency made severe miscalculations when assessing our income, and claimed that we did not meet the £18,600 threshold for married couples; we proved in an appeal which has cost us over £3,000 of our wedding gift money in legal fees (even though this utterly ridiculous 'case' against us never even got as far as court) that our income nearly doubled the threshold at the time of our application, and yet still, several months later, I am still waiting to be granted a visa, to have my passport returned, am being harassed by the wrong subsidiary companies, and ignored by all those that matter. If you want more detail feel free to explore this previous post, which I wrote in the days leading up to our tribunal: How I Became A Girl Without A Country When we won in July we began rejoicing, especially when we were told it would be two weeks and I would have my passport in my hands again. It has now been nearly four months. I do wonder - do you find that acceptable?
As I wrote in a recent letter, My English husband and I were lawfully and lovingly married on 29 December 2012. We made the decision to postpone any kind of honeymoon so that we could immediately send off my passport and Visa application, being aware of the timeliness of our situation, and that if we didn’t act quickly my student visa was due to expire at the end of January. Having all due respect for the institution and legal process of immigration we were sure to act quickly and thoroughly. However, in March we received word that my application had, mistakenly, been refused, on financial grounds – that I had ten days to appeal or leave (leave this country, my life, and my newlywed husband). We didn’t, in fact, have 10 days at all, because the refusal came on the wrong side of Easter, and with no post going in or out on the surrounding days of our “due date”, we had to rush everything – again – in order to have it all in on time. Having launched a legal appeal, paid out more than three thousand pounds in legal fees, and now having had the original decision withdrawn after submitting all of the same financial evidence, albeit in a more sophisticated form, I find it disheartening, incredibly frustrating, and profoundly ironic that the same body, whose strict deadlines we have stayed up numerous nights to satisfy has been so grossly unable to meet targets they have, in turn, offered us.
I have written several letters since to the supposed team who are meant to be looking at our case, and have received no acknowledgment. If they can offer me no hope, can you, Home Secretary, at the very least?
It has been two years since I was able to hug my grandfather. He is an 88 year old World War II veteran, who loves my English husband, and whose health fades year by year. If I do not get to be with him this Christmas, to sit on his lap, and sing carols, worshiping the Christ on whom our marriage is founded, that will be your responsibility. So, I ask again, because your team have refused to enable this country to become my own, and because I have asked everyone else at your Home Office already and have been completely ignored, please will you help me go home for Christmas?
