What on earth is going on? It's the most ridiculous situation. I have people coming to me each day telling me that they have just received their refusal through the post. It's all over, they have to leave the country despite having a really good case. They are broken. They don't know what else to do, they don't know why they have wasted 7 years of their life waiting for the UK Borders Agency to believe their awful stories of the fear they have of going home only to receive a refusal through the post from their new caseworker in Liverpool. They go through anger, tears, hatred, bitterness and sheer disappointment in front of me.
Within a week the same people are coming back to me declaring that they have received a new letter from Croydon Home Office containing confirmation of Indefinite Leave to Remain. Not only this, but these letters are dated January and February. They have been held back in Croydon, they just haven't been posted and during the time that these letters have been in existence a whole other branch of UKBA is issuing refusals to the same people. How is this possible? Why is it being allowed? The Home Office cannot surely be so inept. It's appalling treatment of people who have already had their emotions played with for years. It's cruel and unnecessary.
Yes, admittedly, this is the result they have been waiting for and yes, we are happy for them. But to have to go through all this first. You put people at a point where they are feeling helpless and suicidal and then just as they are at the edge they are given that one thing they have desperately waited for. Is it simply to manipulate them into gratitude?
