The only way around the Home Office’s cruelty is to get your story in the news | Satbir Singh

It’s appalling that immigration appeals now depend so heavily on getting the media to notice your case: no publicity, no justiceThere are eight words in the English language that, read together, trigger a unique combination of fury, despair and laughter familiar to anybody with experience of the UK border and its gatekeepers at the Home Office: “Each application is considered on its individual merits.”Like a caterer talking about its commitment to hygiene the day after a front-page splash about some photogenic couple’s wedding-day E coli disaster, you usually only find these words stuck to the end of a press release in which the Home Office is admitting that it’s been caught out, having not done its job very well. Instead, it has upended somebody’s life for no good reason, ignoring or misjudging the facts of their case or the basic requirements of the law, bowing to the political goal of saying no wherever possible. And now, after an intervention from the press has drawn attention to somebody’s shocking mistreatment, the Home Office has miraculously conceded. Continue reading…
Via: The only way around the Home Office’s cruelty is to get your story in the news | Satbir Singh