UK tells Nigerian woman after 26 years to wait 20 more years for settlement

A 67-year-old blind Nigerian woman who has lived in the United Kingdom for 26 years has been told she may have to wait another 20 years before qualifying for permanent residency under proposed changes to the country’s immigration settlement rules. The woman, identified as Comfort, arrived in the UK in 2000 but lost her sight shortly afterwards after developing acute glaucoma.

After spending 20 years in the country, she was granted permission to remain in 2022 under the long-residence immigration route. Under the arrangement, migrants are required to renew their visas every 30 months for 10 years before becoming eligible to apply for indefinite leave to remain, which allows them to live permanently in the UK. However, following new settlement rules announced by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, Comfort is likely to face an additional 20-year wait before qualifying for permanent residency, meaning she could be in her 80s by the time she becomes eligible.

Concerned about her age and disability, lawyers at Refugee and Migrant Justice applied to the Home Office for her to be granted indefinite leave to remain immediately under provisions that allow exceptional cases to be fast-tracked. The application was rejected, with the Home Office initially telling her that she could return to Nigeria because services for blind people were available there.

However, the refusal letter concluded: “Your circumstances are not so severe or lacking in potential treatment in India that it would warrant indefinite leave to remain in this case.” Comfort expressed disappointment over the decision, saying she had established her life in the UK and had no connection with India. “In 2022, I got my permission to stay here based on long residence in the UK,” she said.

“I’m very disheartened that I may now need to wait nearly 20 years to get indefinite leave to remain. “I have been living in this country for 26 years. I have found my home here and settled well. I have my friends, my church and do voluntary work. I’m a good citizen, not a law-breaker and am begging the Home Office to have mercy on me and grant me indefinite leave to remain now, rather than making me wait 20 more years.

“I don’t know why the Home Office said I could go back to India. It’s a country I have never visited and have no connection with.” Nick Beales, head of campaigning at Migrant and Refugee Justice, who is supporting Comfort, criticised the government’s handling of the case and the proposed changes to settlement rules. “This woman is blind, in her late 60s and has lived in the UK for a quarter of a century.

She meets the rules to remain here and there is no public interest in making her continue to renew her visa. “Rather than viewing these vulnerable people as human beings, the government is fixated on appearing tough. Shabana Mahmood’s plans to double settlement routes will clearly make these problems even worse, especially as her decision-makers cannot even differentiate between India and Nigeria.

“Government data shows that people over 80 are applying to enter these settlement routes. While it’s unlikely many of these people would survive a 10-year period, Mahmood has not explained what she hopes to achieve by making these octogenarians and older wait two decades before having settlement. The government should admit that their earned settlement model is cruel and counter-productive and scrap these plans once and for all.” The proposed immigration changes have drawn criticism from migrants’ rights organisations, which argue that extending the qualifying period for permanent residency could leave some elderly migrants waiting until the end of their lives for settlement.

According to freedom of information data obtained by Refugee and Migrant Justice, several people of pensionable age have applied for settlement but may not live long enough to meet the new requirements. The data reportedly includes a 103-year-old woman from Pakistan who would not become eligible for settlement until she is 123. Following the controversy surrounding Comfort’s case, Home Office sources said corrective action was being taken to issue her an updated letter.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We do not routinely comment on individual cases. All applications for permission to stay in the UK are carefully considered on their individual merits, in line with the immigration rules and based on the information and evidence provided by the applicant.”