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Getting
a British Visa a daunting task
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A
copy of a UK resident visa and A Sri Lankan
passport
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By Michael Hardy
One
morning in August, a senior researcher at a Colombo NGO
lined up to apply for a
UK visa at the Visa Facilitating Services (VFS) centre
on
Duplication Road,
Colombo
3.
Having
earned his undergraduate and law degrees at a British
university, the man, who wished to remain anonymous for
fear of reprisals by the UK High Commission, didn’t
expect to have any problems. But after waiting for
several hours in the queue, he began to grow worried.
None
of the staff seemed to know what they were doing. The
instructional signs were vague and confusing. He noticed
that almost every applicant who stepped up to the window
was sent downstairs to photocopy more documents.
“It
was a complete scandal,” he said. “Why couldn’t they
say, ‘these are the documents we need?’ The applicants
can’t all have misread the notes. The staff seemed
totally incompetent.”
Visa rejected
Finally, after waiting all day, the man submitted his
application and went home. Five weeks later, he learned
that his visa had been rejected. The reason? The
financial documents he submitted were “insufficient.”
The man was furious, and wondered if the refusal would
make it harder for him to get other visas.
“For
the first time in my entire life I had a visa refused,”
he said. “If you have a
Sri Lanka
passport it is hard enough to get a visa, but if you
have a refusal stamp on your passport it is even worse.”
What’s
more, there was nobody the man could talk to. Before
changes to the UK visa system were implemented last
year, applicants could talk to a visa officer face to
face. Now, the entire process had been doubly outsourced
— first to VFS, a private contractor, and second to
Chennai, where all visa decisions (except diplomatic and
migrant visas) are now made by UK officials. The NGO
researcher had been rejected by a faceless bureaucracy.
Welcome to the circle of hell that Dante forgot: the UK
Border Agency. The agency’s red tape, sluggish
processing and arbitrary decisions have infuriated
thousands of Sri Lankans — students, tourists,
businessmen, even the former Foreign Secretary — and
contributed to rising tension between the two countries.
Many people feel as though the High Commission is
sending a message: ‘Sri Lankans not welcome in the UK.’
The current crisis
The
current crisis began in May 2008, when the High
Commission announced it would move some of its visa
operations to the Deputy High Commission in Chennai.
Although the announcement claimed visa applications
would be processed in five to 15 days, applicants soon
began experiencing major headaches: unclear
instructions, lost or misplaced documents, difficulty
checking on the status of applications and delays of a
month or longer before receiving a decision.
In
September 2008, the High Commission admitted that the
move to Chennai had caused problems, and vowed to speed
up the process.
More
than a year later, nothing has changed. Applicants still
complain of opaque guidelines, long waits and
inexplicable rejections. It doesn’t seem to matter how
much you have travelled or how wealthy you are —
applying for a UK visa is like playing Russian roulette
with your travel plans. With 32,000 visa applications a
year, the High Commission is making a lot of enemies.
“We’re
facing major problems, especially with students” said an
agent at a well-known travel agency. “They’re supposed
to join their university on a specific date, but they
have to wait more than a month for their visas. There’s
no way to check on their status, and no one answers the
hotline. Even with regular travellers there’s an issue —
people who have travelled five or more times are getting
rejected. I don’t see a reason for rejecting experienced
and affluent travellers.”
The problem of outsourcing
The
agent believes the biggest problem is the outsourcing of
application processing to Chennai: “When the visas were
processed in Sri Lanka, at least you could check what
your status was,” she said. “Now, paperwork isn’t being
forwarded to Chennai. I don’t think people realise how
difficult the process is until they apply.”
Despite all the roadblocks the High Commission throws in
their way, many applicants continue to seek ways into
the UK, the agent said. Even after spending anywhere
from Rs. 9,200 to Rs. 100,000 on their non-refundable
application fees, many people choose to pay a visa
agency to help them re-apply.
Nor
are ordinary citizens the only victims of the High
Commission’s visa shenanigans. In August 2008, the
actress Angela Seneviratne was rejected for a visa to
visit her cousin in
London
because the UK Border Agency believed she wouldn’t
return home, and because Seneviratne had forgotten to
include her cousin’s financial records in her
application; the actress vacationed at the
Dead Sea instead.
Visas withheld
Controversy erupted last month when the High Commission
withheld visas from Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona and
MP Arjuna Ranatunga. The reason given was that Kohona
and Ranatunga hadn’t applied to the High Commission in
person, but there was widespread speculation that the
rejections were retaliation for Sri Lanka’s expulsion of
UNICEF Spokesman James Elder on September 7.
Sri Lanka
isn’t the only South Asian country facing a visa crisis.
Thousands of Pakistani students were unable to start
school in
Britain
this fall because of delays in issuing visas. Like Sri
Lanka, Pakistan’s UK visas are processed outside the
country — in
Pakistan’s
case, Abu Dhabi. Following a national uproar over the
delayed visas, UK Home Secretary Alan Johnson travelled
to Pakistan and announced that visa operations would be
moved back to the country in November. And there was
recently a rush for visas in
India
by people trying to beat the October 1 introduction of
tougher financial requirements by the UK Border Agency.
On a
recent morning, the VFS processing centre in Colombo was
strangely quiet, with only a handful of applicants. Has
the company gotten its act together, or are potential
tourists to the UK staying away because of all the bad
press?
For
the short time I was there, security guards followed me
around the building, preventing me from talking to
people in the stiflingly hot waiting room. When the
guards discovered I wasn’t applying for a visa myself,
they quickly escorted me out of the building. As they’ve
done to countless visa applicants, the High Commission
and its bureaucracy had rejected me.
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“No
political bias in issuing British visas”
British High Commissioner, Dr. Peter Hayes |
Q: Why have so many Sri Lankan students been refused
visas this year?
A: Most students who applied for visas this
year received them, and the majority received them
within our target of 15 working days. We want to
encourage Sri Lankans to study in the UK, and the
new points-based system introduced this year is
intended to make it easier for genuine applicants to
get their visa. But we are dealing with many
thousands of student visas each year, so it is very
important that the applicants read carefully the
guidance, and ensure they have provided all the
information asked for. When applications have been
refused it is usually because the student has not
read and followed the guidance properly. The
official guidance, available on the VFS and UK
Border Agency websites, sets out exactly what
evidence is required in order to meet the points
threshold for a visa to be issued.
Q: Why do visas take so long to process since part
of the visa operation was moved to Chennai?
A: Our target is to issue 90% of normal visa
applications within 15 working days. This target
time is well publicised on the British High
Commission, UK Border Agency and VFS websites.
People wanting to travel to the UK need to make sure
they apply for their visa well in advance of their
date of travel. We’re beating our targets for most
types of visas at the moment. For example we issue
most tourist and student visas within 10 working
days of the application being submitted. In some
individual cases we do sometimes miss the target
processing times as a result of particularly high
demand or if an individual application requires
extra checks.
Q: Why are people who have regularly travelled to
the UK in the past been declined visas?
A: Each individual application is assessed on
its own merits. A common reason for applications
being rejected is that the documents supplied to
support the application are inadequate. Anyone
applying for a UK visa should read carefully the
guidance notes on the VFS web site. They also need
to submit originals, not photocopies, of key
documents. And of course any applicant who submits
fraudulent documents will have his visa rejected and
face a 10-year ban on travel to the UK.
Q: There have been lots of complaints about the
service of the Visa Facilitation Service (VFS). What
is being done about these?
A: The UK Border Agency uses VFS as its
commercial partner in Sri Lanka and in many other
places. It plays an important role in the delivery
of the visa operation to customers. The UK Border
Agency monitors closely VFS’s performance against
contractual requirements. We take seriously
complaints about any aspect of our visa service,
investigate them and take appropriate action in each
case.
Q: When will there be an improvement in the UK visa
service?
A: We are committed to providing an efficient
visa service to customers in Sri Lanka. We did have
some initial problems in
Colombo
following the transfer of parts of our visa
operation to Chennai last year, and several months
ago there were worldwide technical problems that
slowed down our visa service. But in general over
the course of 2009 the visa service has been
operating effectively. There has been a lot of
misreporting in the media and it’s important to
restate that we have been meeting our target times
for issuing visas. Visa applicants need to make sure
they apply well in advance of their date of travel
and that they comply fully with the necessary
criteria.
Q: How true is the accusation that recently the
British High Commission has exercised political bias
in the granting of visas to Sri Lankan officials and
others?
A: It’s a completely unfounded accusation. We
process around 30,000 applications for visas for Sri
Lankans each year. Decisions are based entirely on
the paperwork provided with the application. There
is no political consideration involved. We wouldn’t
have the resources to make political judgments on
30,000 applications even if we wanted to!
Q: The government is of the view that the British
High Commission recently violated diplomatic
protocol by rejecting a visa for Foreign Secretary
Palitha Kohona and Parliamentarian Arjuna Ranatunga
and felt this had further strained relations between
Britain and Sri Lanka. What is your response?
A: Because of
UK
privacy laws we never comment on individual visa
applications, but I can say that many of the details
of the various cases reported are incorrect and that
no diplomatic protocols have been violated. Foreign
Minister Bogollagama has responded in parliament to
clarify a number of recent reports involving senior
Sri Lankan officials applying for UK visas. We can,
and do, expedite visa applications for senior
political and official figures from Sri Lanka. Of
course this has to be in accordance with
UK
immigration rules which means, for example, that we
cannot issue free visas for senior people making
personal visits to the
UK.
In all cases of VIP visits, the High Commission
works closely with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
to try to ensure a smooth service.
Q: On an earlier occasion Attorney General Mohan
Peiris too was inconvenienced by the British High
Commission which asked him to appear in person for
an interview to grant a visa. Was this part of
standard procedure or a deliberate attempt to
inconvenience and humiliate him?
A: We do not generally conduct interviews as
part of the visa application process. We frequently
facilitate visa applications for official visits to
the UK by government officials. We do as much as we
can to make this process as quick and as easy as
possible for the officials involved. But it’s
obviously important that this is in line with our
immigration law which means there are some rules,
such as the need to submit biometric data for
personal visits to the UK, which we must follow in
every case in every country.
Q: However there does seem to have been an increase
recently in the number of visas rejections to Sri
Lankans? Why?
A: The majority of visa applications received
by the British High Commission have been approved.
When visas are rejected it is most often because the
applicant has not filled in the form correctly or
completely, or has failed to provide all the
required supporting documents. Anyone applying for
a UK visa should also remember that submitting
forged documents, lying in their application or
withholding relevant information will guarantee that
the application is rejected. They also face the
possibility of a ban of 10 years on travelling to
the UK. It’s really important that anyone wishing to
apply for a UK visa reads and follows the guidance
available on the official websites carefully. This
guidance is available on the VFS web site and the UK
Border Agency visas web site: www.ukvisas.gov.uk
<http://www.ukvisas.gov.uk>.
Q: Is this part of a plan to put pressure on the Sri
Lankan government to force them to fall in line with
Western principles and dictates?
A: There is absolutely no truth in the
suggestion that we use our visa process as a
political tool. All applications are considered by
the UK Border Agency on their individual merits — on
the basis of all the information submitted by the
applicant, against the results of biometric checks
and in accordance with the
UK’s
Immigration Rules.
Q:
In the 1980s the
UK
promised that visas would not be imposed for the
Indian sub-continent and then imposed them. Five
countries were put on the British visa list in 1985
— India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria and Ghana —
that experience has fuelled fears amongst Sri
Lankans and their relatives in Britain that visas
would be harder to obtain than before? What is your
response?
A:
The UK welcomes all those who want to visit or work
or study legitimately in the UK. Genuine travellers
have nothing to worry about. Over the years patterns
of immigration into the UK have changed. To reflect
this the UK Border Agency constantly reviews the
list of countries that require visas to visit the
UK. For example, earlier this year the UK Border
Agency imposed a visa requirement on nationals of
Bolivia, Lesotho, South Africa, Swaziland and
Venezuela, and withdrew Taiwan from the list of
countries requiring visas. These decisions are made
in line with UK legislation and published guidelines
and criteria. In summary, visa requirements are
based on compliance with immigration rules.
Q: But in the early 1980s about eight per cent of
visitors from those five countries were turned back
at airports. Now, under the visa system, one in four
Bangladeshis and Ghanaians have their applications
for visas refused by British high commissions. By
contrast, just one in 3,012 Americans are refused
admission at airports? Why is this so?
A:
UK immigration legislation applies to all
nationalities. Each decision made, whether at a UK
overseas mission or on arrival in the UK, is based
on the merits of the individual case and whether the
traveller meets the immigration rules. We are only
able to grant visas when applicants demonstrate that
they meet our published visa criteria.
Q: Visas are refused in Africa and the Indian
sub-continent including Sri Lanka when Home Office
officials based in high commissions suspect that the
visitors could become illegal immigrants or use
health and social services. Why is the system not in
force in any white Commonwealth country? Like for
example Australia and Australians...
A: As I explained earlier, visa requirements
for particular countries are based on an assessment
of the overall risk to the immigration control
presented by travellers from those countries. Visa
requirements are kept under review. UK immigration
legislation applies to all nationalities. Nationals
of Australia have to satisfy UK Border Agency
officials that they will comply with UK legislation
the same way as any other nationality. Visitors
from Australia do not require tourist visas but many
other categories of Australian visa applicants must
go through the same visa process as other
Commonwealth citizens and foreign nationals. As I
said before each decision made, whether at a UK
overseas mission or on arrival in the UK, is based
on the merits of the individual case. |
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