Written evidence submitted by Connor Davidson (COR0048)
Dear Home Office Affairs Select Committee,
1. I would like to take this opportunity to submit evidence to the committee of a number of issues with regard to family migration that the Home Office has failed to provide any guidance or concessions on. I am writing this on a individual basis and for the benefit of others of whom I am aware that are similarly affected.
2. I fear that as a result of the inaction of the Home Office many families will be forced needlessly into precarious immigration status and face the prospect of their families being torn apart due to a combination of the hostile environment and COVID-19. To ensure the rights to family life in the face of COVID-19 urgent minor and reasonable adjustments to the immigration rules are required.
3. A few issues that I would like to present to the committed which are easily solved by the Home Office are given below. Each of these is easily fixable but none of these has been actioned by the Home Office
4. I urge the committee to ask the Home Office what their intended plans are for the situations above. This is causing extreme distress to a substantial number of families who fear that COVID-19 will tear their families apart. I find it staggering that to date the Home Office has not so much as even acknowledged the existence of any of these issues in official communications nor taken any actions whatsoever to ensure that COVID-19 does not lead to needless and cruel restrictions or separations being placed and inflicted on good law abiding immigrant families.
5. It is simply absurd that families should be forced into a precarious immigration situation; not due to the fact that they don’t meet immigration rules but simply because COVID-19 has prevented them from meeting these rules. The Home Office needs to act but the fact is that, almost a month into lockdown, virtually nothing has been done whatsoever to secure the right to family life of migrants affected by COVID-19.
April 2020