Originally Posted by JimmyBlue76

Here's what I wrote to Mr Gapes and Mr Corbyn, personal details removed:

Dear Mr Gapes,

Whilst I am not a constituent of yours I wanted to write and thank you for the written questions you submitted to the Home Office on 12 and 13 September 2017 with regard to the processing of spousal visa applications and their processing by the Sheffield office. I find that my own situation is mirrored precisely by the circumstances you are referring to in those questions - my wife submitted her settlement visa application in May 2017 and we find ourselves in that group of applications that seem to have disappeared into a black hole at the Sheffield processing office. So thank you for at least attempting to get answers from the Home Office, even if they replied with an appalling attempted whitewash.

{Details of our particular case here}

Shortly before our 60 day service standard deadline was met we were told the application was not straightforward - we were not told why. We were asked for further financial information that the office claimed we had not provided even though we had sent this as part of our initial supporting documents. We submitted the requested information via email again and received another email from Sheffield several days later stating that we had not provided the information yet so they would make a decision on August 15th with whatever information we had provided if we didn't send the requested documents. We sent them again immediately and via email, and since then have heard nothing other than to be told on August 29th that they had finally got around to adding the documents to our case. We are now at day 95 since the bio-metric appointment. We have escalated three times and never had any reply from that. My MP has written to the Director of UKVI and received no response - after some 26 days.

As I am sure you are aware, ours is not a unique case. This online forum {link to here added} contains 75 pages of similar, if not exact (give or take a day or two), stories. In most cases, the sequence is the same - as people approach the 60 day service deadline they are suddenly told that their case is not straightforward. No one is ever told why - Sitel are a shameful money making machine that never, and I do mean never, provide any worthwhile or useful information despite that being their one task, for which applicants pay handsomely. And suddenly the Home Office can ignore us. In his disgracefully uninformative answers to you Brandon Lewis pointed you to a report from August 2017 detailing the figures for settlement applications in Q1 this year - but Q2 is where the issues seem to be arising, and where the Home Office suddenly seems to be unable to produce statistics - despite their own website containing statistics for decisions made in May 2017 stating that 100% of the applications decided from the USA in that month were dealt with by day 90 (you'll recall we are at day 95). Applications made in April and May this year (and many further back than that) seem to have been ignored, lost or inexplicably delayed. I see stories of people who are approaching 124 days without a decision.

Furthermore, I believe that the HO is deliberately misleading the public. Cases that are about to breach the 60 day standard are shortly before the deadline declared to be 'not straightforward', which if you read the notes in the August 2017 report now means they are set outside of the standard service times and can now be ignored in favour of processing applications that have longer to run, thus allowing the Home Office and UKVI to report better processing times and results.

{details of why I think our case is straightforward and how we meet and exceed all requirements} Yet UKVI conveniently deemed it non-straightforward just before they were due to miss their processing deadline, and have since ignored it whilst processing visa applications made after ours was, and they admit they still don't know when they will make a decision for us.

Please continue to push the Home Office for answers to your questions because very few people outside of those affected seem to know what is going on and Brandon Lewis should be ashamed by his transparent effort to avoid giving you any useful or meaningful information. His department most assuredly does have the answers to your questions - or is he suggesting that UKVI is being so incompetently and haphazardly run that they do not know how many applications they are processing at any given time, and that there is no monitoring of their processing service standards in real time? If that's the case - how can they possibly hope to meet them?

The limbo that those of us affected by this are stranded in is simply soul destroying. I missed my daughter's 2nd birthday. My wife missed our eldest son's birthday just yesterday and will most likely miss my birthday in October. When I travelled to the US for my wife's birthday in July my daughter didn't recognise me. We spent our 17th wedding anniversary on opposite sides of the world. We have missed months of potential earnings and job experience for my wife. My family has been split so UKVI can mislead the public about meeting its processing standards, and then deliberately try to avoid your questions on the issue. I know of dozens suffering in the same way, there are most likely hundreds. Brandon Lewis' answers are an insult to all of us.

Thank you for bringing this to light in Parliament, and please don't stop asking questions about it until you get some meaningful, truthful, answers.

Yours Sincerely,

Originally Posted by mattthefat

Almost on queue, there was a question in the House of Commons regarding the delays on spouse and fiancé visas. I'm considering getting my wife to write to the honourable member who raised the question (Mike Gapes) to thank him for raising this question and direct him to this forum to show the depth of the problems these processing delays are causing.

Is there support for this approach?

Here's the question raised in Parliament on Monday: https://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans...isas#g10258.r0

Matt.

Originally Posted by Rosy1910

Guys, it seems like we can make our own request on Whatdotheyknow. Why don't we make a request there, with all details like what Jimmyblue76 wrote, then we all can commend and add details of our own case. I have gone through a few requests to Home Office, there has not been anything like this posted there.

Originally Posted by JimmyBlue76

The FOI through Whatdotheyknow is not quite what you need - it's not designed for individual cases and the request and answers will be publicly available, including any personal information you submit. I plan on having my wife submit a Data Subject Access Request, which you can do here using the fast track application:

Home Office SAR

It may still take 20 days but may potentially tell you what they are saying. Hopefully. Let's be honest, who knows at this point?!

Originally Posted by Rosy1910

We want to be heard don't we? Don't need to provide all the details, the length of waiting plus how your life has been turned upside down would be more than enough. If we have a few dozens here speak the same voice it could be huge. Public need to know how Home Office is treating us.

Originally Posted by garyede

Ah that old chest nut again! Vague, generic, disgusting!

Originally Posted by Rosy1910

We want to be heard don't we? Don't need to provide all the details, the length of waiting plus how your life has been turned upside down would be more than enough. If we have a few dozens here speak the same voice it could be huge. Public need to know how Home Office is treating us.

Originally Posted by j4v3d

I wonder if they use CTRL + C followed by CTRL + V.

I'd love to swear but probably end up getting kicked off here, so i won't. The treatment of the applicants is beyond a joke, it's criminal.