Scandal of refugee families separated by UK red tape

Refugees waiting to be reunited with their families in Britain have been subjected to rape and are living in hiding under totalitarian regimes as they wait to be brought to safety, as a “life-threatening” backlog grows.

Figures obtained by The Independent show more than 11,000 people who are currently waiting for relocation are stranded abroad while being failed by one of the government’s only “safe and legal routes” to the UK.

The majority are women and children, in countries including Syria, Afghanistan and Iran. In all the cases, one of their close family members has already been granted protection in the UK and has the right to bring their partners and children to join them.

One Sudanese refugee told The Independent he has been waiting for almost a year for a visa for his wife and son, who are stranded amid a raging conflict that has already claimed his nephew’s life.

In another shocking incident, one girl was “followed home from school and raped” by Iranian security forces while waiting for the Home Office to process her visa. Meanwhile, hundreds of women remain trapped under the brutal Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, accused the government of “leaving people in life-threatening situations” and making them “easy prey for criminal smuggler gangs who put them on dangerous small boats”.

“It’s time the prime minister and home secretary stopped focusing on media headlines and got a grip of the chaos created on their watch,” she told The Independent.

Figures drawn from an official database under freedom of information laws show that the majority of the 11,189 refugees waiting for family reunion visas applied over six months ago, and almost 1,800 have been living in limbo for over a year.

More than 7,000 of those stranded are women and girls, and 5,700 were children at the time applications for their safe transfer were made by relatives in Britain. Syria is the top nationality, followed by Eritrea, Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan, Somalia and Yemen.

The borders watchdog has warned that “failing” family reunion processes are leaving women and children in danger while driving up the risk of vulnerable people resorting to Channel crossings to reach loved ones in the UK.

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But ministers frequently cite the visas as a viable safe and legal route to Britain, while pushing its laws that aim to see all small boat migrants detained, deported and barred from re-entering the UK.

When introducing the Illegal Migration Bill to parliament, Suella Braverman said she was “proud” of the scheme, telling MPs: “We have a family reunification scheme to enable family members to join their family here. That is a record of which we should be proud.”

The home secretary has frequently brought up family reunions when defending against MPs’ criticism of the Rwanda plan – that if passed will see refugees sent to the African nation to claim asylum there – and other punitive policies, calling it a “crucial” alternative to small boats.

“We are proud of those safe and legal routes,” she told parliament in March. “When we stop the boats, we will look to expand those routes.”

Immigration minister Robert Jenrick has also frequently hailed the reunion visas, calling arguments that the government has not created sufficient alternatives to small boat crossings “ridiculous”.

“Some 45,000 people have come across on family reunion visas,” he said. “We need no lectures on playing our part as a generous and compassionate country.”

But Home Office figures show that under 4,500 visas were granted last year, meaning that it would take until 2026 to clear the backlog at that rate, while more applications flow in from desperate families.

Scottish National Party home affairs spokesperson Alison Thewliss has lobbied the government on behalf of one of her constituents – an Iranian man who applied for visas for his wife, son and daughter over six months ago.

“In the meantime, his family are in danger – his daughter was followed home from school and raped by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” she said. “This is why people do not wait in-country for the government to process their visas. They do not wait because they are at risk of persecution, rape, danger and torture.

“They are not prepared to wait for safe and legal routes, because in many cases they do not exist.”

Family reunion is only available to people granted refugee status in the UK, and the record asylum backlog means that many of those making applications will already have been separated from their relatives for years.

Refugees can only bring partners and children to Britain, and charities have long been calling for the scheme to be widened to include parents and siblings.

Safe Passage, a charity that helps reunite families, said it was handling a case of a nine-year-old girl and her mother who are living in hiding in Afghanistan.

The girl has not been able to go to school since the 2021 Taliban takeover, and her separated parents are suffering from worsening mental health and stress.

Despite an application for family reunion being made a year ago, and the mother and daughter formally registering their biometric details for the Home Office within weeks, there has been no decision on their visas and caseworkers were told the case was not “sufficiently exceptional” to speed it up.

Caterina Franchi, head of legal at Safe Passage International, said: “These delays can have disastrous consequences, as children lose faith in the family reunion process. Sadly, many go on to make a dangerous journey to reach family here as they cannot wait any longer.

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“Families torn apart by war and persecution shouldn’t have to risk their lives to hug and hold each other.”

Ms Franchi said the ministers were limiting refugee routes without “making sure they work”, adding: “This government needs to quickly get a grip on decision-making, and abandon the ‘Refugee Ban Bill’ that would punish people for joining family here any way they can.”

Alex Fraser, director for refugee support at the British Red Cross, said too many people were facing “agonising waits to find out if their loved ones, whose lives are often in peril, can join them”.

“The government’s Illegal Migration Bill will make the situation much worse if it becomes law, as the vast majority of people who arrive here for protection will be unable to claim asylum and apply for family reunion,” he added.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “The UK has a proud history of providing safe and legal routes for those who need it and more than 46,200 family reunion visas have been granted since 2015, with over half issued to children.

“We consider every application very carefully, and remain committed to improving the processing for family reunion applications.”