Coronavirus has made me into an undocumented immigrant in Britain

Confusion and skepticism are the typical reactions when I explain that I need a visa to live here in the UK. I’m an Aussie, am married to an English man, have two British children, am a Great British Bake Off devotee – surely this means I qualify for some kind of automatic right to live here, most people assume. Perhaps I don’t fit the typical migrant stereotype and yet, choosing to make this lovely country my home means shelling out not only thousands of pounds but also compiling hundreds of pages of supporting paperwork every few years until I’m eligible to apply for permanent residency and citizenship.  

The UK visa process is, rightly or wrongly, unapologetically ambiguous: applicants aren’t even given exact guidance on the types of documents needed to be submitted until after payment has gone through. And then there’s the hazy, how-long-is-a-piece-of-string timeline. Just how long a standard residency visa takes the Home Office to process can be a matter of weeks, or a matter of months – or if you're unlucky enough to have to apply for an extension of your spouse visa during a pandemic, like me, that matter of months can turn into almost five months and counting. Which means more than five months of living in limbo, at the mercy of a government department notorious even at the best of times for its lack of communication and undefined turnaround times.  

I submitted my application in May, as required. I'd heard that the centres processing applications were closed, or working at very limited capacity, but I had no choice. My current visa was about to expire. My home country had closed its borders. I have a life here in the English countryside with my young family. I did not want to risk deportation. So, amidst the coronavirus chaos of the time, I coughed up the cash (pun intended), hit send on the Home Office’s visa website... and waited. And waited.  

In July I received an email advising me that because I’d done my job in submitting my application on time, but that the Home Office hadn’t done theirs due to “operational constraints”, my current status had been temporarily extended. Pending a decision, I was still in limbo – but at least I was legal. Or at least, legal as in I wasn’t going to be deported. In reality, I still had both a passport and a residency permit card showing an expired visa, and all the “inconveniences” that involves for an undocumented migrant. Inconveniences like not being able to legally work and not being able to travel. Not to mention the emotional toll of living with such dubiety.  

I’ve been a stay at home parent since arriving in England but uncertainty surrounding my husband's job due to coronavirus meant I needed to find work. Except that to get a National Insurance number, I need a valid visa, which I don’t have. But if things got really desperate, you could get universal credit, a well-meaning friend pointed out... Not on my type of visa.

Then came the call that all migrants dread – both of my grandmothers in Australia were unwell, and seriously so, one with advanced dementia and the other, the return of cancer. The prognosis is not good. But jumping on a plane to say my goodbyes is not an option. Coronavirus travel restrictions aside, I have no valid visa, so even if I could get Down Under, there would be a serious question as to whether I would be able to re-enter the UK.  

Even an app launched by the Home Office designed to tackle the backlog of applications and fast-track decisions has proved ineffective. Typically, after an online submission, an applicant needs to attend a face-to-face appointment to submit their supporting documents and biometrics. The app, available only to “eligible” applicants of which I was one, replaces this, meaning instead of a day trip to our nearest major city a couple of hours away, I was able to complete this step from my couch.

Except that almost two months on from using the app and I am still waiting. In fact, applicants that weren't eligible to use the app and who instead had to wait for one of the very few face-to-face appointments have had their decision come through. It was the guinea pigs like me who were promised efficiency and speed thanks to the new app. We are still waiting.