Application refusals – need to know

This section of the information resource covers a particularly important ‘need to know’ Hostile Environment operational level topic. It also includes examples of the clandestine, specific target population groups and nationalities that those at & from Whitehall who control, direct and protect from effective investigative challenge, the Hostile Environment, and the following very important democracy and open government supporting link on asylum refusals statistics from the Free Movement organisation: https://www.freemovement.org.uk/statistics-refugees-uk/

Application refusals take place in both the UK and overseas. Except where clearly demonstrated suspicion of criminality or potential terrorist activities are the main cause for the refusal of a visa application or LTR (or ILR – Indefinite Leave to Remain), a right to appeal against a refusal decision is given. Commonly there is a brief time limit for such an appeal to be made. From this point once an appeal is made, the latter is dealt with by HMCTS Immigration Tribunal in the UK, even if you made your visa application from overseas.

Much of the content on this information resource website covers different aspects of refusal decisions handed to solid / genuine applicants, but this page provides some need to know useful and thematic detail.

Below are provided three links that combined indicate the phenomenon of trends within refusal categories data: some of this indicate disproportionality on racial, implied economic, and sexual orientation grounds. It is not tenable to accept that clear, confirmed trends (and of course the ‘Target Culture’ referred to at the end of this page) happen by chance, but as the leaked Home Office memos, quotas revelations that led to the resignation of the former Home Secretary indicate, central very high level direction is given to these heart of the Hostile Environment operational level not publicly disclosed, target populations.

It is impossible not to see a connection between these revelations and the further even more controversial secrecy on Home Office timidity of allowing any access [to allay fears/suspicions] to the UKVI Operating Mandate and the Border Force Operating Mandate – for more information visit our Operating Mandates, Quotas, & leaked Memos – the direction of the Hostile Environment page at http://needtoknow-immigrationuk.com/operating-mandates-quotas-leaked-memos-the-direction-of-the-hostile-environment/

Some sample Refusal statistics are provided below (source: https://ukvisa.blog/2018/11/23/uk-visa-success-rate/ ). The selections give a useful range of data, indicating some trends (the full resource amplifies these considerably) – the first column gives numbers of applications, the second accepted applications, and the third, refusals:

Refugee 2,101 67.54% 32.03%

Family: Partner (UK spouse visa refusal rate) 9,774 78.53% 21.01%

Antigua and Barbuda 5 40.00% 60.00%

Australia 4,682 95.60% 3.52%

Bahrain 3,257 99.14% 0.74%

Nepal 4,660 74.25% 25.41%

Saudi Arabia 49,808 99.25% 0.60%

St. Lucia 17 70.59% 29.41%

Asylum refusals statistics: https://www.freemovement.org.uk/statistics-refugees-uk/

LGBT asylum refusals statistics: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/lgbt-asylum-seekers-home-office-uk-applications-2018-a8658951.html — Number of LGBT+ asylum seekers refused by Home Office soars by 52%

The Hostile Environment Golden Visas contrasting approach to targeted population groups:

By way of contrast regarding the Home Office (UKVI) and ‘Golden Visas,’ the following link indicates very different treatment to that experienced by the Home Office towards the vast majority of the genuine applicants their officers in the UK and abroad, refuse: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/golden-visa-scandal-home-office-in-cash-for-passports-probe-x8ll9xps2 July 21 2019, 12:01am, The Sunday Times

Excerpt:

… millionaires can buy access to British passports by exploiting a flawed Home Office scheme fast-tracking the super-rich, an investigation has revealed.

Legal and financial advisers were filmed boasting about their role in securing scores of “golden visas” for millionaire foreign clients and offering to omit sensitive details from immigration officials, such as links to the inner circle of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and to the Chinese military.

The advisers told an undercover reporter they had helped secure golden visas … One said it was “easy-peasy” to get around Home Office anti- corruption checks, alleging that the officials who did the vetting were untrained school leavers who used Google searches. Some boasted of near-perfect records in helping clients through the process.

Secret filming by The Sunday Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches exposed how the Home Office conducts scant checks on wealthy foreigners who stump up £2m to obtain citizenship through the UK’s “golden visa” scheme.

The revelations will place pressure on Sajid Javid, the home secretary, to scrap or clean up the golden visa regime. His department briefly suspended the scheme in December amid concern that it was being abused by organised crime gangs and money launderers, but days later it did a U-turn. Sources say the Treasury demanded that it was reinstated.

Yesterday Dame Margaret Hodge MP, the former chairwoman of the public accounts select committee, called for the scheme to be immediately suspended pending a parliamentary inquiry and an audit of all past applicants. She said: “It is scandalous how the hostile environment is treating asylum seekers in my constituency in a terrible way yet we are welcoming with open arms dirty money into Britain. We will never sustain economic prosperity on the back of dirty money.” …

… Unlike other nations, the UK does not ask visa applicants to pay any of the £2m sum to the government or stipulate that the money should create British jobs or boost areas of deprivation. It does not stop investors taking the money back offshore after they have secured the right to live permanently in Britain.

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Categories of those who apply for visas or LTR:

These are Family/marriage/civil partner related, work, business, student, asylum/refugee. Each of these have largely very different impacts when a refusal takes place.

For example, it can be frustrating and inconvenient if a student or business visa are refused (but often resolved easily as the burden for overturning the decision is in the hands of large organisations that can if necessary deploy high quality immigration lawyers).

It can be economically disruptive for those whose work visas are refused, but emotionally and personally devastating if the visa or LTR application refused is family/marriage-civil partner related, and in the case of a refused asylum application can mean very real risk of death (murder/suicide).

It has been made clear on the basis of the actual operational level record, that UK immigration has an ‘economic rather than humane, life-saving and family human rights respecting orientation.’

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Themes within refusal patterns:

The scandal of the at first denial and subsequent confirmation of its existence of quotas on removal of people in the UK (led in particular by IE and IE ‘ICE’ teams, with other public service agencies and entities such as in particular police constabularies, and HMRC, local authorities, the NHS, etc.) – a 10% increase was set and exceeded, emerged as the context that led to the resignation of former Home Secretary, Amber Rudd in 2017 Link: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/apr/27/amber-rudd-was-told-about-migrant-removal-targets-leak-reveals

It is clearly impossible to consider as ‘by chance / accidental’ in light of the Windrush scandal, the Gurkha DNA scandal, and the scandal of targeting the LGBT community (https://www.gaystarnews.com/article/read-this-open-letter-demanding-uk-to-stop-sending-lgbti-asylum-seekers-to-their-deaths/#gs.r1m6nn , that the Home Office/Whitehall ‘migrants removal’ quota Hostile Environment implementation, scandal revelation doesn’t extend to other Hostile Environment target groups, for the evidence is compelling and often chilling, it does.

That other specific UK immigration service user populations and sub-populations (such as those referred to, but others too) removal or, in this case, refusal, targets, with related percentage quotas for refusals being implemented should Not be doubted as those who are unfortunate enough to be within one of the exclusion groups will know from the defects in the grounds their applications were refused on.

The news article above features in the leaked Home Office/Whitehall memo also has information about those with executive and strategy implementation powers used to support Hostile Environment implementation command and direction, through a model it appears (evidenced in other leaked memos) is replicated more broadly. This including in particular, significantly, that Whitehall [more than Westminster] leads in terms of de-facto power, as we see that Permanent Secretary, second Permanent Secretary and ‘special advisers’ positions are named, indicating a template/model that clearly exists in other Whitehall, Government department civil servants/bureaucrats settings.

‘ … At the bottom of the memo is a list of all those who received copies of the findings. The home secretary, permanent secretary, second permanent secretary and special advisers are the first to be named.’ On this topic please visit our Hostile Environment developers, directors & managers, and other relevant pages at http://needtoknow-immigrationuk.com/developers/ and http://needtoknow-immigrationuk.com/directing-managing/

Regarding the same news article referred to above, the following conclusive and damning words (below) regarding Whitehall/Home Office upper echelon decisions to develop and implement a ‘target culture’ that has clearly been and continues to be aimed at certain population groups (usually the most easy to target/bully) in regard to Hostile Environment era immigration & settlement:

Sources told the Guardian the briefing was one of several to have been circulated in the Home Office in recent months outlining the target culture.

Link: Amber Rudd was sent targets for migrant removal, leak reveals. Exclusive: Secret memo undermines home secretary’s claim she was unaware of targets https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/apr/27/amber-rudd-was-told-about-migrant-removal-targets-leak-reveals