Draconian changes to renewal of Discretionary Leave to Remain for Asylum-Seekers. This is a long post as there is a lot of information, but please read it and take action accordingly. Thanks.
Please read the information below and contact your parliamentary candidates (including Conservatives – probably most of them don’t know about this) to ask for their response and what their party (if not Conservative) would do to change this policy. Discretionary Leave to Remain is granted to asylum-seekers who are not granted full refugee status but who are allowed to stay on humanitarian grounds or if they cannot be returned to their home country. It is usually for up to three years and can then be renewed.
You can find your candidates at http://www.yourcandidates.org.uk/
Please forward this to anybody you think might also be prepared to contact their candidates.
I don’t think it was a coincidence that this change took place when Parliament was in recess.
Here are the details:
On 6 April (Easter Monday) a sinister revolution took place in the renewal of Discretionary Leave to Remain. Until 5th April all applicants for renewal had to fill a form with about 15 pages in it, most of them redundant if the person had committed no offences over the 2½ or 3 years since they had been granted DLR. There was no fee – only the postage cost.
Overnight applicants have to fill in a 32-page form and also have to pay ÂŁ649 per individual, including dependant infants, plus a further ÂŁ600 per person for a brand new “Immigration Health Surcharge”. there will also be a charge of ÂŁ40 per person of for their “Biometric Residence Permit”, unless they have one already. But most people don’t have one because it was introduced more recently than 3 years ago. So a family of 3, for example will be paying ÂŁ4,000!
The biometric Residence Permit identifies the person as a “migrant”, and those who seek employment must have their BRP carefully scrutinised by the prospective employer, who is expected to make an examination according to 16 bullet points.
Here is the link to the form where you can also see the full range of charges: