‘Shameless’ Tories set for courtroom battle with widows after companions’ deaths

Grieving widows ordered to pay practically £3,000 or face being kicked out of the UK are set for a courtroom showdown with the Government.

Mums whose British accomplice died have pleaded with the Home Office to waive charges they can not afford. Ministers are accused of “showing no sympathy” by “shamelessly” charging them to stay with their households.

Dozens of MPs have additionally referred to as on the Tories to scrap their “irrational” pursuit of weak widows. Under present guidelines it prices £2,885 for bereaved companions to acquire indefinite depart to stay – a sum that rose by over £400 final yr.

Campaigners have now been informed High Court judges are ready to hold out a judicial evaluate into the charges. In a heartbreaking letter to the Home Office, three widows wrote: “We have all made the UK our home, have worked, paid taxes and paid visa application fees.

“We have paid into the system and it’s not our fault that our husbands have handed away and we now face an unsure future.” But responding to pleas to scrap the charge, newly-appointed Legal Migration Minister Tom Pursglove wrote that there are “no plans” to reduce or waive the fees.

He wrote: “I respect the anguish prompted along with the grief the ladies are going by, and I want to relay my honest condolences to them for his or her losses, however the Home Office believes that those that use and profit immediately from the migration and borders system ought to contribute in direction of the price of working the system…”

He said the department “doesn’t supply price exemptions, waivers, or reductions for purposes, besides in very restricted circumstances”. The court action follows a legal campaign by the Refugee & Migrant Forum of Essex and London (RAMFEL).

So far 50 MPs have signed an early day motion (EDM) branding the charge “irrational” and warning it discriminates against women. They say the cost to the Home Office is £491 per person given leave to remain.

RAMFEL head of campaigning Nick Beales said: “Successive Immigration Ministers, from Robert Jenrick to Tom Pursglove, have now made it clear that they don’t have any sympathy for these grieving girls. They as an alternative need to shamelessly cost them 1000’s of kilos in a price of residing disaster to safe their future within the UK, regardless of everybody agreeing they need to be allowed to settle right here.

“Introducing a fee waiver for this application would probably allow no more than a couple of hundred people, primarily grieving women, to secure their status in the UK.

“It would price the federal government virtually nothing in misplaced utility charges, but they’re losing public cash defending their place in courtroom, the place they are going to successfully be attempting to persuade a choose that it’s within the public curiosity to revenue of those weak girls of their hour of want.”

Last year mum-of-four Christiana, whose British husband died in July after a short cancer battle, told The Mirror she’s struggling to feed and clothe her children and has no means to pay. “I do not perceive the way it’s honest,” the mother, who earns less than £11 an hour as a healthcare assistant, said. “My husband was British and I’ve lived within the UK for 17 years.

“I don’t think they understand how the law’s being applied and how it’s affecting people.” A Home Office spokeswoman stated: “All applications for indefinite leave to remain are carefully considered on their individual merits, on the basis of the evidence provided and in accordance with the Immigration Rules.”