A blind Nigerian woman who has lived in the UK for 26 years has been denied indefinite leave to remain under the Home Office's new settlement rules. Comfort, 67, who arrived in the UK in 2000 and went blind due to acute glaucoma, was told she can return to India. The Home Office rejected her application for indefinite leave to remain, stating her circumstances were not severe enough.
The new settlement rules announced by the Home Office mean Comfort will have to renew her visa every 30 months for the next 20 years before she can apply for indefinite leave to remain. This has raised concerns among migrants' rights organizations, as some individuals may not live long enough to satisfy the new wait times.
Lawyers at Refugee and Migrant Justice are supporting Comfort, arguing that the government should scrap the new settlement plans, which they believe are cruel and counter-productive. The Home Office has stated that all applications are considered on their individual merits.
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