BS: Home Office (UK) Foot Shooting

Subject: BS: Home Office (UK) Foot Shooting
From: Leadfingers
Date: 30 Apr 12 - 12:21 PM

Another Fiasco building up ! After the delays with Immigration at Heathrow last week Border Agency (A MAJOR part of Home Office)Big Wigs are trying to stop BAA making any comments about it - Front page of today's Torygraph !

Subject: RE: BS: Home Office (UK) Foot Shooting
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 30 Apr 12 - 12:43 PM

We are having big problems with UK Border Agency at the moment. They have been processing my husband's very simple and straightforward Indefinite Leave to Remain for.......FIVE MONTHS!! It costs £972 just to apply, and naturally the cheque whizzed through into their account early last December. But since then, nothing. We've had to get our MP onto it, but we haven't heard from him either. Is there anybody at all out there, or are they all dead? I believe they don't employ enough staff to process all the paperwork, arrivals, etc and their attitude is "Stuff it, let the buggers wait!" They're sitting on almost every document we possess, Passports, 6 months of Bank Statements, Birth and Marriage Certificates, Utility Bills, Land Registry Title Deed to the house, Pension papers etc etc. Our filing cabinet is empty! You're not supposed to contact them to ask politely if they've made any progress, so you're just left waiting and waiting and waiting...... Blooming Cheek!!

Subject: RE: BS: Home Office (UK) Foot Shooting
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 30 Apr 12 - 01:02 PM

We are having big problems with UK Border Agency at the moment. They have been processing my husband's very simple and straightforward Indefinite Leave to Remain for.......FIVE MONTHS!! It costs £972 just to apply, and naturally the cheque whizzed through into their account early last December. But since then, nothing.
As the UK government seems incapable of deporting anyone without the permission of the EC I'd be tempted to retain a copy of the application & of the receipt for postage (registered letter?) and assume it had been successful.

Subject: RE: BS: Home Office (UK) Foot Shooting
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 30 Apr 12 - 01:06 PM

True, Nigel, but in order to invoke the EC (Court of Human Rights) we'd have to stump up about £2000 for an Appeal, within ten days of receiving a Refusal. It's a nightmare whichever way one looks at it, and the stress is driving us bonkers!

Subject: RE: BS: Home Office (UK) Foot Shooting
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 30 Apr 12 - 02:21 PM

Seriously, can anyone believe Theresa May would shoot herself in the foot? Have you ANY idea what her shoes COST?

Subject: RE: BS: Home Office (UK) Foot Shooting
From: Leadfingers
Date: 30 Apr 12 - 06:54 PM

And now (BBC News) they announce that there will be Extra Staff in immigration !

Subject: RE: BS: Home Office (UK) Foot Shooting
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 01 May 12 - 07:35 AM

We had no delay at Gatwick North terminal immigration on April 13 - although perhaps there had been a lull in easyjet flight arrivals at that terminal.

Bring back the days of BA flights only using the North Terminal as soon as possible!

Subject: RE: BS: Home Office (UK) Foot Shooting
From: Musket
Date: 01 May 12 - 08:13 AM

I wonder if this is a Heathrow issue? There were no queues at Manchester last Friday afternoon, with a large number of flights coming in.

It is a fact that queuing at airport passport / immigration checks can and does allow people to form an initial impression of a country and its efficiency. I do wonder sometimes at the amount a government spends advertising the country to tourists and investors, but fail to address the things that actually stick in peoples' minds, such as immigration queues.

Until they built a new lounge for onward passengers, I avoided going to New Zealand via LA, as LAX insisted on immigration even though we were only staying in the airport! It is better now, and I no longer bad mouth California when discussing airports. (At the same time, Arnie was on adverts over here saying what a wonderful place it was, resulting in me shouting at the telly to ask him to sort out the jobsworth buggers at LAX....)

It's the little things that count... And the unacceptable situation at Heathrow is embarrassing for us, unacceptable for our visitors.

Subject: RE: BS: Home Office (UK) Foot Shooting
From: GUEST,redhorse at work
Date: 01 May 12 - 08:22 AM

Don't be too optimistic Ian: they are now flying UKBA staff from Manchester to Heathrow to help out. So presumably Heathrow will get better and Manchester will get worse. I'll see what it's like when I fly back into Manchester Thursday week.

Subject: RE: BS: Home Office (UK) Foot Shooting
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 01 May 12 - 08:43 AM

Also on the front page of the Telegraph - bad teachers are to be paid less. You can't help wishing they would run a pilot scheme with bad politicians and bad business moguls who don't pay any tax.

Subject: RE: BS: Home Office (UK) Foot Shooting
From: GUEST,Guest MikeL2
Date: 01 May 12 - 10:25 AM

Hi

Bonzo - Oh you are a snob. !!!!!

I can only speak for Liverpool and Manchester Airports.....It is not the Easyjet nor the Air Ryan flights that clog up the immigration queues.

Cheers

Mikel2

Subject: RE: BS: Home Office (UK) Foot Shooting
From: Musket
Date: 01 May 12 - 01:43 PM

I look at it this way Al. if you are a bad businessman, you will be paid less. (Ironically, you therefore pay less tax, but that's a bit deep for a Tuesday teatime.)

Are you guilty of derailing the thread or am I guilty of encouraging you?

Subject: RE: BS: Home Office (UK) Foot Shooting
From: Rusty Dobro
Date: 01 May 12 - 01:50 PM

Only five months for an ILR application? Hopelessly optimistic, based on my 40 years of working for this lot.

As for the airport controls, when I worked at Heathrow, we had a colour chart - at times when most flights were expected, most staff were scheduled. It's not hard to do - the arrivals pattern was reasonably constant during the week, and the vast majority of flights turned up when they were expected to. However, I gather that nowadays, that system has been abolished, and staffing patterns are now rigid, and no longer geared to the work.

I'm glad I'm out of it all....