Migrant review timelines under pressure
Being as buried as I am in my own case on a day-to-day basis, this particular article escaped my attention until today: Migrant tribunals under resource pressure (see related articles below).
I have written before about the length of time it can take for a partner visa appeal to be heard, noting it could take three years for a family or couple to be reunited. Reading this article, it would seem it could possibly be longer. After all, the length of time to even have the original application processed can be twelve months alone, depending on the country of origin of the applicant. Then add the appeal timeline to that.
It is my contention that a partner visa should be considered a humanitarian visa, not lumped in with all the other visa classes. There is a huge difference between a student appealing a student visa decision and a family trying desperately to be reunited. Even without the complications of our particular case, it takes too long for families. I recall the case of the couple from Canada with three children: it was over twelve months before the father could join his family. Fortunately in their case there was no appeal required, that twelve months was just the initial visa application processing.
Paperwork, paperwork and more paperwork
Today I have spent 7.5 hours writing a statement for the MRT covering such details as how often my husband showers and who washed the dishes, printing out every email I have where I have discussed John with friends, family and colleagues, printing out screen shots of Facebook messages between myself and my brother and writing a covering letter to my lawyer.
Feeling isolated & fragile
I have been for a couple of days now, but have been trying to ignore it. People probably just quite simply do not realise, but when I asked friends and family to confirm their knowledge and acceptance of our marriage in statements, I expected, wanted, needed some kind of feedback.
My old housemate responded within about 10 minutes! He’d done his!
Fight or flight?
I received a formal communication from my lawyer today. It included a letter from the MRT acknowledging receipt of the appeal documents.
Appeal officially lodged
The appeal was officially lodged today.
Very hectic day at work today, so that kept me busy: so busy, in fact, I almost missed the lawyer’s email with the submission for me to review. I also had my phone on “meeting” so didn’t hear the call he made to me either.
I remembered to take out the rubbish bin…
… but that is about the only good thing I can say about this weekend. A few weeks ago, expecting my family to arrive, I was capable of moving mountains. Now I am just running on empty. I hate being like this.
Signed MRT appeal application
Really not a great deal to say today. I signed the MRT appeal application and returned it to the lawyer.
Went to work and negotiated to take a few days leave on a drip-feed basis to help lower my stress levels and stop trying to be WonderWoman, so that is a good thing!
