Blind Nigerian pensioner in UK 26 years told she can settle in India

The Home Office is scrambling to re-issue a refusal letter that told a blind Nigerian pensioner she could go "home" to India — a country she has never visited. Home Office sources said corrective action was being taken to send an updated letter to the woman, a 67-year-old who has lived in Britain for 26 years. A department spokesperson said it does not routinely comment on individual cases and that applications are considered on their merits under the immigration rules.

Known in the report as Comfort, she arrived in the UK in 2000 and went blind soon afterwards because of acute glaucoma. In 2022 she was granted permission to stay under long residence rules, after two decades in the country. That route requires a visa renewal every 30 months for 10 years before indefinite leave to remain can be applied for.

Settlement rules announced this week by home secretary Shabana Mahmood would likely stretch her renewals out by another 20 years, making her eligible only in her 80s. Lawyers at Refugee and Migrant Justice applied for her to be fast-tracked for indefinite leave to remain under an exceptional-circumstances provision. The Home Office refused, opening its letter by saying she could return to Nigeria because services for blind people exist there, then concluding that her circumstances were "not so severe or lacking in potential treatment in India" to warrant settlement.

"I don't know why the Home Office said I could go back to India. It's a country I have never visited and have no connection with," Comfort said. She described herself as settled, with friends, a church and voluntary work, and asked the Home Office for mercy. "I'm a good citizen, not a law-breaker," she said.

Freedom of information data obtained by Refugee and Migrant Justice shows many people of pensionable age applying for settlement are likely to die before meeting the stricter wait times — including one woman from Pakistan, aged 103, who will not be eligible until she is 123. For some migrants, the wait has increased sixfold, and rights organisations have raised concerns about the fallout from Mahmood's announcement.

Nick Beales, head of campaigning at Migrant and Refugee Justice, said the woman meets the rules to remain and that there is no public interest in forcing her to keep renewing her visa. He accused the government of being "fixated on appearing tough" rather than seeing vulnerable people as human beings, adding that decision-makers "cannot even differentiate between India and Nigeria." He called for the earned settlement model to be scrapped.