Priti Patel, Home Secretary of the UK said that Ukrainians with passports will be eligible to apply for UK visas. Ukrainians are now allowed to give their biometric data in UK and centers are reserved for this purpose, and it’s not important for them to visit a visa application center. The move has been done with the approval of the security services, the home secretary told MPs. It will only apply to people applying under the scheme where they can join family members already in the UK.
Even the laborers have demanded the government to consider normal visa conditions under their control so that the UK can take its ‘fair share’. The family scheme was also expected to expand to include the relatives of people in the UK on temporary visas but the Home Secretary didn’t address this issue. “Streamline approach” would be considered to make the process quicker and simpler along with the digital system which still allowed important checks to be done. Once the checks take place, Ukrainians would be contacted directly.
The government has been criticized for the amount of bureaucracy faced by those fleeing from the Russian invasion but has rejected calls to lift visa requirements. Boris Johnson told MPs that “almost 1,000 visas” had been issued so far, and that “we expect those numbers to rise to in the region of hundreds of thousands”. In contrary to this, the EU countries are allowing Ukrainian refugees in for up to three years without a visa.
The ‘temporary visa concessions’ covered the following:
- a spouse or civil partner
- an unmarried partner (they must have been living together in a relationship for at least two years)
- a parent if the individual living in Ukraine is under the age of 18
- a child under the age of 18
- an adult relative they provide care for who they live with due to a medical condition
Under the pressure to rescue the Ukrainians, the Home Office was directed to speed up visa processing. As a result, more than two million people had fled Ukraine since the Russian God invaded. The rules were excluded for the ones who were not citizens of Ukraine and they had to go to VAC in person. Even those people who were planning to meet their relatives and friends are not eligible and had to apply for visas under the points-based system.
