Valued GP ‘will be forced to leave UK’ after autistic daughter refused visa

29 comments

1. >While Tajwer Siddiqui was granted a visa under the highly skilled migrant route, which is supposed to allow dependants, the decision to bar the autistic teenager shows a hardening of decisions about healthcare workers being allowed to bring family members more broadly.

   People love to meme about all immigrants being doctors and stuff, but he is someone who came to the UK with a _highly skilled worker visa_. Why are we making his ability to work in this country so difficult?

2. It is no secret amongst the immigrant community that to get a visa for a dependent whilst holding a BRP is nigh impossible. I’ve heard of high level doctors unable to bring their elderly and ailing mothers over from war-torn countries, despite the fact that these dependents would not be allowed access to any public funding, and these permit holders making the requests are often the highest tax payers and biggest assets to their British communities. 

   Comparatively, moving a family member to Australia is easy

3. This is why nuance is required in discussions of immigration.

   Mass immigration of individuals who are a burden on the state is an issue, and needs to be reduced. Plus, many of these individuals, whether due to social or cultural factors, struggle to integrate.

   Immigration of highly skilled workers, on the other hand, should be encouraged, as they are net contributors to the society, and especially if they work for sectors where not enough workers can be found domestically.

   So often, immigration debates portray all immigrants as bad or good. But immigrants are diverse. The government’s job should be to find the ones that will bring benefit to the UK, and welcome them in

4. >His wife, Shehlar Tajwer, 50, is also a qualified family doctor who hopes to work as a doctor in the UK. **She too was granted a visa to come and work here as a dependant of her husband.**

   >The couple have a 19-year-old daughter, Alina Tajwer Siddiqui, who **cannot live independently due to her autism and needs her parents and other family members to care for her.**

   >However, the **Home Office has refused her a visa to come to the UK saying that her parents have not demonstrated “compassionate or compelling circumstances”** that would justify officials granting her permission to live with her parents in the UK, in what is known as a grant of leave outside the rules.

   So, they granted her parents visas and yet refuse to grant one to their daughter, who needs care and have the gall to say they haven’t demonstrated compassionate or compelling circumstances? Fuck right off.

   Whenever hard working people follow the official channels to immigrate to the UK things like this happen far too often. It’s an absolute fucking joke. I myself am an immigrant from the EU and can live here for the rest of my life yet two bloody doctors who by all means contribute far more to the country than I do are essentially being forced out.

5. The question remains – why do they want to come to the UK at their age and min support?

6. You’re going to get cases like this as we seek to reduce our immigration figures.

7. Good to see the rules that apply to everybody else being adhered to.

8. So that’s two doctors turned away because we’ve not allowed their child to come with them? The fuck?

9. > However, the Home Office has refused her a visa to come to the UK saying that her parents have not demonstrated “compassionate or compelling circumstances” that would justify officials granting her permission to live with her parents in the UK, in what is known as a grant of leave outside the rules.

   I mean I’d like to read the Home Office’s decision letter because the article doesn’t go into their reasoning at all. While they say she can’t live independently, it says she’s living with her grandmother so maybe that’s part of it.

10. This doctor is 59. We are losing out on 5/6 years max of him working here before he retires in exchange to not have to support his dependent daughter for the next 60 years and him as a pensioner as he ages. I’m also a bit skeptical that his wife “plans to work” on his dependent visa, if that was true she’d be applying for a skilled visa herself and securing a job before she arrives, especially because companies pay for skilled workers visas. Likely the reality is she needs to stay home to look after her daughter and doesn’t actually intend to work when she arrives.

    Struggling to see how this is a net loss to nhs by turning his family away.

11. The doctor is 59. I assume his wife is a similar age.

    The daughter is 19.

    They will work here for 9 years *maximum*, but quite probably less as GPs can access their pension from age 65.

    By that time, all three of them will have acquired indefinite leave to remain.

    So, for ~9 years of modest GP-salary tax contributions, the UK would be signing up for something like six decades of adult social care obligations and everything else that comes with it for an autistic adult.

    That’s an insanely bad deal, and we are right to push back on it (even if it’s not the direct reason the application was refused).

    Anyone who thinks that it’s a coincidence they are turning up in the UK at this point in their lives is naive. I don’t blame them for trying.

12. He is 59 – will retire in a few years, the wife is 50 and will also be retiring in a few years.
    Yeah they bring a needed skill to the UK but only short term.

13. We have such an upside down immigration system. Highly skilled migrants and their families have to jump through numerous bureaucratic hoops and spend a lot of £££ to live in Britain whilst those with spurrious asylum claims who cross the channel are indulged.

14. >If the Home Office do not allow Alina to come to the UK I will have no choice but to leave my job at the surgery here and go back to Pakistan so I can be with my wife and my daughter. All three of us need to be together so we can look after Alina.

    Makes you wonder why he left in the first place.

15. Should have thrown his passport away and come on a boat

16. Disgraceful really. Hard working professional man contributing to this country is turned away. Yet how many asylum seekers that aren’t really seeking asylum sneak in, or how many arranged marriages where the partner cannot even speak the language. How about those on NHS holidays, just coming for a bit of healthcare.
    Seems we cater for those who do not wish to become a positive member of our society yet those that do, like this feller, are turned away. Disgraceful.

17. 1) his daughter is 19 – an adult
    2) she requires full-time care, even a Band 1 residential care bed rate without nursing care (the absolute lowest level of full-time care home bed) costs around £800 each week. Sure, the family can care for her for now, but what about in a decade when they retire and old age starts to set in? That is potentially millions in care home fees at taxpayer expense over her lifetime.

    Denying her entry is absolutely the correct decision.

18. To be fair I would expect a highly skilled migrant visa to let children come with, regardless of being autistic or not.

    The greater concern in my eyes is things like bringing over as many family members as possible via a student visa.

19. It’s baffling when you see decisions like this when you some of the scumbags we import from other countries. 

20. He’s also 65 so will be working for 5/6 years probably, while we don’t understand the level of support his daughter will need for a long time.

    We’ve been seeing cost benefit analysis mentioned here, and 6 years of labour for indefinite support and pensions doesn’t seem to be a worthwhile pay off.

21. Possibly for the best, there’s no help for autistic people in this country

22. To be fair, if we sent home 2/3 of the migrants we might have a decent economy. We should get shot of anyone who can’t pass GCSE maths and English at first attempt.

23. Why really useful immigrants have to face so many problems? Yes, the girl is 19 but it seems like she needs to be with her parents after all. Why not let her in? UK is letting illegals in so easily but what about those who follow the rules? The government is like in that meme: I am not totally useless, I can be used as a bad example

24. If she is so dependant on them as an adult, how are they both going to work full time? Given their age, they won’t be working that much longer. What happens when they stop working?

    Given the apparent severity of her condition, will she require any state resources?

    It isn’t that hard to see how rejecting her visa is not in the financial interests of the U.K.

25. Yep – the Home Office- not known for their intelligence. Case in point – I was threatened with deportation even though I had a then 3-year old (Irish/American) with my Irish/British husband as removing the mother was fine. I got my MP involved and even he couldn’t get the Home Office to recognise that I had settled status as they were looking at legislation and guidelines from 2 years prior.

    Edit – I took the HO to the EU Rights Clinic and oddly, the day before fines would start to be applied, got my immigration status acknowledged by the HO. Sigh….

26. Those who actually can add a value to the UK have to jump through hoops, spend a generation’s wealth, and face absolutely dehumanising process to get a Visa to the UK and then hang on for dear life for 5 years before getting some semblance of stability in UK by getting permanent residency.

27. I don’t see the problem here at all. The rules are doing what they should do. Immigration is frequently touted as a solution to our demographic problem but in reality immigrants just want to get their old/ill/disabled relatives over, which exacerbates the problem. Plus the doctor is 59. How long will it take to get him up to speed? How many years is he actually going to work?

28. This is nuts.

    They’re both doctors, these are exactly the kind of people we should be welcoming with open arms into the UK.

    Their daughter is a dependent. Sure, she’s an adult dependent, but she’s still a dependent.

    Do the rules not recognise adult dependents (other than spouses – the wife seems to have been recognised as a dependent)? “Compassionate or compelling circumstances” sounds wildly open for interpretation, and the Home Office are known for making weird decisions when rules are left open for interpretation.

29. As this case shows and as is applicable all throughout life you can’t have your cake and eat it. You either have a very rigid immigration system which in this case we lose not one but two doctors (his wife is also a doctor) or you don’t. Realistically the person making the decision about the daughter should have taken his profession into consideration but rules is rules.

    This must be a difficult read for all the xenophobes who want zero immigration.