Ukrainian refugees face losing their jobs and homes due to uncertainty over the Home Office’s visa extension process which will leave some with an eight-week gap in which they are unable to prove their right to live and work in the UK.
Some have already been refused tenancy renewal because their visas are about to expire, while others have been told they will have to stop working during the extension process as landlords and employers fear hefty fines and criminal sanctions.
Campaigners are urging the government to automate visa extension, since the Home Office could be swamped with tens of thousands of applications when the window opens on 4 February until June, the period when most Ukrainians arrived in 2022 after the start of the war.
“This non-automatic scheme is causing a lot of headaches,” said Simone Schehtman, who runs the Birmingham for Ukraine group. “We’re dealing now with a lot of really anxious families, mostly women with children who came to escape the war while their husbands stayed back. It’s very painful to keep hearing the same story, when it was completely not needed. The automatic extensions in EU countries have rolled over to spring next year.”
She said many Ukrainians wanted their three years in the UK to count towards citizenship, which is not the case at the moment – unlike for most other refugee groups, and for Ukrainians in some other EU countries.
“By nobody’s imagination is four and a half years temporary – people have laid down roots, they’re in tertiary education, kids who arrived at two are more connected to Britain than where they left,” Schehtman said.
If they return, people from the parts of eastern Ukraine occupied by Russia may find their homes unrecognisable, she added, since cities have been razed and the Russification programme has changed local institutions.
Prof Sara Jones, of the University of Birmingham, said nearly all Ukrainians were expected to have their visas renewed, and they would be granted 3C leave, giving them the right to remain in the UK, while they await the decision, which it is estimated will take up to eight weeks. However, it is unclear how they will prove their status during this period, and many are finding that they are already unable to do so.
She said the renewal forms “look terrifying” to those who speak English as a foreign language, and warnings that any application made outside of a 28-day window on either side of the renewal date will be rejected were “causing a lot of anxiety”.
Petro Rewko, the chair of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain said the third anniversary was already a “very traumatic” time. He would like to have seen the visa extension scheme “rolled out a lot sooner” as the delay has caused rumours to proliferate spreading panic, while scammers are charging thousands to speed up visa extensions.
Olga Meglinskaya, who runs the Brama Trust supporting refugees in Solihull, said she was already seeing lots of Ukrainian refugees struggling to renew tenancy agreements and being made homeless. “We run support groups and I can see people starting to break. There’s a lot of PTSD, and the welcoming atmosphere in the UK helped heal some of the initial wounds, but now those are being reopened as many are feeling stressed by the uncertainty,” she said.
Mila, a refugee from Kharkiv, is unable to move flats due to the visa uncertainty as her landlord is selling. “When we arrived my kids slept on the floor and it was a very horrible time for us, I don’t want my daughter to have the same again,” she said.
Natalia Kogut, who arrived from Kyiv in March 2022, is unable to renew her tenancy agreement because her landlord is demanding her visa status for the whole year. “It took me months to get this property, it’s a shame to lose it just because of the precarious and not very fair system,” she said.
She is frustrated by the government’s decision to cancel the humanitarian visa route to permanent residency. “I would build my life here. I don’t really have anything left in Ukraine, and it’s been a difficult and long process. Three years is a long time to live a temporary life. You can’t live in limbo.”
Pedram Panbehchi, an engineer, arrived in the UK from Kyiv with his wife, a logistics manager, in January 2023. The company they are both working for will halt their temporary work until their visa status is updated, potentially leaving them eight weeks without a job, and risking making the couple homeless for a second time.
Despite a successful professional career in Ukraine, Panbehchi has struggled to find stable employment, after applying for more than 1,000 jobs. “Even now my wife and I are thinking about moving to another country because we have too many challenges in the UK. I’m even thinking of going back to Ukraine,” he said.
Jenny Walton, the chief executive of the Refugee Employment Network, said many Ukrainian refugees were highly skilled yet their experiences and qualifications were unrecognised. Research by Queen’s University Belfast found that most Ukrainian refugees had found work through local host families’ connections, though she noted that some professions were taking a proactive approach, for example the Engineering Council’s new mentoring programme for refugee engineers.
Jen Stobart, the director of TENT UK, which supports companies to recruit and integrate refugees, said lots of businesses wanted to hire refugees but many inadvertently screened out applications, for example by excluding people with gaps in their CV, or did not have policies to help with integration, such as explaining cultural differences.
Daria Petrakovska, a HR consultant, has been unable to find work that matches her qualifications, while jobcentres push her towards lower-skilled work. In Kyiv she leveraged her professional network, which she lacks here. “You feel a lot of frustration,” she said.
A government spokesperson said: “Since Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion, we have offered or extended sanctuary to over 300,000 Ukrainians and their families. We have always recognised the importance of providing certainty and security for them, and continue to do so.
“The Ukraine permission extension scheme provides that certainty and will allow those with permission under one of the existing Ukraine schemes to apply for 18 months’ additional permission to remain in the UK. Given the unpredictable nature of this conflict, we continue to keep our Ukraine schemes under review.”
Article by:Source: Rachel Hall
