Facebook Twitter Pinterest Samim Bigzad and host Kavel Rafferty in Ramsgate. Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian

The Home Office’s decision to ignore a high court judge’s order not to send Samim Bigzad back to Kabul was met with outrage. Over the course of a protracted legal battle, judges said four times that it was wrong to remove Bigzad, who said his life was in danger from the Taliban; one said the home secretary’s breach of the first court order was “prima facie contempt of court”.

Despite a judge’s ruling that Bigzad could not be removed while legal proceedings were ongoing and he was already in Istanbul en route to Afghanistan, the government did not bring him back to the UK – but flew him to Afghanistan where three further legal challenges ensued.

Eventually Bigzad was returned to the UK. The Home Office blamed the delay on “significant logistical challenges in securing the necessary documentation and limited flight availability”.

Now his solicitor, Jamie Bell, is preparing a claim providing evidence of why Bigzad would be at risk in Afghanistan. There will be a new hearing at the end of this month.

Bigzad is overjoyed to back in Ramsgate, where he is being supported by his host, Kavel Rafferty, from the charity Refugees at Home. His English has noticeably improved since the Guardian last interviewed him.

“I feel so happy and safe here,” Bigzad said. “Everyone in Ramsgate is so nice and friendly and I have a great solicitor who is fighting hard for me to stay in the UK, where I will be safe. I hope my case will have a good conclusion.” Diane Taylor

In 2017, Aderonke Apata’s 13-year battle to stay in the UK came to an end when the Home Office granted her refugee status. When the Nigerian LGBT activist arrived in 2004, lesbian, gay and bisexual asylum seekers were often forcibly removed if it was deemed possible for them to “live discreetly” in their home countries. After the law changed, the Home Office decided she was lying about being in a gay relationship.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Aderonke Apata. Photograph: Martin Godwin for the Guardian

When the court battle came to a head in July, and shortly after Apata’s legal team gave notice that 11 prominent witnesses – including the human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell and the Liberal Democrat peer Liz Barker – would be speaking on her behalf, the government backed down and granted her refugee status.

“I was just crying on the phone with my solicitor when he broke the news to me,” Apata said at the time. Now, while she is relieved to be safe, the trauma of her previous uncertainty is still with her.

“I have constant nightmares and flashbacks,” she said. “I’m very grateful to whoever it was in the Home Office who finally decided to grant me leave to remain, but I’ll never get those 13 years I lost back. They should have been the best years of my life.” DT

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Paulette Wilson with her daughter Natalie. Photograph: Fabio De Paola for the Guardian

Paulette Wilson had been in Britain for 50 years when she got a letter informing her she was an illegal immigrant and would be sent to Jamaica, the country she left when she was 10 and has never visited since.

She spent a week at Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre, before being sent to Heathrow. Wilson, 61, a former chef who worked for a while in the House of Commons serving food to MPs, was released only after a last-minute intervention from her MP and a local immigration charity, and was allowed to return home to her daughter and granddaughter in Wolverhampton.

The publication of her story in the Guardian triggered enormous support, with many offers to pay the £240 fee to process the application for leave to remain in this country. The Home Office said was working with Wilson to regularise her status, but the latest letter she received stated she was still liable to be removed and must report to a Home Office centre on 3 January.

Wilson’s daughter Natalie said her mother was terrified that she might be sent back to a country where she had no ties, but the support from Guardian readers had boosted her morale. More than 40 people emailed the family to tell them how shocked they had been to read about the case.

“We’ve been overwhelmed. People wrote long emails, telling her that they support her. It has made her mood change a lot to realise that people care,” Natalie said.

Wilson, who paid taxes for decades, lost her flat when the Home Office case against her began. Her MP and solicitor say she is here legally. “It would be nice to have an apology from the Home Office, and for someone to acknowledge that they have done something wrong,” Natalie said. Amelia Gentleman

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Anthony Bryan at home in north London with his wife and son. Photograph: Martin Godwin for the Guardian

After 52 years in the UK, Anthony Bryan was told he was in the country illegally and would face forced removal. The painter-decorator, who has paid taxes in Britain for decades, has spent more than four weeks in immigration removal centres over the last two years, wrongly facing deportation to Jamaica, a country he has not visited since he was eight. His son contacted the Guardian after reading about Paulette Wilson’s case.

Bryan’s MP, Kate Osamor, said these cases of aggressive immigration treatment of long-term Commonwealth residents were just the “tip of the iceberg” and described the situation as barbaric. Bryan, 60, was unaware that his papers were not in order.

When the Guardian asked questions about his case, the Home Office said Bryan was not subject to removal action. However, an official letter he received in December stated “you are a person who is liable to be detained” and informed him he could still be subject to removal.

Bryan and his partner, Janet, have spent several thousand pounds fighting to prove he has been resident in the UK for more than half a century. AG

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Patrick Thies and his family. Photograph: Family photograph

Patrick Thies, an American orthopaedic physician assistant, was recruited by the NHS at a cost of £20,000 when it proved impossible to find a suitable candidate for the job in the UK. His wife, Gillian, is British.

But after the couple’s two adopted children were denied access to the UK, Thies was forced to go to the United States, splitting the family in two. Gillian and their biological child stayed in Britain while he looked after the two boys in the US.

After the Guardian highlighted the family’s plight, the two boys were suddenly granted visas. Gillian said when they were reunited after six weeks apart, “one of my sons sobbed and sobbed at the airport when he saw me – months of pent-up emotion finally released”.

Gillian said her youngest son, who was not deported, struggled the most. “While his brothers were gone he was avoiding meet-ups with friends and family and struggling to do things he generally enjoys.”

Though they eventually got the outcome they so desperately wanted, the consequences have been far-reaching. The hospital where Patrick worked had to cancel surgeries in his absence and the whole affair cost the family about £20,000 in visas, plane tickets and legal fees as well as the costs of supporting a family on two continents.

Still, Gillian said, there were positives. She now contacts others in a similar position and joined a campaign to change the rules on visas. She said she felt emboldened: “After our story was in the Guardian, we were also on television – something I have never wanted to do, but I had no nerves at all. The government had taken my children, it was up to me to fight for them.” Amelia Hill

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Leah and Simon Waterman with their children Kimi and Bryce Photograph: Family photograph

Simon Waterman, who is British, had a stroke and uses a wheelchair. He requires 24-hour supervision to keep him alive and cannot speak, write or always understand what is said to him.

Waterman was told he would become the sole carer for his children because his wife, Leah, would have to go back to the Philippines to apply for a visa. Despite extensive medical evidence, the family was told there were “no exceptional circumstances” that made her eligible to apply to stay in the UK.

After the Guardian covered their case, the Home Office reversed its decision. Shan Waterman, Simon’s sister, said when the family received the phone call informing them of the decision “we couldn’t quite believe it”.

She added: “Leah and Simon were like different people: Simon was much brighter and Leah very relieved. The Guardian article really put pressure on the Home Office to reconsider – without it we would still be waiting. I don’t know how Simon would have coped.”

Now that Leah can make plans for the future, she intends to learn to drive, which will make a big difference to the family’s life in south Wales. But Shan said the impact on Simon had been huge. “He found the whole thing very depressing and has lost confidence. We are slowly trying to build him back up.” AH



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Elly Wright, who has lived in the UK for 50 years. Photograph: Martin Godwin for the Guardian

Dutch-born Elly Wright married a British serviceman and has lived in the country for 50 years. She spent most of her adult life working in the NHS and public housing. She retired in 1993 and is now a widow.

Last year, Wright learned that because she had thrown away some paperwork proving her right to be in the UK, she might be forced to leave the country.

Eight months on, with dogged determination and the help of a specialist lawyer, she has managed to prove that she had been living in the UK for decades. The relief was enormous, Wright said. “I got terribly anxious about the whole thing. I couldn’t sleep. I would sleep for two hours and the anxiety would wake me up.”

Wright’s issue stemmed from a decluttering effort when her husband became unwell with a terminal illness, forcing the couple to rethink the layout and use of the rooms in their Surrey home. In the process, she threw out her tax records. Her husband, Michael, died six years ago.

“It never occurred to me that, at the age of 75, I would have to prove my right to live here. I stopped working 24 years ago, I just don’t have those papers,” she told the Guardian in April.

After an agonising wait, HMRC found the records she needed and sent them to her. Despite the relief, the experience has been upsetting, particularly in the aftermath of the Brexit vote. “It’s horrendous that we have to do this, or apply for this new ‘settled status’,” Wright said. “What have people like me been all these years? ‘Unsettled’?” Lisa O’Carroll

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Eva Johanna Holmberg, a Finnish historian and the first of those affected to publicise her situation. Photograph: Martin Godwin for the Guardian

When the Guardian revealed that 106 EU citizens legally living in the UK were told they had a month to leave the country, the news eventually reached Theresa May, who acknowledged there had been an “unfortunate error”.

For Eva Johanna Holmberg, a Finnish historian and the first of those affected to publicise her situation, the admission of the mistake has left her relieved yet troubled.

The situation began when she applied for a registration certificate to demonstrate she was qualified to be in the UK, if anyone asked. As a working EU national, she was under no legal obligation to do so.

“I’m relieved the process is over,” she said. “I only applied for the piece of paper for peace of mind, but it ended up spiralling into this catastrophe.”

Holmberg is glad to have been reimbursed the £3,800 she spent fighting her case. But the experience has left her sceptical over future applications by EU citizens for settled status because this will be administered by the Home Office.



“My case happened due to a simple administration error. I am worried there could be inbuilt errors in the new system. If they happen, people will be deported and they will have to fight their cases from outside the country.” LO’C