Florist from Thirsk, with family in Ukraine, accuses Government of shortcomings with refugee visas
We're hearing about frustrating delays and lengthy visa issuing processes
Last updated 10th Mar 2022
A florist from Thirsk, who's originally from Ukraine, has given us an emotional testimony about her family stuck in limbo, on the Polish border.
It took Alina Hartland's mother, brother, sister-in-law, nice and nephew nearly a week to get their visas approved.
She's calling on the Home Office to speed up the process of issuing visas for refugees.
"There's been no answer from the Home Office at all", she said to us earlier this week. "I'm just in so much anger about it, they're just so slow."
According to figures released by the Home Office on Monday (7th March), only 300 visas have so far been granted to Ukrainian refugees under its new scheme.
That's about 5% of applications that have been approved.
In Calais, where about 600 refugees are stranded, some claim they've been turned away for lack of paperwork.
Stuck in limbo
Alina's husband, Robert Hartland, travelled from Thirsk to Ukraine to help the family reach the Polish border safely.
Alina stayed behind in Thirsk, to look after the couple's daughter.
She'd been helping her family, who have fled their hometown of Kyiv, to submit the visa applications they need to get to the UK.
They applied for visas nearly a week ago, on Friday (4th March), but had little to no updates until Wednesday afternoon.
Today (10th March) they received confirmation the visas have been issued. A courier is travelling from Warsaw to deliver the visas to Alina's family.
Alina feels that, considering the gravity of the situation, the process needs to be quicker.
On Tuesday (8th March), the defence secretary agreed the UK needs to speed up the processing of visas for refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine.
In a BBC interview, Ben Wallace said the 'government could and would do more to support refugees, and his department would help the Home Office accelerate the system'.
Speaking to us a day before receiving the update on the visas, Alina urged the Home Office to realise how the current process is affecting people:
"Everybody is so devastated. My mum feels hopeless.
"She said to me today 'Obviously nobody wants us anywhere because still nothing's been heard with the visas, we're still in Poland' - she just feels absolutely down.
"And the kids, at the moment, they just need some stability."
Almost in tears, Alina expressed how stressful the last few days had been.
"I'm upset, I feel useless at the moment.
"You feel like you're scared, you're afraid of everything, you feel sorry for everyone."
Falling short of the rest of Europe
Last week, the European Union agreed to give Ukrainian refugees the right to live and work in the EU for up to three years, on top of the standard 90 days of visa-free access.
But to enter the UK, refugees fleeing the conflict have to apply to the Ukraine Family Scheme, to join relatives already living in Britain.
For refugees without links to the UK, the Government announced it's working on a second scheme, which will allow people and organisations to sponsor Ukrainians and match them with a family here.
But the Ukrainian Ambassador to the UK has criticised the UK biometrics visa system, saying most Ukrainian refugees do not have passports.
Alina, who's lived in the UK for over 14 years, accuses the UK Government of falling short of other European countries:
"They need to imagine their own kids, their own family there, and bring them over. That's what they need to do.
"They should let people in, as many as they can, like the rest of Europe.