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Cape Town – Despite playing by the rules and doing everything in their power to stay on the right side of the law, a couple residing in Cape Town has been living through nine months of uncertainty due to changing visa regulations.
Originally from the UK, Emma Thelwell moved to South Africa at the beginning of 2014 to join her South African partner, Jeremy Behrmann in Cape Town. The two had lived together in the UK, travelled the world and looked forward to starting a new life on South African soil.
UPDATE: UK National receives 2-year visa
Watch News24 Live's interview with Thelwell and Jeremy: 'I'm a prisoner here' - UK national on new immigration laws.
However, dreams of a bright future have been dimmed somewhat as Thelwell has been waiting no less than nine months for feedback regarding the spousal visa application she had lodged a few days after arriving in the country.
She was originally told that it would take 30 days.
When she hadn’t heard anything by the time her three-month holiday visa had expired in April, she contacted home affairs to find out what her options were in the face of the changing laws. They advised her to stay in the country until she had received confirmation about her spousal visa.
“This was right before the new laws were coming in. This was in April. So, they should have known that I might be stuck, but they said, ‘no that’s fine. You just stay in the country,’” Thelwell explained in an interview with News24 Live.
She had plans to go to London in July to visit family and friends, but had to cancel her plans, lest she be declared ‘undesirable’ and banned from the country for five years.
In the interview Behrmann rightly points out (at 03:39 in the video) that their messy situation comes down to one major problem: a general lack of communication on home affairs’ part.
“There wouldn’t be an issue right now if Emma was notified that the laws are changing and that she had to leave the country and process her application again from the UK. That would have been really easy,” he said.
Also see: Who exactly is immigrating to SA?
Instead the couple have spent months being sent back and forth between home affairs, the airport and the call centre that deals with visa applications, of whom the operators seem to have no idea of how far along the process is.
“The reality was, we got no communication. There’s no metrics or ways in which people who lodge applications can track them online. There’s no way that, we think, the people who actually operate the call centre are given any way to understand at which stage the application is in,” Behrmann said.
In the latest development, Thelwell’s lawyer went to home affairs on Monday to find out up until which point the application has been processed. However, she was told that the department’s systems were offline.
Also see: DA to petition ministers over e-visas
“Nothing like a bit more waiting,” was Thelwell’s comment.
According to both Thelwell and Behrmann, the worst part of the whole nightmare scenario has been the utter uncertainty and the inability to plan their lives.
“Without information, you just breed uncertainty. And nine months of uncertainty for both of us has been very difficult,” Behrmann concluded.
Have you been affected by the changing visa laws? Send us your story to info@traveller24.co.za
