An 83-year-old widowed nurse who worked for the NHS for 30 years before retiring to Jamaica has had multiple requests to visit her family in the UK refused, despite drawing an NHS pension and a full British state pension.
Icilda Williams moved to the UK from Jamaica with her husband in 1962. Both were Commonwealth citizens and British subjects. The couple bought a house in Bradford, had children there – all of whom are British passport holders – and Williams devoted her life to caring for mentally ill children in two local hospitals.
She retired back to Jamaica in 1996. Her British Commonwealth passport expired in 1967. She returned to the UK every year to see her family on a visitor’s visa but in 2014 her application was refused. She has not been able to travel to the UK since.
Speaking on the phone from Jamaica, Williams said: “I cry most days because I think about not seeing my family. I want to be able to see my children, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren.
“I’m 83, and no one knows how long we have to live. I want to visit my sister’s grave in Nottingham. I want to see members of my family who are sick. I have great-grandchildren who don’t know me.
“We are a very, very close family and I’m scared I’ll never see them all together again,” she said. “I don’t understand it: I lived and worked in Great Britain nearly all my life. I looked after the country’s children.
Icilda Williams at a wedding in the UK
Icilda Williams at a wedding in the UK.
“I could understand it if I wanted to live in the UK but I don’t: I just want to visit. I sold my house in the UK and have bought a home in Jamaica. I just want to visit once a year, like I’ve done for the last two decades. I just want to see my family.”
After her application for a visitor’s visa was refused in 2014, Williams applied for a British passport on the basis of having previously held a British Commonwealth passport. She submitted the requested documents and her old Commonwealth passport. But the passport office could not find records of her original Commonwealth passport so refused the application.
In 2015, the family paid an agent in Jamaica to apply for a visitor’s visa, which was refused for a range of reasons that her lawyer, Sajjad Malik from Humd Solicitors, has described as “baseless”.
Williams received an automatic 10-year ban from making any further visit visa applications. “Icilda has no right of appeal against the refusal or the ban as the government removed appeal rights against refusal of visit visa applications in 2014,” Malik said.
The family then decided to apply for a certificate of entitlement to the right of abode (ROA) on the grounds that Williams has an automatic right to have a British passport because she was a Commonwealth citizen, and so a British subject, with 30 years’ continuous residence in the UK. That too was rejected. The Home Office claims Williams did not submit all the documentation required. Williams’s family and her lawyer deny this.
The family appealed but were again refused. “Her appeal was unsuccessful not because she was not entitled to ROA because she absolutely is,” said Malik. “It was unsuccessful because the judge ruled that her case did not involve human rights grounds and therefore the court had no jurisdiction to hear the appeal. We have appealed against the decision of the judge and are currently awaiting an outcome.”
The MP for South West Hertfordshire, David Gauke, intervened on Williams’ behalf only to be sent a letter advising the family to employ a lawyer.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “Mrs Williams failed to provide the correct information in her application for a certificate of entitlement to the right to abode. She was contacted to explain how the application did not qualify and what documentation she does need.”
