The British immigration system is nothing if not cruel. But it is not just elderly UK citizens from the Caribbean who have been treated badly, as anyone from sub-Saharan Africa invited to visit Britain will know.
Three months ago, the Gumbi Education Fund, a tiny charity set up in 2002 by Guardian readers to help educate children in Malawi, invited Patrick Kamzitu, its administrator and sole employee, to come to Britain to give two talks and meet donors.
Because he had set up four community libraries in villages that had never seen books, Patrick was to speak at the Hay international book festival with the author and historian Bettany Hughes about how books can change lives and bring development.
Inviting Patrick was easy. Getting him a visa from UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) to come for eight days to tell his simple, inspiring story about friendship and books has been a nightmare of hostility, suspicion, bureaucracy and the exercise of remote power.
A long visa application form must be filled in online – a costly and hard task in itself for most Malawians who live without computers or electricity and who only go to the capital occasionally. But Patrick also had to provide his birth certificate, passport, marriage certificate, his children’s birth certificates, his employment contracts and several months of bank statements.
At the UK end, the Gumbi fund had to issue a letter of invitation, an hour-by-hour itinerary of everywhere he hoped to visit as well as personal and business bank account details.
It was not enough. After three weeks and paying £147 online to a French-owned call centre giant based in Johannesburg, which Britain uses to process all southern African visa applications and which charges anyone who wishes to contact them £5.48 per email, his request was refused.
A rude letter stated that the combined income he was earning from administering the fund and working for the Malawi government as a health assistant was not enough to cover his stay in the UK. Nor could he show he earned enough money in Malawi. Moreover, he was told that because he was a rural health assistant it was unclear why he should be chosen to speak at Hay about rural development and books.
But he was invited to apply again, for another £147. All the points were addressed and this time, his second application was accompanied by letters of support from a member of the House of Lords and the head of a large international charity, along with a copy of the Hay festival programme.
His application was refused again on Monday. This time he was told that he could not show he had strong enough family and financial ties in Malawi to return; that he appeared to have no savings or assets, and that he could not show that he would not abscond.
The hurdles are new, endless and impossible to jump and further ones are likely to be erected at will. There is no appeal, nowhere to turn to for official advice, no individual or website to consult, and no chance of any of the £300 being returned. But Patrick can apply again and pay £430 for a quick response.
This is cruel but not unusual. It means that nearly 97% of Malawians and southern Africans who, like Patrick, earn less than a few thousand pounds a year are not welcome simply because they are not rich.
Official figures show that hundreds of people from Malawi are refused visas for similar reasons every year. The Scottish-Malawi partnership, which represents more than 1,000 Scottish NGOs, churches, hospitals, schools and grassroots groups all with links to Malawi, reports that invited people are being refused entry on the most offensive grounds every week.
And it’s not just Malawi. The latest UK figures show nearly one in four Malawians, one in three Zimbabweans, and one in two Ghanaians are denied visitors’ visas. Yet only 2% of American citizens are denied entry.
Put simply, if you are invited to the UK but are not rich enough you will be refused entry – irrespective of who invites you and how much funding is available to support your visit.
Immigration rules introduced when Teresa May was home secretary conflate relative poverty with criminal intent. It is assumed now that poor people will try to abscond.
Yet these are Commonwealth people, whose countries are tied to Britain by long history, whom Britons have invited to visit in our own homes and workplaces, and who can teach us about Africa and and hospitality and good will. Instead, we meet them with hostility, humiliate and intimidate them, make them jump through hoops, treat them like would-be criminals and demand their most private information.
Yet there is no evidence that poor people are more likely to abscond than rich, and it is simply wrong to assume that everyone wants to stay in Britain.
Worst of all, it undermines the government’s own development work and it destroys relationships between groups of people who have forged friendships over decades.
The Gumbi fund is trying for a third time to get Patrick Kamzitu a visa, but with little hope. This time he has submitted a letter from his government office stating that he intends to report back to work in Nambuma on 5 June. He has sent the receipts from selling his acre of tobacco, as well as his house documents.
What more can he do to persuade a private company 2,000 miles away that he has a good family life in Malawi and that he does not want to stay in a hostile and unwelcoming Britain?
Britain has all but lost its reputation for being a hospitable and welcoming nation. It is squaring up to be even more hostile to visitors than Trump’s America. This government should be ashamed.
