Meg Hillier, my local MP, actually did something about my UK Visa
Running a startup is difficult enough. Being a foreigner doing a startup is about 100x as difficult. The last thing you want to be worrying about is your Visa and not having a passport to do business.
I’ve lived in the UK for nearly four years now on a Tier 1 Visa. I moved here from San Francisco to join Mendeley as Head of R&D [note: left to found PeerJ before Elsevier moved in to buy them :)].
Last August I needed to send my Visa in for a two year extension. It has now been five months, and I still have not received my passport and new Visa. This is not an uncommon thing these days (read any Visa forum) for the UK Border Agency, the agency in charge of immigration decisions.
Obviously being without your passport is rather hampering as a co-founder of an Open Access tech/publishing startup with locations in both London and San Francisco. It’s outrageous actually, and the UKBA knows exactly what my business is.
I know for certain that I am not the only entrepreneur going through this. A shame, as startup companies are the ones bringing new investment to the UK economy and creating new jobs. And with the RCUK pushing for Open Access, you’d think there would be added incentive in this case. David Cameron is full of a lot of hot air, professing to be on the side of foreign entrepreneurs. From where I sit, we’ve received no help.
Finally, this week I decided to do something besides futile attempts at contacting the UKBA for information on the delay. I wrote to my local MP, labour party member Meg Hillier. And behold, a written reply within two days of my emailing.
“… I have immediately written to the Home Office’s UK Border Agency (UKBA) on your behalf and have asked for a cause for the delay as well as an assurance that a decision will be made on your case as soon as possible. I regret that the UKBA is a very far from satisfactory organisation and that the service it provides to my constituents is deteriorating at present. …”
- Meg Hillier MP - 17 January 2013, private correspondance (see image in this post)
Thank you Ms. Hillier.