A group of soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan are taking legal action against the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence over an alleged systemic failure to assist them with complex, unaffordable immigration rules on discharge, part of the tightening of the Home Office’s “hostile environment” regulations after 2012. This has left them classified as illegal immigrants, facing unemployment and homelessness and fearing deportation.
The action involves eight former soldiers, who were all recruited to the army from Fiji, but the lawyers believe hundreds of ex-service personnel from Commonwealth countries are similarly affected. One of them said: “It is so unfair for veterans to have to suffer the indignity of being vulnerable to being forcibly removed from the country that we so loyally served, especially when we are in this situation because of oversights on the part of army during the discharge process.” Read the full story here.
