Ava's Story | The eVisa system is a pain while travelling - a screenshot of my online immigration status is the least secure of all the documentation I carry while travelling, but that’s the one that worked for the airline.
Ava shares her experience of proving her rights to travel back to the UK, now that the eVisa system has been implemented.
"I am a US national, with Indefinite Leave to Remain in the UK based on my marriage to a British national. I have had ILR or ‘settled’ status since 1995 and have worked here in Scotland and paid taxes for all that time.
When I went through the process of creating an online immigration status page for myself and linking it to my passport that process took hours because the system kept kicking me out and requiring me to log in again. That was the first indication that the new ‘system’ is seriously flawed.
When I recently travelled to the States and returned to the UK, it was my first opportunity to use the new system. My experience was not good.
In general, The Home Office blurb on the new system says that your immigration status is somehow linked to your passport. But this was not my experience in any practical way - ie it felt like no-one can access my immigration status simply with my passport.
I was recently in the States visiting family. When I turned up at the airline counter at Boston’s Logan International Airport in the USA in June for my return journey to the UK, nobody there knew anything about accessing UK immigration status online. They were aware of the new Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) system for visitors but not the ‘settled’ status.
Fortunately I had brought every piece of documentation I had:
- My old passport with my original paper vignette sticker granting me ILR.
- The 1995 Home Office letter explaining my ILR status.
- A ‘Share Code’ for the new online system.
- A screenshot of my online immigration status.
- My expired BRP card and accompanying letter.
- The ‘Carrier Support’ phone number (which was not easy to find).
In the end the thing that satisfied the check-in agent in Boston was the printed screenshot of my immigration status. She had no idea what a Share Code was and, given that she had a couple hundred people to check-in she was not inclined to spend the time going online (if that was even possible from her airline check-in terminal).
I then changed planes in Dublin, where I cleared immigration. The officer there at least knew about the system and asked if I had a share code. As I was digging out my share code he saw the screenshot of my immigration status among my papers and said, ‘Here, let me see that.’ He looked at it, stamped my passport and I was done.
So it would seem that the Home Office’s idea that the system gives ‘real time’ status information is nonsense. None of the people in airports, where they’re dealing with a continuous stream of people, have the time or inclination to get online, find the right part of the government’s website, and enter information. And as for the security of the system, I would have thought that a screenshot of my online immigration status was the least secure of all the documentation I was carrying, but that’s the one that worked.
I originally spent £800 on a BRP card so that I wouldn’t have to carry my old passport along with my current one. Now I have to carry 2 passports plus all the other stuff I listed above because there’s no way of knowing what will satisfy any particular person behind an airline desk or immigration counter.
By creating such a poorly thought-out and badly performing system the Home Office have actually created a situation where there’s no system at all because there is no single, simple proof of immigration status.
There was one in the BRP card but they made all of those expire at the end of 2024. And they eliminated BRP cards before they had actually tested the new system.
