Saiful Islam emigrated to the United Kingdom in 2003 with a valid work permit and began working as a chef at a restaurant.
Things were going well for about two years, but in 2005, he told the U.K.’s Home Office (the department that handles immigration, security, and legal issues) that his employer was exploiting him by withholding the bulk of his wages, forcing him to work 18-hour days, and beating him,” The Guardian reported.
The Home Office let him change employers, but the move triggered a host of errors that plagued Islam for more than a decade and now threatens his ability to stay in the country. The Home Office even apologized to Islam and offered him $6,550 in compensation for the issues. Despite all that, a judge denied Islam’s right to remain in the country.
A U.K. court found that “the Home Office wrongly served him with a notice curtailing his visa in 2005, wrongly linked other people’s criminal convictions to him, failed to disclose a full copy of his passport to a court in 2010 and destroyed part of his file,” the Guardian reported.
None of these errors mattered, the judge determined, because issues with a work permit application made in 2008 by Islam’s employer made him ineligible to remain in the U.K.
“The Home Office has treated me worse than a dog. I am a victim of a scandal and of race discrimination. I have lost so many years, I’ve lost my health, I’ve lost so much money. I’ll never get this time back but I’m determined to fight on,” Islam told the outlet.
Islam wasn’t even able to receive his file from the Home Office until 2018, after a lengthy court battle and a ruling demanding the government hand it over.
“As well as initially withholding his file in a previous court case, the Home Office did not provide relevant pages of his passport that proved he had entered the country legally. Instead, officials argued he had entered the country illegally,” the Guardian reported.
Islam finally received an apology from the Home Office in 2019 via email. The message apologized for wrongly labeling Islam as a sex offender due to mixing him up with the criminal records of three other people. Islam has no criminal convictions.
“After investigating the issue it appears documents relating to three individuals were incorrectly placed on your paper file. A number of processes had not been followed which allowed these errors to occur,” the email stated. “Although such errors are not common … we recognise that such issues can have significant impacts.”
Islam is receiving help from the Migrants’ Rights Network. The organization’s chief executive, Fizza Qureshi, told the Guardian: “If Saiful had not persevered with his case for nearly 16 years, he would not have known that the Home Office had mixed up his file and wrongly labelled him a criminal. Alongside the Home Office’s errors, they have also failed to praise Saiful’s actions of reporting an exploitative employer. Instead they have chosen to penalise him by pursuing his removal, despite his innocence and courage. We would urge the Home Office to reconsider his case, and offer him leave so he can utilise his skills as a chef, and allow him to rebuild his life.”