finding out if it adds up all right
so i sent off for my first UK passport a month ago.
first, they asked my referee to confirm all his passport details. unfortunately he was on holiday for 2 weeks. (their flimsy excuse was that they didn’t have his passport number in their database – which, if it were true, i can only assume would have raised major alarm bells each and every time they’ve swiped his passport at immigration for the 8 years he’s lived here.)
now, i’ve been selected for interview.
which is good really – i was starting to feel ignored. because i haven’t already been interviewed in person by them, oh…. at least a half dozen times i can think of. because i haven’t already had to prove my identity, provide intimate details of my life (including information about my parents, grandparents, and ex-husband, which cannot be of *any* interest to them whatsoever), and allow background checks into my tax records, finances, and employment. they’ve ascertained my identity two separate times when i applied for work permits, once when i applied for my spouse visa, once when i applied for my permanent residency, and two separate time when i applied for my citizenship (last done less than 6 months ago).
they have access to my bank details, they have access to my travel patterns, they can track my mobile phone, they can read my emails, they have me on CCTV about 300 times a day. they have possession of my u.s. passport.
there is not one single iota of information they do *not* know about me. what on earth can they possibly confirm through interview? when my last menstrual cycle was?
in the meantime, i can’t even book a holiday anywhere, so i’m stuck here all through may when the rest of the u.k. is off galavanting about.
the more i think about it, the angrier i get. nothing in this country ever goes smoothly for me. just give me my fucking passport already.
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Comment by kim
22.04.2008 @ 05:41 am
This sucks! Sorry Jen. Although you knew it could always happen, it’s such a ridiculous step to go through and it achieves nothing but then again, when you were approved for citizenship and sworn in, I can’t understand why you weren’t given your passport then?!? However, at least now you have your citizenship and at the end of this joke of a process, you’ll have a brand new, shiny, British passport; pretty incredible end result! p.s. Remind me how great the end result is when I start this process in August!