A lawyer who has taken on more than 200 visa applications to get Ukrainian mums and children safe passage to Scotland has slammed the Home Office.
Immigration specialist Alex Boyd told how he is working round the clock and free of charge to help families stranded across Europe.
The 48-year-old accused the Home Office of putting up barriers instead of fast-tracking applications.
Alex said he has witnessed a heartbreaking pattern where mothers are given visas but their children are being held up in a cyberspace limbo.
The process means penniless families have to wait it out in European cities while their rooms with Scottish sponsors lie empty.
He called for contracts with outsourcing firms, like French company Teleperformance, to be cancelled amid claims that staff are fobbing off applicants.
Ukraine-born Alex, who moved to Scotland in 2001, said: “We have a crisis, a war, and we are dealing with the situation with complacency and lip service.
“I am seeing the same inhumane things happen again and again and there is no explanation for it.
“Mothers have been given visas yet their children are not.
“The Home Office says they are being held up for security reasons yet they have done all the biometric measurements and filled in all the forms.
“Many of these cases have involved leaving Ukraine and going to places like Prague and Berlin only to be told, week after week, that the children’s visas are not ready yet and they don’t know when they will be. This is simply cruel.
“Effectively, there are no more checks that could be done and no documents or data to compare against. The process has come to an end – so why no visas for these children?
“People were told that cases would take three to five days, so why are the cases dragging on for weeks and many now for more than a month?
“Meanwhile, families who have fled from war are forced to wait for days with no information.”
Alex says the UK Border Force should be used to process all Ukrainians coming into the UK with a simplified system.
He believes it would be easy to train staff to use existing fingerprinting technology at UK airports and that an immediate visa waiver should be issued for all children fleeing the war.
Alex has already arranged passage to Scotland for his own mother Lina, sister Natasha, brother-in-law Oleg and niece Diana.
He has also been an invaluable help to people in towns including Dollar, Clackmannanshire, where his daughter Alexandra went to school.
The Record told previously how at least 20 rooms are ready and waiting in Dollar for sponsored Ukrainian nationals.
Home Secretary Priti Patel promised visa applications would be approved within days.
Alex is furious that the UK is the only country in the world where war refugees require the document.
He was already busy dealing with cases involving visas from all over the world when war broke out in March.
He then took on work pro-bono, filling in forms and giving advice to more than 200 people so far. He has also helped people lucky enough to make it to Scotland, assisting them in getting bank accounts and national insurance numbers, so they can work.
He added: “The work is pretty endless and more is coming in all the time. It seems to me we have private companies contributing to the chaos in the process, using second-hand, ineffective systems for processing the visa applications.”
Alex met wife Brenda when he was working in a bar in Prague in the 90s and they set up home in Scotland.
He has worked as a translator for many years and has degrees in Scottish and international law.
A Government spokesperson said: “All applications from families are normally processed together but cases differ in complexity and it is vital that robust safeguarding processes are in place to protect children from trafficking and other risks.”
