A woman who is legally settled in the UK was left stranded at a Spanish airport after the Home Office\u2019s post-Brexit visa system mixed her up with her twin sister.<\/p>\n
Nidia Webb fell foul of what she was told was a \u201cknown issue\u201d with the eVisa, which was brought in as part of the government\u2019s drive to digitise the UK\u2019s immigration system but has faced problems that have caused concern for thousands of people.<\/p>\n
Politico<\/a> reported that Webb, who has lived in the UK for eight years, was told at the departure gate she would not be able to board her flight home. \u201cMy digital settled status had become linked to my identical twin sister\u2019s details rather than my own, meaning my status could not be properly matched to my identity,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cI was informed that this is a known technical issue affecting some twins within the Home Office system.\u201d<\/p>\n Webb said Home Office staff promised her over the phone the problem would be fixed, though a confirmation email was then sent to her sister instead of to her.<\/p>\n \u201cI had no idea the issue had been corrected until I was allowed to board my flight home,\u201d Webb said. \u201cHad I not spent hours on the phone trying to resolve the matter, I have no idea how long I could have remained stranded abroad.\u201d<\/p>\n A Home Office spokesperson said: \u201cOver 10 million people have already successfully used eVisas to prove their immigration status. As we expand our digital system, we are committed to data accuracy and ensuring that the safeguards in place to support eVisa users are accessible to anyone reliant on the digital system.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the rare cases where errors are identified, the majority of cases are resolved within 24 hours.\u201d The Home Office indicated the problem Webb encountered had since been fixed and that staff would contact her directly.<\/p>\n Serious concerns have been expressed about the eVisa system. In July 2025, the Guardian reported<\/a> up to 200,000 people who had lived in the UK legally for decades were at risk of being caught up in a Windrush-style scandal<\/a> because the Home Office was unable to get in touch with them to transfer their old immigration documents to the new digital system.<\/p>\n Monique Hawkins, the acting chief executive of the immigration campaign group the3million, said it had seen previous cases similar to Webb\u2019s, adding that it highlighted vulnerabilities in the system and it was \u201ccrucial that people have a genuinely stable means by which to prove their status\u201d.<\/p>\n She told Politico the eVisa rollout had been \u201crushed\u201d, adding: \u201cWe regularly see people not only denied boarding, but also compensation, as carriers and the Home Office play a blame game shifting responsibility between each other.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A woman who is legally settled in the UK was left stranded at a Spanish airport after the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":748387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-748386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=748386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/748387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=748386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=748386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=748386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}