General Attention: Chagossian (BIOT) & BOTC (F), (M), UKF & UKM Communities: Subject: General Update, BOTC and BC Certificates at Citizenship Ceremonies & Approval Emails.
From: David & Trent, www.botccampaign.org New York, 25 July 2023
NOTE: Please share this information widely on social media platforms or in private messages to your families and friends. As long as it is used in good faith as written and not reimagined or twisted, we have no problem. We inform you that some community members are told to refrain from following our postings. This being so excludes a lot of people from seeing & hearing valuable information. We appreciate the private messages we get to validate whether other information they have heard is accurate. We will always give you the truth of what we have verified. We will always respect your privacy. That is why we don't make public our friends list. You don't need to hit the like button or comment on our posts.
GENERAL STATEMENT NOTICE: Our goal as the BOTC Campaign is to and always has been to provide citizenship-by-descent applicants (BOTC (F), BOTC (M), UK F, UKM, & BIOT routes) with the best-validated information from official sources.
We are Social Justice Citizenship Advocates (Trent and David) set up to campaign to remove citizenship discrimination in British nationality laws. We collaborate with several respectable and willing community social justice groups and individual independent Advocates.
We have developed excellent productive relationships with the UKVI (Home Office) Policy and Caseworking teams, officials of Overseas Territories governments, well-informed Legal Advisors, UK MPs, and Peers in the House of Lords.
We are not affiliated with or promote the work of any foreign Government. However, we welcome engagement from them in furtherance of social justice matters.
We do not seek to divide any communities; that goes against our ethos and morals.
We are not legal advisors and do not provide legal advice.
Anyone seeking registration and citizenship advice is encouraged to seek independent legal advice from qualified UK-based British nationality legal advisors. They should be registered with the OISC regularity organization. All professional legal advisors make charges for the services.
To be clear, our campaign only directs people to the best-certified resources.
Contrary to recent rumors & lies spread by specific other individuals and their group followers on social media platforms, we do not and have never taken money from anyone. We don't need to do this. We have never written or completed an application for anyone else. That is illegal.
Misinformation like this damages the excellent work done by many well-intentioned people who deeply care for the communities. All our work is voluntary for the BOTC (F), BOTC (M), UKF, UKM & BIOT community. Let there be no confusion. No one should feel threatened by our work; we do not seek to steal anyone's glory. We are secure in ourselves and the work we do for the betterment of the communities. We do not need anyone else validation or approval. Inflated egos do not drive us.
Now moving on to two keys issues related to the general BOTC and Chagossian communities:
BOTC CEREMONIES, CERTIFICATES & APPROVAL EMAILS:
We've had a few reports from the Chagossian community that some applicants attending their UK citizenship ceremonies only received their British ('BC) Citizenship registration certificate, not their 'BOTC" registration certificate.
Some in the general BOTC community ask why they are waiting to receive these approval emails before the ceremony invites.
To help understand what is happening, we have engaged with high-level Casework managers & Policy Directorate' at the UKVI (Home Office), who have let us know the following:
(1) Where a customer has applied for British Overseas Territories and British Citizenship Registration ('BOTC' and 'BC'), they should receive both certificates at the ceremony; if they do not get both certificates, they should email the UKVI (Home Office) Chagossian Helpline to let them know.
Please ensure your quote, reference number, and complete details are in the email.
For other BOTC (F)/(M)/UKF & UKM routes)(non-Chagossian) applicants, they should email:
(2) We are advised by the UKVI (Home Office) that the UK applicants they no longer send approval emails/letters to successful applicants. After completing their biometrics, a successful applicant will receive the following communication: the invitation to their citizenship ceremony at the local UK Registrar's Office. This may apply to some overseas applicants as their ceremonies are held at High Commissions/Embassies or Consulates.
(3) After the recent questions to the Home Office Minister on our behalf by Baroness Lister, we are beginning to see encouraging movement in application processing both in the UK and overseas. Please remember that the number of applications is in the thousands, and processing these will take some time. The handling target date from receipt of all applications and supporting documentation is six months, but where that time frame will not be met, the UKVI (Home Office) will send applicants emails to advise. As necessary as this is, you will need a lot of patience.
As mentioned above, all concerns should be sent to the UKVI (Home Office) email addresses shown above.
Best wishes for your future success,
Trent & David.