Bradford campaigners who are trying to redress "unjust" immigration rules have taken their battle to parliament.
Abu Bashir from the Bangladesh Porishad centre in Manningham, Bradford North MP Terry Rooney and other campaigners spent 45 minutes with Home Secretary Jack Straw at Westminster yesterday.
Bradford leaders of the nationwide campaign met Mr Straw to highlight the plight of the several thousand children of Asian parents who were denied access into this country.
At the time there were many bogus applications and officials mistakenly refused entry to many genuine cases who have since lived in Asia, supported from afar by their mothers and fathers living and working here.
Now DNA testing has revealed their children's applications were correct and that they should have been allowed into Britain up to 30 years ago.
A total of 21 parents live in Bradford which is where the campaign started. It has now been backed by a host of national organisations.
Abu Bashir, who argues immigration rules are unjust, said: "It was an interesting meeting.
"So far, ministers haven't got us anything definite but what they said is they will go back and look at it again.
"We had a fairly interesting discussion and he will respond to Terry Rooney MP.
"We discussed the whole issue around the injustices. We discussed the various options.
"He hasn't promised us anything but he will come back and will take our views into account.
"It started off very negative but after representations from our side, and people from Birmingham, London and Leeds, I think he had got to have a second look at it.
"I am fairly optimistic something will come back but I am very cautious at the same time. I don't want to get people's hopes up. But the Home Secretary gave us a fair amount of time to talk with him."
Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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