The UK has currently reserved just 100 visa appointments this week for Ukrainian refugees at its Paris application centre, it emerged tonight.
The revelation comes as the Home Office announced 300 Ukrainians have been granted a visa to join UK family out of 17,700 applications started - and 1.7million refugees.
It is likely to lead to fresh anger after Priti Patel was bombarded with criticism over families who have ended up in Calais.
Hundreds of terrified Ukrainians have started to arrive in the French port - but they have to submit a visa application if they have family in the UK.
Currently this involves an in-person trip to Paris - currently the only UK visa centre in France - or Brussels to give fingerprints and other information.
Refugees arriving at one centre today were met with the message: "NO VISAS DELIVERED IN CALAIS."
The Home Secretary sparked chaos today by announcing Ukrainians will also be able to get visas near Calais - but not yet.
The Home Secretary told MPs "we have set up" a "bespoke" visa application centre "en route" to the port.
But minutes later she claimed she never said that - and in fact the Home Office was still “setting up” the centre.
Officials later said even when it opens, it won't be for all applicants in France. A Government spokesperson said it "will be by referral from Border Force only to support Ukrainians. The primary Visa Application Centre in France will remain in Paris.”
Until it does open, it is understood there are 400 appointments available at the UK's Paris Visa Application Centre this week, and 100 are protected for Ukrainians.
Walk-in appointments are also available at the Visa Application Centre in Brussels but only Wednesday to Friday.
Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told the Commons: “The Home Office website is still telling people to go to Paris. Journalists who are in Calais and looking for any centre that there might be are still unable to find anything.
"All they can find is a few Home Office staff in a building with a crisp machine but no visas.
"One family there this afternoon who have been there for five days have been told they cannot get an appointment in Paris until March 15.
“What on earth is going on?”
Ms Patel denied families had been unable to get appointments for a week. Home Office sources insisted there was capacity at centres across Europe.
Tonight the Home Office confirmed 300 visas had been issued so far - updating a figure of 50 by 10am yesterday, which the Home Office issued but Ms Patel branded “absolutely inaccurate”.
Overall, 17,700 Ukraine Family Scheme applications had been started.
Of these 8,900 have been submitted, 4,300 have attended a Visa Application Centre, and 640 applications have been confirmed.
It came as a desperate builder spoke of his devastation after rescuing his wife and children from Ukraine but being banned from getting them into the UK.
Vitalie Turetska has been living and working in north London for the past three years.
When Russia started bombing his home country he jumped in his car and drove to the Ukraine/Romania border to get wife and Helena and sons Danya, six and two-year-old Mapk.
They are just some of the 1.5 million refugees who have already fled the terror in their home country.
But now they are stranded in Calais after British authorities refused to let them cross the Channel.
Vitalie said he was told he was allowed to return but he would have to leave his wife and kids behind in France because, in his words, "they don’t have the correct paperwork".
A full family visa scheme for Ukrainians opened on Friday allowing applications from immediate family; extended family; and immediate family members of extended family.
Immediate family are a spouse or civil partner, unmarried partner in a cohabiting relationship for two or more years, a child under 18, a parent if their child in the UK is under 18, or a fiancee or proposed civil partner.
Extended family include grown-up children or their parents, grandparents, grandchildren or partners’ grandchildren, and brothers and sisters.
Home Office guidance recommends people apply for a visa “in a nearby country” to Ukraine after fleeing over the border - naming Hungary, Moldova, Poland and Romania.
People are asked to complete an application online, travel to the visa centre to give details like fingerprints, then remain in the area until their application is processed.
