Upset about this one, more than usual, because it affects me so much personally. Canadian husband and I came into England with him as my EU spouse because I had been living in Ireland, where he had been recognised as my husband under EU law, and it was easier to do that than to get a uk spousal permit which would have entailed 6 months of separation while I earned 18,600 to bring him in under the 2012 reforms. Went the EU route instead, all legal. Got our permits to come into UK no problem, husband earns well over threshold, live near my family, all lovely. First baby in Nov, my mum's first, much wanted and adored grandchild. Aunts, uncles, great-grandparents, a whole life.
Then application to remain refused. From what I hear, they're just refusing everyone who came in under this route now www.gov.uk/family-permit/surinder-singh claiming we're all liars who just used residence in another country to get into the UK. Not true, I have roots in Ireland and have been going there my whole life. My grandma has lived there 40 years. I was living there because I liked it there. Not to sneak into the UK. But how do you prove what you were thinking in the past? You can't. You can only state what your intentions are, they say you're lying, and you can't prove you're not.
So we're leaving. Packing up our house and taking our baby away from his family. We have never taken a penny off the state. My husband works his butt off in his council job and they don't want him to go. But we're going, back to Ireland. Then they won't give his passport back for us to go anywhere except Canada. It's "policy." Fun fact about about the harassment of immigrants in the UK - it's outsourced. To a company called Capita. If you ask them a question, say, can I have my passport sent to the airport so it's only handed over when I fly out of the UK, they say we can't tell you that, we don't know because we're not actually the Home Office. Can you speak to someone from the Home Office? Can you hell. So we have to spend thousands of (borrowed) pounds flying to Canada, and then back to Ireland, just to get the passport back. Or wait for SOLVIT (problem solving network within the EU commission who have advised us that DH's passport being held is unlawful) to get it back for us, but that's uncertain, they may well just be stonewalled as we have been, and DH leaves his job next week, and we leave our house. We're moving into a caravan on my grandma's farm. Will support ourselves freelancing (as have done in the past.)
And on top of it all this sodding referendum, which if it turns out a leave result, will make it that much harder for us to get into Ireland. I am eligible for an Irish passport, as it happens, and can take him in that way eventually, but that requires me to be the sponsor, and I have been a SAHM. it is easier to go in as EU citizen and spouse, which we have the right to do whether the Home Office recognises it or not. That's what we did when we lived there before. Where we never took a penny from the state. If we leave it won't take effect immediately but it may well make individual border officials reluctant to let us into the country. (It is always at their discretion, whether you have a legal right to be there or not.) Then we may have spent thousands flying out to Ireland via Canada, only to be turned around and sent back to Canada with our 7mo. Where I have no firm right to be either, until we go through the application process, which we haven't because we wanted to live here, near family, which we are not going to be able to do. Which I can accept, it's the way the shitty cookie has crumbled, but I hate seeing my mum cry because she doesn't want her daughter and grandson to be forced to leave.
So I will be anxiously watching for the results of this referendum while I pack my whole life into stupid cardboard boxes.
& all that is really tangential to this thread so feel free to ignore, but it was cathartic to type.