Deported grandmother : what is the government trying to prove

[alwaysprepare]

There is a story of a woman originally from Singapore who lives here and has been married to a Brit for 27 years, they have 2 kids and a grandchild.
Her parents had been ill and she has spent the last few years going home to take care of them. They have now passed away. She had indefinite leave to remain which has been revoked and was apparently taken on a Sunday by authorities and sent to a detention centre before being put on a flight with £12 and the clothes on her back. Her husband is poorly after a heart bypass, I think it was.

You are not allowed to leave the country for a certain amount of time on the visa she has, but she probably needed to take care of ailing parents. Also Singapore does not Allow dual citizenship which maybe why she did not apply for UK passport as that probably would have been tricky for her parent emergencies etc.

We are no better than Trump.

Sorry cannot paste it right now, but it's on Google.

Not everyone voted brexit to reduce immigration.

I mean individuals voted leave not a nation

Depends on why they voted leave. I didnt link it to Brexit though (I have way stronger terms for that). However, I will refrain from using it here to describe a certain section of the populace as it seems a pejorative (and I use it as such) against one and is a pejorative against all. However, the same applies to any terms applied against the Scots (or other nations). Will make it interesting in threads about Nicola Sturgeon and the independence debate. And the tone introduced about the poor woman, as noted by TheElementsSong, is hardly welcoming or abuse free.

Hang on a sec, so a woman and her husband meet and marry in the U.K. then essentially emigrate to Singapore and live there for a number of years. Her parents become ill and she decides to remain there while her husband and children move back to the UK. She comes back on occasion but can't provide enough proof of a true ongoing relationship with her husband so further permanent visas are declined. She comes back on a tourist visa as he is ill but then overstays and is deported.

Even on this thread there seems to be more immigration stories that would warrant examination and publicising than this woman's.

That didn't make much sense to me scot diem.
I hope that the home office looked in to your individual case and decided based on it's merits. I very very much hope that your husband's skin colour had nothing to do with the decision made.
I think some posts made by others about having children for convenience and abandoning them are a bit of an overreach, but all opinions are valid I guess.
I am partly english. Read in to that what you will... I like my friends polish cooking, she is a really good cook. I buy polish stuff from the supermarket sometimes, because it is there.

Exactly moreisnog...

For family reasons I've had to look into US citizenship, Canadian citizenship and U.K. Citizenship rules. All are complex, they all seem more complex than necessary and I can see how people get burnt.
£ 64,5 K in savings is a lot of money but on an immigration post last week someone suggested assets could be included.
Could her children not sponsor her?
In my case the US and CA immigration staff were helpful and made recommendations I hope the staff were equally helpful to her and assist her. Some applications have to be submitted from outside a country.

She comes back on occasion but can't provide enough proof of a true ongoing relationship with her husband so further permanent visas are declined

This is what's odd. She has children and grandchildren with him. And she wants to be in the UK so she can care for him.

And this isn't enough of a true ongoing relationship?

Makes you wonder what actually would be acceptable evidence...

Could her children not sponsor her?

AFAIK, I can't sponsor my mother to move to the UK so I imagine her children can't either. I think back in the mists of time there was a visa for reunification of families or something like that, but it doesn't really exist anymore.

"Makes you wonder what actually would be acceptable evidence..."

An almighty range of everything can be provided. Joint bank accounts, wedding pictures, holidays together, same address, joint bills, family christmases together. And it can still be decline as not enough. Many applications with more than this have had to go to appeal as its a numbers game now, not a set of criteria. If the assessment officer has let through too many then they will deny. It gets overturned on appeal but then its an appeal stat, not a decision stat.

She has children and grandchildren with him.

As a poster implied upthread, perhaps the HO think that she just shagged a random British bloke to steal his sperm for making British babies, in order to plot her way into this country. If posters on here believe that, why not the HO?

BeAlert currently going through the process and we have to show photos from every 6 month period in our relationship, Skype transcripts, SMS transcripts, emails, proof of trips taken together.

Our case file is 112 pages and growing.

I think it is difficult to prove a right to an ongoing relationship in the UK when they only lived here together as a married couple from 1990-1992, then 6 years outside the UK, husband returns alone from 1998-2003, she then lives between UK and Singapore for 10 years, before attempting to settle here in 2013.

Despite being turned away at a UK airport and having multiple IDLR applications rejected, she still thought the law didn't apply to her. It wasn't like there was no warning. She had the option to forgo her SG passport, particularly after her parents died, but retained it so that she would keep her HDB.

The more I read, the less sympathy I have.

If the assessment officer has let through too many then they will deny. It gets overturned on appeal but then its an appeal stat, not a decision stat.

I think you've summed it up there. Someone's meeting a quota.

Suppose so? Just seems a bit far fetched. Probably depends which officer you get assigned to your case.

No Out2pasture, they state very clearly that you can't post or e-mail them as they won't reply. You can spend hours on the phone without getting to speak to them. My husband told me recently and later it was also coincidentally in the Guardian that all the hostility and racism faced by non-EU citizens, e.g. simple cases with the right income being rejected and spouses pursuing them in court who ask the HO what the hell where they thinking when they rejected the spouse coming over (just because they could and many people won't challenge them) thus taking up so much time in courts and wasting people's money, now will be common place for EU nationals too. DH was in court for such a case and the judge was at the HO representatives. The case was finished within minutes. However now things are a lot harder regarding your income.

How many people actually had to ask their MP to intervene and find out from the UKBA what EXACTLY they needed in order to qualify as there is NOBODY to advice you and all you can do is risk £800 for your application to fail.

I think the main evidence for the quota thing is the way some things are counted. The government accepting X number is different from X number being granted appeal decisions. DP and I got a denial that looked at about 1/3rd of our application (in that the refusal didnt reference 2/3rds of it). We got an automatic appeal which makes the difference. Other people who have been decline (lack of evidence, questionabale marriage etc.) have to provide additional evidence to see an appeal can be made. Cases like ours are heard automatically (if we want) on the evidence made. First time we went to appeal, the HO only wanted to talk about their 1/3rd refusal but tribunal declined as the 2/3rds were seen as very relevant so new dates had to be set. It became clear at that point the Home Office werent actually playing fair or turning up to legal discussions with a desire to consider all the facts. Thats when we started look at Dublin.

I'm glad you have been able to set up home somewhere together. I don't know the circumstances behind you application, bit it sounds like you have been through the mill. Hope things work out for you.

Everything that happens in the past became irrelevant at the point she last had an application rejected but decided to stay here anyway. She broke the law. She knew she was breaking the law, and no, ignorance is no defence in the eyes of the law. But she knew she had broken the law because she'd applied for ILTR several times and been turned down. But she stuck two fingers up at that decision and stayed here, presuming that they wouldn't make her leave, and when they did decided to play the "poor granny caring for her sick husband" card.

To all intents and purposes she and her husband separated in 1998. My guess is that they actually did separate, and he returned here with the children for whatever reason. And my guess is that the couple of years she stayed here in early 2000's were them trying to reconcile but they didn't manage it.

She didn't go back to care for her elderly parents because when she went back they were already dead.

But my guess is the grandchild was perhaps born around the time she moved back here, and as she and her ex were amicable and he has a heart condition, and they have never divorced, they agreed that she would state she was caring for him.

My guess is that she's spent time building a relationship with her children, because let's be brutally honest here, she hadn't had a proper relationship with them since 1998 when she let her husband return to the UK with them.

But let's not kid ourselves that this is a story of a close happy family being broken up because it really isn't.

The way I see it the woman had no choice but to keep her SG passport seeing g as her multiple attempts to regain ILR was unsuccessful. You can't apply for British citizenship without an ILR. So if she gave up her other citizenship she would become stateless.

It would be useful to have all the facts in this woman's case. But as several posters have said, it is not at all simple to just get ILR, especially as the rules change frequently - especially since 2010.

I know tons of people with bureaucratic craziness stories around LTR. For instance, one friend's spousal application was turned down because it was on the wrong form - but they had actually used the correct form, it was simply that the HO/UKBA whatever it is had changed the forms in the months between when she submitted her application and when the UKBA got around to processing it. (That was one of the huge delay periods around 2009ish I think.) So they had to get a solicitor on it and the solicitor was able to get it fixed, but of course in the meantime she got a 'get ready to leave' letter and was terrified.

Also, once you apply for ILR or citizenship, you have to surrender your passport as part of the application. If you need your passport back before your application has been fully considered, you lose the £ you paid and have to start all over again. So if you've applied and then your parents in another country have a medical emergency, you're faced with losing lots of money, time, etc and starting over later, or staying here when your vulnerable family members abroad need you.

I was able to do same day service for ILR but that cost another several hundred pounds on top of the existing fees (over £1K just for me). One reason I did so was because I had experience of a previous visa extension being delayed, meaning I missed a month of work (couldn't start without visa) and thus a month of income. All the while I and my employer were trying to get through to someone in UKBA or whatever it is called now, with no response to calls, emails, etc. Strangely, things only began to move once an MP got involved. And whenever I went to the UKBA's home page to get information and possible contacts about my legitimate visa issue, I was faced with a big picture at the top of someone in handcuffs. Yes, that was one of the images at the top of the UKBA's web page. Not exactly a welcoming message to those of us legitimately and legally trying to make a life in the UK, contribute (including a lot of taxes!), just do what's right.

So before you assume that this woman had 'plenty of chances' to do things right, please realise that going through this process is expensive, confusing, and fraught with little bureaucratic gotcha clauses that change every few months and every step involves large sums of money. That was my experience as someone with financial resources, a good job waiting for me, an advanced degree, and native English language. It is anything but easy, and I wouldn't be surprised if a completely understandable series of policy changes, life events, and a lack of good legal advice tripped her up.

My Italian mother has been here since 1960 and married my father in 65.

She does not have British citezenship We went for family holidays in Italy once in 1977 when i was 4 and again in 1983. A fortnight both times. She also went back in 80 and 94 to both her parents funerals just a few days each time.

She did enquire about citezenship in the mid /late 60s but was told she would have to give up her Italian citezenship and couldnt have both.

Can posters not see it is basically someone being asked to deny their heritage.

Good post veryvery and I think your experience was not dissimilar to what I had to go through (yes, even getting my MP involved).

Yikes sorry that was so long! I think I may have had a little leftover anger about the whole process :) I think it was the handcuff photo that really made me angry. Well, that and never being able to reach anyone to find out what was going on.

Thanks Elements - and my sympathies on your travels through the system!

(and apologies to everyone for my lengthy screed)

This original post case is not a great one to complain about the UK system as this lady left right and centre broke the law. There may be better cases to get sympathy for people but this one is not it

"I think it is difficult to prove a right to an ongoing relationship in the UK when they only lived here together as a married couple from 1990-1992, then 6 years outside the UK, husband returns alone from 1998-2003, she then lives between UK and Singapore for 10 years, before attempting to settle here in 2013."

Veryvery that was a very enlightening post. I think that the rules themselves seem to be less of a problem than the shambolic application of those rules and I really hope that it will get better.

HelenaDove I can sympathise re denying heritage, but a passport is a passport though and if you deliberately decide to live outside of your country for a long time you should try to adopt enough love and commitment for the country you have decided you want to stay in to have the passport to match. By keeping your old passport you are refusing to commit to your new home and if people feel that way they may as well go back to the country which they love more.
Your heritage can never be taken away from you it is something you carry in memory and in spirit surely.