Is anyone able to ‘thought shower’any loopholes in immigration law?

[LaurieFairyCake]

Are there any?

UK law (England)
Elderly (terminal cancer) man - English
married long term to wife from Thailand (in her 60’s)

She has no domicility or right to remain. He spends £1500 every 3 years (not sure on what - to extend her visa I suppose?)

He needs her to care for him. He can’t go back to die in Thailand as he has no possibility of health care (he’s also still receiving treatment).

Is there ANYTHING that can be done to get him something. He is obviously very worried about it.

Marisa - no it bloody isn't and I will know due to my job. The rules are there for a myriad of reasons and as pointed out there are exceptions for truly compassionate cases which can be granted another form of ltr.
My opinion may differ from yours but it is perfectly valid.

And my phone has autocorrected the posters name - sorry!.

Op please go see independent legal advice as that's the best course of action regardless of anyone's opinions.

spangly, I don't want to derail the OP's thread, but my DP is an academic who specialises in immigration law and everything I have said is absolutely true.

'Deport first, appeal later' is indeed part of the Home Office's official policy.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Office_hostile_environment_policy

Just because rules are rules does not make them ethically right. The government is desperate to meet immigration quotas that have been imposed for political reasons, so they will deport people on the slightest pretext.

In addition, the Home Office has deported many people illegally (so they have broken their own rules) and they have been pulled up on this by the law courts (though I'm sure there are many other occasions when they have got away with illegal deportations because the victims have not had the resources to launch a legal appeal).

Also, the 'rules are there for a reason' line of argument is problematic due to the following

Home Office officials have made more than 5,700 changes to the immigration rules since 2010, a Guardian analysis has revealed, making the visa system nearly impossible to navigate, according to senior judges and lawyers.

The rules have more than doubled in length to almost 375,000 words, resulting in a complex system which has been called “something of a disgrace” by Lord Justice Irwin and prompting a radical overhaul.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/aug/27/revealed-immigration-rules-have-more-than-doubled-in-length-since-2010

I notice though that despite our radically different views of the Home Office, spangly and I agree that the OP needs an immigration solicitor.

A British citizen in my community recently won an appeal after his wife of many years was denied leave to remain in the UK (though the circumstances were different to those the OP describes - the Home Office had ordered her deported to a country where her life would have been in danger). The man in question was a local shopkeeper and the community rallied together on his behalf. They contributed to his legal fees, his MP got involved, and his solicitor collected hundreds of letters from friends and neighbours on his behalf, to submit as evidence in court, about this family's close ties to the community. He did win his appeal, thank god. I don't know whether the petition and all the letters made a difference, but these things sometimes do make a difference -- only of course they have to be combined with proper legal representation.

Oh, and his wife couldn't pass the Life in the UK test either -- she was too traumatised after her experience as a war refugee.

Actually, I've just looked at the details of his story again, and it seems that his lawyer used Article 8 of the Human Rights Act, which says that one is entitled to respect for one's private and family life, in order to argue that the family should stay together.

Sorry to spam your thread with posts, OP; I feel very strongly about this issue (in case you hadn't noticed!).

Also she won’t get all of his house. As she doesn’t have full residency it is immediately taxed at 40% apparently even though they’ve been married decades. I didn’t understand that part - think that bit is probably very complicated

Actually that is probably the easier bit. Is the house worth more than £650k?

Yes - he needs to engage a proper immigration lawyer (look for one that's a member of ILPA) and quickly. Immigration law is complex and the potential impact of getting wrong is significant.

It's worth involving his MP as a parallel track - they can be very helpful (even when publicly they appear to be to the right of Oswald Mosely they will tend to advocate for individual constituents). It is possible for discretionary leave to be granted by the Home Secretary, but the onus is on the individual to demonstrate why their case is so unusual and compelling that the normal rules should not apply to them (and I should warn you that he will not be the first elderly Brit who wants the rules waiving for their non-English speaking elderly Thai wife)

Deport first, appeal later' is indeed part of the Home Office's official policy

The introduction of non-suspensive appeals was brought about because there were so many people lodging appeals that had no chance of success but were effective in delaying their inevitable deportation from the UK. So Spangly is correct in saying that - in part - the current strict rules have come about because of abuse of the previous system