My attempt to enter UK via Calais on a German residency card

[Balantyne]

I thought I should document this, as it'll be of interest to anyone thinking of doing the same. Long story short, they'd not heard of the new law and stamped me in on a tourist visa instead.

I'm a New Zealand citizen, married to a German. In late November (2014) I arrived at Calais with the intention of catching a ferry to Dover. At immigration I first had to show my passport to a new French desk which hadn't been there before, they wanted to check my passport for my visa situation in the EU, which was slightly complicated by my having a completely new passport without my landing stamp from when I'd flown in a couple weeks earlier. I still had my old passport tho, so it wasn't a problem.

At the UK immigration desk (There were two male officers, one was looking like he was just hanging out there for something to do, both were friendly and helpful throughout) I presented my German residency card (Aufenthaltstitel) and my NZ passport and said I'd like to enter on the former. The second officer remarked 'well you won't be doing that'.
Essentially, none of them had ever heard of the law change in April this year allowing holders of German and Estonian residency cards to enter the UK. I assured them it was the case and offered to show them the text of the law which I'd downloaded, they said they'd have to check it all out properly and would stamp me in on a tourist visa. I was surprised this was an option as I'd been refused and black marked some years ago on grounds of insufficient paperwork at the border but they said the black mark had been removed (actually they only knew about it because I brought it up, it'd been taken off my record completely) probably because I'd successfully entered twice since, on EEA Family Permits. Which is interesting in itself.

I'd told them I was joining my wife in the UK (I had a letter from her but they didn't ask to see it) and that we were just visiting, they said that was fine but if we'd been wanting to enter for work or to emigrate then 'that would be different', which I guess means I probably wouldn't have got in as easy.

So it would seem I was the first person to attempt to enter via Calais under the new law. Hopefully they've now contacted head office and received advice on it all, guess the next person through will find out. I tried a couple of times to ask UK Visas and Immigration what the situation is via email, but they were unsurprisingly unhelpful.

I'll be coming back into the UK next summer, after my current tourist visa has expired, so we'll see what happens then.

[dalebutt]

what you have is Aufenthaltstitel and cannot be used in lieu of visa, an holder of an Aufenthaltskarte may seek to enter the UK without issues. What you have is as the result of your marriage to a German citizen, which is called a residence permit, an Aufenthalskarte is the residence card.