Post
by sagareva » Tue May 05, 2015 10:15 pm
I am more worried about something else. I have been now contacted by several people all of whom have the following in common --
(1) they have overstayed in the past 10 years, usually a student visa around 2005/2006
(2) they have subsequently got married to a BC, went back to their home countries (with a variation of being or not being served with IS151 airside) and filed for spouse visas in 2010-2011, successfully
(3) on completion of three years as a spouse they applied for naturalisation in the summer/Autumn 2014, all using NCS, where they have all been told their applications were straightforward and there was nothing to worry about.
Subsequently, applications were delayed, all currently past 6 months, and they have all received letters asking to explain how they were maintaining themselves in the country during the periods of illegal stay years ago. The letters are quite provocative and call for "payslips and bank statements" and "original documents only". In other words, BIG FISHING EXPEDITION has begun folks -- clearly, they are trying to push people into incriminating themselves by not only admitting to working illegally, but supplying HO with some sort of documentary proof! To me as someone who comes from American legal system, this is unthinkable. It should be a right of every person to not incriminate themselves, and I would advice anyone to NOT supply HO with any evidence of working illegally, even if you were. Do not lie, but you have an option of refusing to provide information or only providing information for periods of time which you have nothing to worry about.
Additionally people are all asked fro financial documents dating 7-10 years back, which normal people do not have. HMRC only advises keeping records fro 6 years, and most banks would not be able to provide statements older than 6 years without a lengthy written request process. And last but not least, the requests take no account of the economic conditions inwhich many illegal immigrants operate -- eg they do not have bank accounts, operate on cash basis, withdraw money from debits cards based on foreign accounts where it is put by relatives, stay with distant relatives etc etc. Eg letters call quite agressively for evidence which in most cases either doesn't exist, or SHOULDNT exist.
I think what happened, after reading the vine report and promising to declare all past overstayers peopel of not-good-enough character, they realised that refusing all overstayers would mean refusing more than half of all applicants, overwhelming majority those who are now married to BCs. They cant possibly refuse more than half of applicants from whom they all collected 1000 pounds each and who all legitimately relied on an expectation that their applications were straightforward and were told so by advisers licensed by the same home office! This is insane.
I am not talking about residence requirements -- in these cases they are all fine as they have completed 3 years as a spouse. I am talking about good character, and careful reading of para 9 of annex D shows that there is no suggestion there that JUST overstaying is enough to be refused on character grounds! So they are trying to sift through application from all former overstayers, to identify those who were working illegally -- and having no evidence on any of them, they do it by asking people to admit to it and supply the very evidence that will be used to refuse and ban them!!!
Anyone who received such a letter should be very, very careful. This is by far the most disgusting and underhanded HO tactic I can recall.
Clearly geniuses that came up with this think that because naturalisation is at discretion, people cannot sue. This is not true. Discretion has to be reasonable, and everyone is entitled to rely on government acting consistently and in line with legitimate expectations. Published guidance and practice ta the time those applications were made, is legitimate expectation and this is grounds for JR, especially so when applied en masse. Even though maybe these people, should they ever unite in a class, will not be able to force the government to give them citizenship -- I agree this is an open question -- but at least they should be able to get money back, because obviously they are just being scammed.
**Please note, you can no longer contact me by PM because owners of this board accused me of using it to recruit clients, and disabled my ability to read and send PMs.**