Assistance needed: Spouse visa expiring, £18600pa not met

[Ian001]

Dear Immigration Board denizens -

I'm in a tight spot and humbly seek your knowledge!

Background:
I'm an American national currently in the UK on a spouse visa. The visa expires in 9 days and I don't meet the financial requirements for a FLR(M) 2.5 year extension. (I've been unemployed since DEC2016 and my British wife is a PhD student with a meager stipend.)

Questions:
1. Would a letter proving that another microbiologist planned to hire me long term for a project starting in 2-3 months be admissible? This was something planned but the time-frame can't be definitively moved forward.

2. I think this is a firm no, but are there any avenues by which I could get a short, perhaps one month, stay added to my visa to find a job? I could take just about any pay for us to meet the requirement - and I'd be willing to do just about any job to stay with my wife!

3. If I end up deporting myself on the UKBA's behalf because of this, then work in the US to save enough to meet the financial requirements and come back, will that reset the 5-year "timer" I'm already years into for indefinite leave to remain?

4. Where does this fall on the EU Convention on Human Rights? Does the UKBA have an internal appeal process based on its apparent contravention of Article 8 (right to private and family life) if I'm effectively barred from living with my wife? As might go without saying, lawyers to argue that in court would be out of my price range right now, so I'm just curious about internal options.

5+. I'm of course open to (welcome wholeheartedly) any other ideas.

Pre-emptive THANK YOU SO MUCH for your valuable feedback.

Sincerely,
Ian

[Ian001]

P.S. Why I'm fervently seeking your knowledge so late:
Up to last night, I misunderstood the UKBA guidance minutiae on how savings impact financial requirements. My understanding was that savings totaling more than £16000 could be divided by 2.5 to meet the annual income requirement (that being £18600). Last night I came to realize that the first £16000 are negated from that sum, so instead of [£18600-(savings/2.5)]= needed income, it is [£18600-((savings-£16000)/2.5)]= needed income. With that change, we're nowhere close to making up for the income requirement gap.

P.P.S. After a five year stint there, for a while I thought the U.S. Army was a contender for World Champion of Obscure Bureaucratic Hurdles. Then I met UKBA.

[Tamandua]

Hi Ian,

With regard to question 3, based on my experience, you'll be applying for a new entry clearance from the US. That will reset your clock to zero. I was here on a tier-4 visa. When I applied for FLR I stated that I've been living in the UK for 6 years, but the caseworker pointed out that my last entry clearance reset my clock to zero. Also, if it is a new entry clearance, *I think* your wife will have to meet the income threshold. I don't know, the other members will be able to clarify this for you.

I can't help you with other questions. Perhaps you can submit an FLR(FP) form and provide insurmountable obstacles. For example, your wife is a PhD student. She cannot relocate to the US with you because of her studies. *I think* that's a reasonable obstacle.

As for article 8 of the ECHR, it doesn't oblige the HO to accept the choice of a couple as to which country they'd prefer to live in unless there are insurmountable obstacles. According to my MP, this is debatable and I think you'll be able to appeal (from outside the UK), but that's the HO's policy.

[CR001]

If you don't meet the financial requirements, you can apply for FLR(FP) partner 10 year route.

[Ian001]

Perhaps you can submit an FLR(FP) form and provide insurmountable obstacles. For example, your wife is a PhD student. She cannot relocate to the US with you because of her studies. *I think* that's a reasonable obstacle.

If you don't meet the financial requirements, you can apply for FLR(FP) partner 10 year route.

Thanks so much for giving me this new avenue to explore. I had the impression that FLR(FP) was reserved for parents of British dependent children. Funny how it was only once I already knew I might be eligible for something that I could eek out the fact on UKBA.gov!

That's especially helpful since with FLR(FP) I can revert back to the FLR(M) five-year track as soon as I am employed again, even if at doubly great UKBA profit.

This said, I still worry that the UKBA may succumb to ongoing "curb immigration" pressure and deny my application irrespective of our insurmountable obstacle. More reading brought me to the Surinder Singh ("SS") route. Is it safe to assume the SS route would not apply to me given my "center of life" (which would be, if any one thing, my wife) has to remain in the UK? I might have some argument for Ireland with close family (sister) there, but from my reading it seems like I wouldn't qualify under what's left of SS anyway. This is all new to me though - does it seem like a reasonable interpretation?

[Tamandua]

You cannot benefit from the SS route ruling to claim a right to return to the UK on the basis of EU law. That is for British citizens who genuinely lived in a EU country with their non-EU spouses and exercised their treaty rights there.

Your best option is to submit an FLR(FP) form. You have to provide evidence that your wife is a PhD student in the UK, e.g., a letter from her uni.

[Ian001]

You cannot benefit from the SS route ruling [...]
Your best option is to submit an FLR(FP) form. You have to provide evidence that your wife is a PhD student in the UK, e.g., a letter from her uni.

I see, I grossly misinterpreted SS and am very glad for the clarification. I didn't think it likely anyway!

Are there any specific legalese phrases I should consider using while answering 7.20?

7.20 Could you and your partner live together outside of the UK if necessary? If not, tell us about any obstacles to your family life with your partner continuing outside the UK. Please provide reasons and evidence to support your claim.

(This may seem like nitpicking, but given that nitpicking is what the UKBA excels at, I'm just trying to make sure I'm as in-the-green as possible on this key point. For my original spouse visa the UKBA ended up requesting what totaled roughly 200 pages worth of additional documentation, things like (more) photos from our wedding and continued evidence that we were communicating after I'd submitted the application, despite providing a huge collection of nearly identical evidence with the original application. I hope my wish, to minimize the opportunity to get trolled for six months like that again, makes otherwise silly questions like this understandable!)

We're very appreciative of you two helping us with these complexities, particularly your in depth answers Tamandua (and your stylish name CR001).

[Tamandua]

You are very welcome. I think you should just mention the fact that your wife cannot relocate with you to the US as she's currently studying in the UK.

I also submitted the same form and didn't use any technical language.

[Ian001]

I just wanted to update this board, as I finally received word back from the UKVI yesterday evening. A year after submitting my FLR(FP) form!

To summarize, I submitted with the expectation that my wife having to leave her fully funded PhD for us to live in the U.S. was a serious enough obstacle to sate FLR(FP). The individual(s) who drafted my refusal letter pointedly disagreed, specifically noting that we could continue our relationship via "modern communications", or alternatively that my wife could simply "relocate to the United States of America" (abandon her PhD).

I think they also had a few errors while copying and pasting my and my wife's shared life into despondence. One section of the refusal letter ends with "Accordingly, you do not qualify for leave to remain under the 10-year partner route of Appendix FM, or the 10-year private life route of Part 7 of the". That's it. The section ends and the title of the next section ("NEXT STEPS") begins.

Anyway! End result: FLR(FP) = rejected. I hope that can help inform anyone considering a similar path.

[Ian001]

P.S. My employer has guided me to a few resources which might make navigating the appeal process feasible. Still a daunting prospect as we don't have the riches required to hire an immigration solicitor. I'll intend to update further over time - hopefully with "less horrible" news, eventually.