Yanki1974 wrote:
Thank you so much Indguru90 for your response. I can now relax.
I sent an email to the case worker querying this decision and she responded with a long response stating the requirement for job seekers. Just copied relevant bits below so as not to take up space.
"However, in relation to the period in which your sponsor was a job-seeker, unfortunately your sponsor’s period of job-seeking was not accepted because this department was not satisfied he was seeking work in accordance with the Regulations., as per your own admission; your sponsor was not registered with the relevant employment office and therefore he was not deemed a jobseeker in accordance with the regulations. Furthermore, no evidence was received to show your sponsor was either a qualified person prior to seeking work or that they had entered the UK in order to seek work"
This was why I assumed because my ex was not registered with DWP as I submitted lots of emails showing job applications, registration with agencies, some interviews and rejections for 6 months. This was the maximum period for job seelers bf 2014.
In anycase I am relieved this will not be an issue for naturalization
Hi again,
Re the quote from the UKBA email, "your sponsor was not registered with the relevant employment office and therefore he was not deemed a jobseeker in accordance with the regulations" is nonsense, legally speaking. However, I have an idea why this might be. It is not clear from your summary of facts but did you spouse, before they were a jobseeker in 2011, exercise Treaty rights in the UK as a worker, self-employed, student or self-sufficient person? That would sit uneasily with the rest of the email, admittedly.
The reason why I ask is that the EU regulations as initially drafted only recognised as a jobseeker someone who had "entered" the UK for the purpose of jobseeking. This was interpreted as precluding those who had previously been exercising Treaty rights from becoming jobseekers (so for example, you couldn't go straight from student to jobseeker, you had to
leave the country and then
return as a jobseeker). This was obviously rather silly and contravened EU Directive 2004/38. When the Immigration (EEA) (Amendment No 2) Regulations 2013 came into force, jobseekers included those who had previously exercised a Treaty right. So it is no longer necessary to leave the UK and re-enter in order to enjoy the status of jobseeker.
This amendment operates retrospectively. What I'm thinking is that, if your spouse had before 2011 been (for example) a worker, and he did not leave the UK at the end of this, he could not have become a jobseeker under the regulations as they then stood. He could only have qualified on the basis of retained worker status, and this does indeed require, and always has required, "being in duly registered unemployment". Even so, if the facts as assumed here are correct, the initial EEA1 refusal was correct as a matter of the UK regulations
but unlawful as a matter of EU law. Could you tell me when you received this email from the Home Office? If it was sent after 2013, they should obviously be aware of the change in the law.
In any event,
none of this should affect your naturalisation application. Just trying to get to this bottom of this strange email...
