I am a UK citizen and my wife is an Indian national. We live and work in Ireland and she has a GNIB residence/ stamp4 EUFAM card valid for 5 years. Last weekend we traveled to UK and she was nearly refused entry at Holyhead, the immigration officer said that we could exercise our EU treaty rights anywhere else in EU but not UK because I'm a UK citizen. So basically we can travel together anywhere within EU but not UK. Crazy.....
detailed story
We were stopped by a female IO who checked our passports and said to my wife where is your Visa? My wife said that she didn't need one because of EU treaty rights and showed her the residence card. The IO said you need one because you are from Pakistan. The wife wasn't very happy about that and said 'I'm from India, can't you read?' So the IO checked with her male colleague who at first said 'their fine let them through' The female IO said to him she disagreed so they decided to take us to the interview room. At first we were interviewed together briefly but then they decided to separate us, to see if our story matched. As my wife was lead to another briefing room the female IO waved her passport to another female IO and said I've caught one. Back in my briefing room I explained everything and told the IO that I thought he was wrong and we were right. He wasn't completely sure himself and decided that he would keep her passport and residence card, as long as I went and bought a return ticket for the boat for 24hrs later. He said he would do this favour just because we seemed like nice people and it was Christmas. So we were allowed through for 24hours but still very angry about the humiliation we suffered. The IO returned the passport and GNIB card to my wife when we returned to catch the ferry back to Dublin.
Additionally when we returned to Dublin, her passport was stamped for entering Ireland, we didn't think that they were supposed to do that.
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