HOW LONG AN FLR(M)APPLICATION TAKES TO PROCESS IN HO?

[eliasuk4u]

Hi I wonder some one can help me. I came to UK in june 1999 and applied for asylum but never got refugee status rather I got few court hearings. in december 2002 i got married to a british citizen and applied to FLR (M) to home office myself but until now I never got any reply from home office apart from acknowledgement letter. When ever I called home office regarding my application I was told that my application is still under consideration. So I decided to make a complaint to home office complaint unit, Nothing really happened. so I took my case to my MP and he personally wrote a letter to home office minister and recently i got a letter from home office asking weather me and my wife living together and asked for few proofs (like bills). Is this right? Does one application really takes 3 years to process? is there anything else I can do to make my application process faster???

[popeye]

Complain for slow administration to the Parliamentary Ombudsman Services or maladministration charges.
HO Clearly is not withwin the codes of good administration and resonable time of proceeding your application.
http://www.ombudsman.org.uk/make_a_comp ... _form.html

Good Luck!

[John]

eliasuk4u, I can understand your concern about the length of time but suggest that for you the most important aspect at this time is a favourable outcome ... not just any outcome. Given that IND have asked for recent evidence of the two of you living together, well, that sounds promising.

Why don't you wait until you get your result before taking any complaint any further?

You might like to have a read through this topic which certainly shows that you are not being singled out ... and a positive result can come even after three years! Hope it all works out for you.

Also accept that not long after you made your application the immigration rules were changed and the sort of application made by you was not possible at all. As from 01.04.03 a "no switching" rule was introduced. Now a return to previous country is needed and an application for spouse visa needs to be made there.

The pre-01.04.03 applications like yours, still to be finalised, must now be small in number.

[eliasuk4u]

Thankyou guys for your reply, I guess I had to wait. And I am glad that I am not the only one with similar case.

[eliasuk4u]

Another question. I said in earlier post that before I applied for FLR(M) I was an asylum seeker as my case wasn't decided with in 6 months time then in 1999, so I got a stamp of work permit in my SAL paper but before my marriage application in 2003 my asylum case was rejected that made my SAL invalid and I was issued with another paper which states that I can't work. I contacted my solicitor, he said that coz I already had work permit I can ignore the new one and carry on do your job. Is this right? Can I work legally in uk?

[rehoboth]

Hi, have a read through this
http://www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/ind/en ... leave.html

[John]

rehoboth, I am struggling to see how that is relevant here.

eliasuk4u, I can't see how you have any right to work at the moment. And turning this round from you the employee to whoever might be your employer .... if such an employer was accused of employing an illegal worker .... what evidence is available for them to refute such an accusation?

At the very least any employer would be putting themself in danger of being prosecuted or when enacted, being issued with one of the £2000 each Fixed Penalty notices.

Of course all that will change when you are issued with your spouse visa. That will certainly give you the right to work.

[eliasuk4u]

rebooth, I am struggling to find a relation between my case and your reply. Anyway. there is a point in John's reply. Let me give you further info's. I am working as security guard which I joined 5 years ago when i had full work permit. Recently the SIA (Security industry authority) intoduced a new security license which evey security officer had to get before march 2006. The way it works is SIA will do 10 yrs history check on you. plus check weather i can legally work in uk providing my driving licence as extra proof and my national insurance number. and they will also do a criminal check on my name. Luckly I recently passed all of those and got my licence. so according to john if I can't work in UK then how did I get the SIA security licence to work in UK?? Any comment?

[mhunjn]

IMHO, nothing you have mentioned below would prove that you can't work in the UK.
Unless the SIA contact the HO about your immigration status, they wouldn't know that you need a work permit.

Under UK law, it's upto the applicant to declare their WP/immigration status to the employer, and it would be considered fraud if you are caught working without a valid work permit... also landing your employer in trouble, for which they can sue you for not declaring that you needed a work permit.

...Recently ... plus check weather i can legally work in uk providing my driving licence as extra proof and my national insurance number. and they will also do a criminal check on my name... so according to john if I can't work in UK then how did I get the SIA security licence to work in UK?? Any comment?

[John]

eliasuk4u, you ask for my comment.

check whether I can legally work in uk providing my driving licence as extra proof and my national insurance number

eliasuk4u, you ask for my comment. Simply this. A UK driving licence is not on either List 1 or List 2 of the leaflet issued by the Home Office concerning an employer having a Statutory Defence to a charge of employing an illegal worker.

One document from List 1 is sufficient but from what you say you have nothing on that list. List 2? Two documents required. An official document showing your NINO is OK ... something like your NI card, or a P45 or P60 .... in combination with ... you have nothing else on the list!

Accordingly whilst I express surprise about the SIA, I don't think that changes anything as regards whether your employer has a potential problem employing you.

So sorry, based upon the information you have posted, IMHO I still don't think you have any right to work in the UK ... at the moment.

[rehoboth]

John and eliasuk4u, my post was in response to elias4uk question

Does one application really take 3 years to process

It seems to me that is case is similar to mine and my application was considered outside the immigration rules hence the webpage given.

I am sorry if you still struggling to find the elevance of my post to your mail. I am only a newbie to these matters

[John]

eliasuk4u, earlier I referred to List 1 and List 2. In case you ask what those lists contain, click here to access IND guidance to employers that contains those lists.

rehoboth, sorry if my comment was a bit harsh. However given that eliasuk4u has applied for a spouse visa that appears to me to be a distinctly better option than that mentioned in the document referred to by you.

Given that eliasuk4u has been asked for recent evidence of living with spouse, I think it is just a question of time before the spouse visa is granted.

But I share the concern of eliasuk4u about how long it is all taking. Indeed I have written to an MP asking if he will table a Parliamentary Written Question which will identify the size of the problem ... how many people applied for spouse visas prior to 01.04.03 and who have yet to hear the result of their application? At the very least asking that question will bring the matter to the attention of Ministers ... who almost by definition do not want to be criticised for extremely poor performance.

I shall post here any developments about that Parliamentary Written Question.

[eliasuk4u]

Thanks for your reply guys and John please post the reply from the MP you wrote about the time taking to process. I am quiting my job.

[eliasuk4u]

Hi guys. All this time I thought I could work, But obviously after posting my case here in this forum I found out I am doing illegal work. Now I left my job sitting at home and waiting for FLR case to come through. I am wondering weather my 3 years of illegal work have any effect on my application as I broke the immigration rules. Would IND find out that I was working illegally? If yes, would the reject my application based on that? Really worried....

[Kayalami]

AFAIK once you are out of status/ visa has expired or you never had one (visa) e.g. through illegal entry as well as where a final appeal is rejected and the applicant does not leave the country then conditions attached to your stay no longer apply by virtue that you no longer have any status. Note this does not authorise your stay in the UK to include employment and you start accumulating ilegal presence/ are in breach of the immigration acts.

Conversley this means if you are working illegaly as you were, stopping to do so does not on its own clear you off the offence since such commenced from day 1. Hence most people carry on working until they either resolve their status or depart the UK voluntarily or by the HO catching up with them = removal and/or deportation.

Several factors including the new 'documentation required for employment' regime coupled with new EU accession back in 2004 (and soon Romania/ Bulgaria in 2007) means that market forces also influence such illegal labour whereby the worker is often underpaid and overworked since they can't exactly complain or get a better job.

[John]

On 9th January in this topic I said I would try to get an MP to ask a Parliamentary Written Question. That question was indeed asked and now the written answer posted. The question asked was :-

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many applications made in the United Kingdom for a spouse visa submitted prior to the introduction of the no switching rule remain to be dealt with; and when he expects that all such applicants will have heard the result of their applications.

And the answer, from the Home Secretary himself, rather than the Immigration Minister, was :-

Mr. Charles Clarke: The no switching rule for leave to remain as a spouse came into force on 1 April 2003. This date precedes accurate data from the current casework database, and statistics are therefore not entirely reliable. Provisional management information suggests that about 70 spouse applications in General Group have been outstanding from before 1 April 2003. It is not known how many of these cases might be switching applications.

The fact that even one such application is still outstanding after nearly three years is a disgrace. I now expect that estimated number of 70 to rapidly descend to zero, now that the question has drawn the matter to the attention of Ministers.

[eliasuk4u]

Hello Guys,
Re cap of what happened regarding my post after my last posting. I wrote to my MP requesting him to liaise with Home Office, to return all my documents submitted with my marriage application so that I can go back to SriLanka and apply for entry clearance from there. I am still waiting for my documents especially my SriLankan passport. To my surprise MP wrote back to me stating that all my documents will be written to me with in 3 to 4 weeks except my passport which HO will hand over to me at the airport once I have made arrangements to leave. Its more than 6 weeks since I got that letter and I am still waiting for my documents from the HO. My question is:

1. Is this a normal practise?
2. Do they hand over the passport to me or the airline crew?
3. Because HO is not really quick to respond especially when returning the documents, what happens if I book the ticket and HO failed to return my passport at the airport on the day of my departure from UK?
4. Will the UK immigration stamp departure seal on my passport while I leave?

Any comments and suggestion welcomed

eliasuk4u

[saprani]

What in the world made you send all your documents to the home office?
You see I've got friends in a similar situation. Once you fail your asylum bid first priority for them is your removal, they don't care about your marriage, your job, length of stay etc. They say go to colombo's british high commision or something and apply for spouse visa from there. I know people who have done so and are refused a entry visa from there for various reasons.
The HO is likely to keep all your documents with your asylum file. Then when you leave it will be a voluntary departure after failure of asylum.
Personally I think you shouldn't have left your job cos there is no reward, no one is going to give you a medal. It's your wife who is going to support you now. As an example of how the HO is dealing with people like you, you can read this article http://www.midsussextoday.co.uk/ViewArt ... ID=1610634

[eliasuk4u]

What in the world made you send all your documents to the home office?

Very scary to read the story but there are some post in this forum where the asylum seeker went back home and applied for entry clearance and came back as well. Anyway it is the normal procedure to send all the originals to the HO as they don't accept copies at all.