Immigration Nightmare Please Help!!

[leiney]

Hi everyone i am currently in Malaysia with my husband desperatley trying to gain him entry clearance to return to the UK but our case has been reffered to the home office in London. I am terrified he is going to be refused and would be grateful if anyone could advise what they might be checking for.

To give you an insight to the problems with immigration my husband and i have been facing i will start from the beginning.

I am a 23 year old british citizen originally from Bulgaria but have been in the UK since the age of 9. My husband is a 29 year old Malysian of chinese origin.

I met my husband in Aug 2003 when he came to stay with a friend of mine in manchester who he had met when he had first holidayed in the UK in 2001. As my friend was was busy with work commitments I showed him around manchester and we quickly realised there was a strong mutual connection. We had both experienced similar things in life and had both lost our fathers at young ages.

My Husband whom is called Lester then went to stay in london for a few months with friends from Malysia who were also staying in the UK. We still kept in touch and visited each other but at this satge we thought are relationship to be more of a holiday romance then anything really serious.

My husband had met a few student friends in London and was advised he could obtain a student visa through an agency. He was told to hand his passport over and a fee of 750 pounds and that everything would be sorted out on his behalf.

My husband then came to stay with me over Christmas we had such a lovely time together i new that i wanted to spend the rest of my life with him.

In January he got his passport back with a student visa which granted him twelve months entry to the UK and a letter from an english college in London offering him a place to study there.

I didnt want Lester to go back to London and in February 2004 i proposed to him he accepted and we got married in April 2004.

During this time lester went to an english college called tefl in manchester instead.

I was at University at this time in my second year of a degree and to support us financially i left and got a full time job in a bank.

We went to a solicitor and they applied for my husband to be able to stay we advised them of my husbands student visa sent them letters and certificates from his school in manchester and he was granted a 24 month visa.

From then on we lived happily as a married and my husband got a job in a chinese reataurant as a waitor.

In January 2006 my husband was offered the chance to go on a week long holiday to Gran Canaria with our mutual friend. I couldnt go as i was just in the process of starting my own beauty business but encouraged my husband to go as January is one of the quietest times in his restaurant and one of the only times he can take a holiday.

On his return to the Uk my husband was stopped by a passport officer at manchester airport. It was 3am in the morning and i was waiting at the gate for him my friend came through and told me lester had been stopped. I rang through to the immigration department on an internal phone and they said they would need to interview him but couldnt do this till 9am when more staff arrived until then my husband was detained in handcuffs.

I went home wondering what could possibly be wrong and returned to the airport at 9am at about 11am I finally got some information they told me my husband had a fraudulent stamp in his passport and was being sent back to Malaysia on the next plane out and that i would be able to say my goodbyes at 2pm that afternoon. The immigration staff were rude, cold and point blank refused to meet with me.

Distraught i wrang a solicitor who appealed and found out that the reason my husband was being sent back was because the student visa was a fake and therefore invalidated his whole passport. My husbands 24 month visa was cancelled and he was sent back to Malaysia at 8 o clok that evening.

My husband was told to get a new passport in Malaysia and apply for re entry clearance at the british embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

My Husband went back to Malaysia and applied for a new passport and I began to get all our papers together to apply for the re entry unfortunatley the solicitors who i employed to help with this process took an incredible amount of time and the whole process took around six months.

During this time i also went to my local MP and explained how we had been granted a 24 month visa lived as husband and wife then had everything taken away from us. He sympathised and thought it was outragous and agreed to wright to the home secetary.

I finally got a response in May and the letter said my husband under interview admitted he fraudulently obtained a student visa and was therefore refused entry to the UK due to the deception employed and that his refusal was condusive to public good and there were no compassionate grounds why he should stay. The letter did however state that he would not automatically be refused for re entry if he applied.

What i dont understand is why they are saying that my husband admitted to being party to this fraud as we were completely unaware of this. Lots of chinese people apply for student visas and work permits through agencies and this is a well known practice. If we did no it was a fraudulent visa why on earth did we pay 750 pounds and why would we then send it off to the home office.

It was there mistake not to detect this earlier and I cant believe how they can grant us permition to live together and then take everything away just short of our two year wedding anniversary.

We have just submitted our application to the british embassy and i have gone there to support my husband. His interview was on Thursday and they told him they would let him know the following morning. When we didnt here from them this morning we went down there in person. The receptionist couldnt tell us anything but when she saw how distressed i was she allowed me to speak to the ECO dealing with our case. She then told me it was being reffered to London but wouldnt tell me why.

I am so terrified that London will tell them the same un true version of events that they told the mp and that he will be immediatley refused.

I would be grateful for any advice anyone can give on what i should do next if this is refused. I have read lots of stories on here of the home office saying that the wife should go and live in her husbands country but this would be completely impractical as i have a business over here and financial commitments and in Malaysia there is no guarantee i would even be allowed to work not to mention what i would do out there. Plus my husbands employer in England is keeping his job here for him should he be able to return.

I am sorry if this post has dragged on but i just wanted to give everyone a clear explanation of our circumstances and would be grateful for any advice or support as i am just so tired of feeling like the whole system is against us.

Thanks for reading,

Leiney

[Chess]

This one is very complex - can I advise that you make an appointment to see someone at the Immigration Advisory Service.

Good Luck

[leiney]

Thankyou for the reply.

[badboyz2006]

The best thing to do if your husband was refused is appeal, or move to another EU state and apply for a resident permit.

[JAJ]

The best thing to do if your husband was refused is appeal, or move to another EU state and apply for a resident permit.

Moving to another EU state won't get him British citizenship however, nor will it necessarily allow him to have citizenship of that country either.

[John]

We went to a solicitor and they applied for my husband to be able to stay we advised them of my husbands student visa sent them letters and certificates from his school in manchester and he was granted a 24 month visa.

If that firm was indeed a firm of solicitors then you need to inform the Law Society about the fraudulent visa. If they were not solicitors but were OISC registered then OISC need to be informed. If they are actually neither then OISC still need to be informed, because they were committing a criminal offence conducting a business of offering immigration advice without being registered or authorised.

Leiney, the bit I don't understand is that following the marriage in the UK, why did your husband not immediately apply for a spouse visa?

And presumably it is a 2-year spouse visa he is applying for now? If so I think it is not unexpected that the matter has been referred to London before the BHC in Malaysia decide what to do about the application, given the immigration history.

Hopefully it will all work out fine. But do pursue the matter of reporting the "solicitors" to the appropriate body.

Underlying all this is the fact that UK visas effectively exist in two places .... in the passport and in the IND computer system. When the visa is scanned it should match up with the computer entry. But a fraudulent visa ... in the passport only ... will not have a corresponding match.

[leiney]

Hi John thanks for taking the time to read and reply and to everyone else.

My husband didnt immediatley apply for a spouse visa because we were advised by the solicitor (Christine Lee) not to apply immediatley and they held the application back till august it was approved in september.

He was granted a 2 year spouse visa. The solicitor who arranged the marriage visa didnt have anything to do with the student visa.

[John]

So as I read this, it was the student visa, not the subsequent two-year spouse visa, that was the fake one. But I wonder why that was not picked up by IND when the spouse visa application was granted? Surely before granting the spouse visa they would have checked on the validity of why the applicant is in the UK at all?

I am particularly surprised that the immigration officer at the UK port of entry had bothered to scan the previous student visa, rather than the current spouse visa.

Something here does not sound right. Am I misinterpreting anything?

[leiney]

No John you are not misinterpreting anything.

I don't think passport control stopped my husband because of his student visa i think they stopped him because when his spouse visa was put into his passport they initially got his name the wrong way round. Someone had then written endorsed overleaf over the incorrect visa and put another one on the other page. So i think the woman on passport control wanted to check this and then they checked all his records with the home office and determined his student visa to a fake.

[John]

OK, but I still don't understand why the fake student visa was not picked up at the time the spouse visa was issued. After all that spouse visa computer record would have been put into the same person's record as ... hey, wait a minute .... where is the record of the student visa!

Something still not right here ..... but Leiney, absolutely not saying that anything you are posting is not how you honestly see the situation. I totally accept that you are really posting your understanding of what has happened. It is simply that I just don't understand how this jigsaw of immigration facts fits together.

[badboyz2006]

In ever immigration form they will ask you for your reference number and pull up your records or your pasport number and see if there are any fake stamps in your passport how this was not picked up at the time are you sure your husband is telling you the whole truth. They will also check on the back of your passport for the ref and previous immigration history.

[leiney]

hi guys,

I honestly dont know how the student visa slipped throught the net all i can say is that the home office obviously didnt check his passport properly when issuing his spouse visa.

I can assure you there is nothing my husband isnt telling me.

[leiney]

Today the consulate website advised my husbands passport was ready for collection. We rang up and they couldnt tell us if his re-entry had been approved or not just that he could pick his passport up tomorrow. Fingers crossed. The eco had said she would ring to let us know but she didn't bother.

[John]

Presumably it is the VFS Website that is indicating that the passport is ready for collection?

Hopefully good news for you! Do post!

[leiney]

Yes it was the vfs website. I will let u know tomorrow.

[leiney]

My husband was unfortunatley refused entry to the uk. The grounds he was refused entry on were based on chapter 281 of the immigration act. They said we did not have suitable accomadation, may use public funds and that i havent provided enough proof of my income as i have not provided any recent payslips despite the fact i am self employed and dont give myself payslips.

I would appreciate any advice on what i should do next. I am not really keen on going to live in europe as there is no concrete guarantee we could ever return to england. I am going to meet the IAS this week and will hopefully appeal against the decision. The only problem is i am aware that this could take a long time to get to court.

I am also considering gathering more evidence together to put another re entry application together that will cover all the concerns the home office have raised in this application. Hopefully then we may have more success.

[badboyz]

Was your husband working, why he did not produce his pay slips and you could have goting a 2 year profit and loss statement from your accountant, did you not include any savings in your application.

[Chess]

No need to appeal. Just reapply answering all the ECO queries and providing all documentation required.

[John]

Leiney, sorry to hear that news.

As regards accommodation, what evidence did you supply? And for the financial test, was there a sheet laying out your monthly budget ... your income and outgoings?

Although you are probably not thinking this at the moment, the grounds for rejection are far better than they could have been. There is no mention, according to what you post, of anything to do with para 320 et seq of the immigration rules. That would have been bad.

[leiney]

hi badboyz.

Yes i included my husbands pay slips plus a letter from his boss saying they would hold his job open for him. The immigration officer said in the refusal letter that the letter did not state how much he gets paid even though there was all his payslips included. I also showed a savings account with 2000 pounds.

[badboyz]

Just reapply with the rest of the supporting documents, get a letter from your landlord stateing the description of the property and a letter from his employer, ask the ECM for a review.

[leiney]

Hi John thanks just noticed that you have replied thanks for your comments. I no what you mean abouth the refusal at least this way we can work on all the things that they have rejected us on. We didnt do any sort of budget or financial statements.

I am just wondering if we do reapply again would they still go over the whole student visa issue again. It would be truly awful to submit a fresh application and meet all the financial requirements and then be rejected for something in paragraph 320 or along the none condusive to public good grounds.

One more thing the entry clearance officer has made a mistake with regards to our accomodation. She has said that because there is me my husbad and two friends living in a 2 bedroom house this is unsuitable. But this is incorrect there is only one other person living at our house which we stated on the application form. Our house is a council house and my husband has permission from the council to live there. According to the ias website 3 people sharing a 2 bed house is acceptable.

[ilm]

Very sorry to hear this but I think it is very important to explain everything in the application. Don't assume the ECO will read one thing from one part of the application and relate it to a bit of evidence in a folder. It would be nice to think this would be fine but it seems all too often the ECO miss things because of the presesentation of the application.

There are only a few rules you have to meet which in almost any serious relationship shouldn't be hard to meet but show the ECO you have done your home work and tell them why you meet the rules to make their job easier. You are the one who will benefit in the end.

As an example we had a section on accomodation and a note at note on a sheet of paper at the beginning of the section explaining the accomodation, the ownership of it and the number of people in it followed by an index of the evidence to support it. This way there is no doubt that the ECO has all the information to make the decision and cannot get the facts wrong.

As part of a section to show you wont need public funds tell them you wont need public funds and tell them why. Tell them you and your husbands work experience, the type of work you do and how much you can earn and anything to prove you have in the past. If you havn't claimed funds before tell them this too.

If you are self employed you really do have to show the money you have earned and prove you will keep earning it. Get some of your customers to write references saying what they get from you and how much they pay. I didn't give in any pay slips as I don't give them to myself either but I did provide 3 years worth of company accounts, letters from clients and my accountant, and 1 years worth of comapny and personal bank statements. I also wrote down the turnover of the company and how much profit the company made.

From what I have read I cannot see why a properly prepared application from you should be refused for you but do accept it is your reponsibility to prove you meet the rules. (I have been told you don't have to prove you meet the rules but in your case I suggest any future application leaves no doubt that you do)

[leiney]

Thank you for taking the time to wright such a lenghty reply. I will definatley try to do this in our next application.

[rooi_ding]

Hi Leiny

Although un-related to your particular visa situation. When trying to get my wife over to the UK I assumed that the ECO would have a bit of common sense, when the first application was refused I realised that when presenting information it is almost the equilivant of teaching children 1 + 1 = 2. So to reinforce ilm's comments all the evidence should be clearly marked out and easy to understand.

Hope this helps

PS: my wife arrived on friday (so hang in there)