- FAQ
- Login
- Register
- Call Workpermit.com for a paid service +44 (0)344-991-9222
ESC
Welcome to immigrationboards.com!
Moderators: Casa, Amber, archigabe, batleykhan, ca.funke, ChetanOjha, EUsmileWEallsmile, JAJ, John, Obie, push, geriatrix, vinny, CR001, zimba, meself2, Administrator
I've mentioned in other posts on this board the difficulty that a lot of foreigners face finding referees to sign their naturalisation applications. It's hard enough to find a British citizen who has known you for 3 years or longer, but now they've added the additional requirement of one of the referees being a professional. No doubt this is going to complicate the naturalisation process for quite a significant amount of people.John wrote:Oh it gets a lot worse! Whilst the form MN1 has been updated, the Guide MN1 available from the IND website has not. And because the form MN1 has been revised very significantly, the still-available Guide MN1 is about as useful as a chocolate colander!
Not only that, who designed or signed off the new form MN1? The referees section! Known the applicant three years? What if the child has not been in the UK for three years? And what if the designated type of professional, say school teacher, refuse to sign? The new form MN1 needs to be promptly withdrawn, and redesigned.
I have emailed IND this morning ... no response yet. If no response by tomorrow I shall email Lin Homer, head of IND, personally ... I do know her from her days as Chief Executive of Birmingham City Council.
Does the new form MN1 attempt to cope with all of this? No, no attempt is made to comply with applications under section 4B, and the other exceptions, apart from one. It simply mentions that the relevant section of the form need not be completed if the child is under 10.Section 58: Acquisition of British nationality, &c.
Section 58 would require most applicants for British nationality by registration to satisfy the Secretary of State that they were "of good character" before nationality could be granted. At present such a requirement applies only to those seeking to acquire British nationality by naturalisation.
Exceptions will continue to be made where the applicant has an entitlement to registration deriving from the 1961 UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness or is entitled to registration as a British citizen under section 4B of the British Nationality Act 1981 (certain British Overseas citizens, British subjects and British protected persons without other citizenship) or is aged below 10 on the date of the application.
Yes, but absolutely no response yet.Has anybody tried to send all these comments to the Home Office?
I doubt it - I think they've probably taken a conscious decision that they only want referees who have been through the process of getting a passport, and who they can look up in their records without shifting from their desks. I can't see that this is unreasonable, to be honest - it means they can do a very basic check on the referee very quickly, if they want to, without holding up the application.JAJ wrote:....I would also question the requirement on form AN page 12 which states that the second referee "should hold a British citizen passport". Have they forgotten that not all British citizens possess a passport?
Paulppron747 wrote: I think they've probably taken a conscious decision that they only want referees who have been through the process of getting a passport, and who they can look up in their records without shifting from their desks.
Apply anyway and if they refuse, then Member of Parliament intervention would be called for.John wrote: Thoughts please! What about the new form MN1 going in with the referee section not completed, but a covering letter referring to relevant section of their own guidance notes saying about the 2-year requirement. Would this simply be a waste of the £200 application fee? Thoughts on how IND would react to the non-completion of the referee section?
Paul, I think that must be right, it is an image. I say that because with my copy of Adobe Acrobat Professional the Touch-Up Text Tool does not work.am I right in thinking that the PDF has been formatted as an image, rather than as text?
By the way Paul, those Chapter 9 instructions have been updated. See the new 2nd bullet point in 9.1.1 :-We should normally expect a minor child aged 13 or more to have completed 2 years residence in the United Kingdom before agreeing to registration.
-: which clearly was not a point in play earlier, so must be new.(if aged 10 or over on the date of application, this being a date on or after 4 December 2006) the Secretary of State is satisfied that they are of good character (see Annex B);
Which would almost certainly be illegal if registration was an entitlement. And while it might be theoretically possible to have different reference requirements for entitlement vs discretionary applications, I'm not sure if this would be legal as the "character test" is exactly the same.ppron747 wrote: After consulting with his line manager the adviser said that he suspected that the lack of a three-year referee - for whatever reason - might result in the caseworker refusing the application.
It is very clear that if the child's 18th birthday passes and an application is not made, then the opportunity is definitively closed. On the other hand if he applies and is then refused, there would still be scope to challenge the refusal.I don't know what to suggest. It's plainly too late to get an MP to intervene and get some clarity before the lad's 18th birthday. I think if it were me, I'd be inclined to send off the application, with an explanatory note, and the best referees they can find, and kick up a fuss if it is refused. But it must come down to whether they can afford to punt a couple of hundred pounds - I wouldn't like to speculate on the odds...
JAJ wrote:Which would almost certainly be illegal if registration was an entitlement. And while it might be theoretically possible to have different reference requirements for entitlement vs discretionary applications, I'm not sure if this would be legal as the "character test" is exactly the same.ppron747 wrote: After consulting with his line manager the adviser said that he suspected that the lack of a three-year referee - for whatever reason - might result in the caseworker refusing the application.
A few section 1(3) cases where the applicant was born in the UK, left and subsequently returned, come to mind.ppron747 wrote: But the specific case we're talking about isn't an entitlement, so I'm not sure where you're going with this. Are there any minor registration entitlements (with a good character requirement) requiring less than three years in UK?
Agree entirely.As a postscript to my previous post, it occurs to me that, if the parents decide to go ahead, it may well be worth including some extra "testimonials" from schoolteachers, Saturday job employer, etc etc, over and above the two referees required by the form, to make it more difficult for IND to be "unsatisfied" that he's of good character... Might do the trick...
Bear in mind that many MN1 applications from children aged 10+ are sourced from outside the UK where people clearly cannot be expected to provide British citizen referees. Notably those born to unmarried British fathers and children adopted overseas.John wrote:The updated Guide MN1 is now downloadable on the IND website. But clearly there are still problems here.
Whilst the guidance notes issued to IND staff continue to mention that for children 13 or over that they should have been in the UK for at least 2 years, and not even that for children less than 13, the form MN1 mentions the need for referees to have known the child for at least 3 years! Clearly a lot of muddled thinking went into the construction of the new form!
Also, the new referee declaration doesn't seem to make any sense. It includes the following sentenceAlexCh wrote:Interesting - they now say that one of the referees must be a "professional", but there is no way to mark on the form which one of the referees is a professional.
The form asks to put a name of the 1st referee twice and does not ask for the second referee name at all - obviously it is a typo, but it says a lot about quality control in the Home Office.