guidance Needed ! Matter Urgent!

[Sesha]

Hello All,

I have been granted ILR in January 2006 on the basis of my continious 4years of stay in the UK. After which i changed my employment wihtout seeking any permission because i was allowed to. Later I went to my home country to upgrade my skills and returned back to UK in May 2006. I manged to get a job towards the end of December 2006 and I was assigned at a client place in Europe and all looked fine.

On my return to the UK on a weekend trip I was stopped at the Airport by the immigration officers, and they did some checks and finally after 4-5 hrs of waiting and an interview by the immigration officer I was handed a letter saying that My ILR has been cancelled and the reason being that i obtained ILR by Deception and also the letter stated that I worked for a company for 4years and that company is a virtual office and has no trading presence in the UK.

However the following are the facts:

i was not associated with that company for 4years as my work permit was issued to me in January 2005. I actually worked for that company for just an year.

I was working at a client place which was assigned to me by the company. I dont understand the meaning of "Trading Presence of company"

I appealed against the case and my heareing date is set to 27th February.


I would be glad if any one of you can please suggest/guide me on this. I have had tough time meeting different solicitors/immigration advisors without any satisfactory suggestions from them.

What chances do i stand of winning this case and what documents do i need to produce to the tribunal.

Your early response would be highly appreciated.

Thanking you in anticipation

Rergards
Sesha

[Dawie]

I'm not sure what you can do to help your case, but it sounds as if the last company you worked for on your work permit must have been investigated by the Home Office for some reason and they've traced you through that.

[John]

...... that company is a virtual office and has no trading presence in the UK.

What evidence do you have, if any, to counter that suggestion?

What do you know about how that company went about getting a Work Permit to employ you?

[British]

I just have to laugh at the HO's claim.

I never knew that Work permits could be applied by applicants (employees).

It is always an employer who can apply for a WP.
Has the HO forgottern their own rule when accusing employees by saying they obtained WPs by deceit! Ha! Ha! Shame on you HO!

If the HO itself could not find, in the first place, that the applying company was invalid and not trading in UK, when it issued teh WP happily to teh company, how does it expect the potential employees to find that stuff!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think tha tis rather ridiculous to expect something like that from a potential employee!

So are they saying, that every potential employee should carry out a detailed investigation on companies that would offer to sponsor his Work permit and find out whether the company complied with all legal requirements of a WP application, when the HO itself cannot successfully find that information themselves, when it granted the WP to the company.


Sounds something very very strange!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In that case, every applicant will have to go through a huge amount of expensive investigation to gather all documents from the company when that potential employer applies for a WP for him/her.

Even a child can win this case in court - As long as the OP had a valid work permit and LTR documents issued by the HO (for both those companies), then i think he will be safe in the court, assuming the legal system works fairly in this country

John - i don't think it is practical for any employee to have any other document other than [b]a valid HO issued [/b] WP and LTR to prove his innocense.

If there wre, then the Work permit / LTR process should let all employees know their responsibilities - like gather documentation that the potential employer is really trading in teh UK, etc.

If it is not trading in teh UK, what were the HO doing about this information, when they issued the WP????

Am i missing something here?????

But of course, teh whole story will change, IF the work permit and LTR documents were forged!

But even in that case, how would the employee pick up the responsibility on this?

Usually, the way it works is that the employer will ask for the Passport from the employee and do all paper work. and hte employee just receives a WP document from his employer - remember that the employee never gets the WP document from the HO directly.

The HO send teh approved WP document ot eh employer directly and the employer sends this document to employee. What if the employer forged this document and send it to teh employee.

I don't think that every employee is duty bounds to call up HO and ask if the WP document that he recd. was a valid on e or not!

Well, as for hte LTR, he would have to send that personally to HO to get teh LTR. If the LTR itself was forged, then i guess the employee is to blame, sine that does not go through the employer, and hence the dout can be cast on teh employee, sinec he is the one to directly apply for the LTR, and hence if he had got an LTR on the passport which was forged, then i think, yes the employee himself was invloved in this fraud.

But we will need to see more info form teh OP to suggest anything.

Assuming that the OP had a valid WP and LTR, i think he cannot be touched! It is simply the HO's absolute failure to grab the invalid company in the first place, and the WP holder is not responsible at all.

I wonder when the HO will accept its mistakes and come clean! Oh dear!!!!!! Shame shame puppy shame!!!!!!!!!!

[John]

John - i don't think it is practical for any employee to have any other document other than a valid HO issued Smile WP and LTR to prove his innocense.

I agree, but you have an appeal hearing. You clearly need to go to that appeal hearing as well prepared as you can be.

So again I ask ... What evidence do you have, if any, to counter that suggestion?

How did you first make contact with that company? And did you ever visit their offices?

[Wanderer]

I just have to laugh at the HO's claim.

I never knew that Work permits could be applied by applicants (employees).

It is always an employer who can apply for a WP.
Has the HO forgottern their own rule when accusing employees by saying they obtained WPs by deceit! Ha! Ha! Shame on you HO!

If the HO itself could not find, in the first place, that the applying company was invalid and not trading in UK, when it issued teh WP happily to teh company, how does it expect the potential employees to find that stuff!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think tha tis rather ridiculous to expect something like that from a potential employee!

So are they saying, that every potential employee should carry out a detailed investigation on companies that would offer to sponsor his Work permit and find out whether the company complied with all legal requirements of a WP application, when the HO itself cannot successfully find that information themselves, when it granted the WP to the company.


Sounds something very very strange!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In that case, every applicant will have to go through a huge amount of expensive investigation to gather all documents from the company when that potential employer applies for a WP for him/her.

Even a child can win this case in court - As long as the OP had a valid work permit and LTR documents issued by the HO (for both those companies), then i think he will be safe in the court, assuming the legal system works fairly in this country :-)

John - i don't think it is practical for any employee to have any other document other than a valid HO issued :-) WP and LTR to prove his innocense.

If there wre, then the Work permit / LTR process should let all employees know their responsibilities - like gather documentation that the potential employer is really trading in teh UK, etc.

If it is not trading in teh UK, what were the HO doing about this information, when they issued the WP????

Am i missing something here?????

Come on mate we all know there are dodgy co's employing their mates, in fact some of us contractors nearly considered it ourselves....

HO's not that daft...

[British]

Hmm - IN this forum i have seen several threads of posts, where in one of those posts, the HO denied somebody citizenship application right. And it did that on writting as well (shameless).

Then after the applicant took the case to court, the HO (shamelesly) agreed that it was their documentaion misktake and that it agreed that the applicant indeed was correct to clain British citizenship

So, I won't trust HO straight-away!

I have a feeling that this OP is innocent too, considering the amount of [b]mistakes[/b] (as the HO calls it shamelessly, voer and over again!!!!) that keep happening in the HO offices.

You wait and watch this thread, and i have a feeling that the OP will say one day that over the court process, the HO accepted that the OP was innocent and it (HO) was to prosecute the applying company and not the OP.

I don't beleive that the HO did not catch this guy (and the company) after having issued the LTR in his passport twice and even once an ILR stamp too! Come on!!!!!!!!!!!

There is something very very wrong here at HO!

[Sesha]

Hello All,

Thanks for all the posts so far.

As far as the work permit is concerned, it was apllied by the employer but for ILR I went personally to the home office and produced the required documents which was given to me by my employer.

The best I can do at this point of time as evidence proving my genuinity is:

1. i got the p45 and p60 issued by the company.
2. i can get a letter from the client where i worked on behalf of my ex company.
3. i also have a letter from employer about my association with them in 2005-2006. ( Kind of experience letter)
4. Copies of all work permits so far i had in this country.
5. current employment, appointment letter and the contract.

so will the above mentioned documents help in any way as i dont have any other documents which may be needed. and also i failed to understand the basis on which my ILR was cancelled, is it because of me or the last company i worked for?

My hearing date is on 27th of Feb and i also engaged a barrister to represent my case. But he suggests me to wait to get the bundle from home office before we send our documents to them. Any suggestions on this? cos the letter from tribunal clearly stated that i have to send all the documents before 5 business days.

So if any of you please suggest as what to do next as i am really very confused.
Thanking you in anticipation

Regards
Sesha

[British]

Hi,

From what you have posted originally, it sounds like your ILR was cancelled because you had invalid work permit and you used that as a basis for getting your ILR.

But, from your next post it sounds like you had all proper documents and WPs (all possibly valid) and issued by the HO.

So, what confuses me is that why did hte HO take 5 years to find that those WPs were invalid. What were they doing on it when two of your employer companies applied for WPs, and you applied for LTRs (two times, one for each WP), and finally the ILR you applied for personally.

I am not able to understand why they could not find teh invalid state of your WP earlier on, i.e. in those occassions of issuing WPs, LTRs and finally the ILR itself.

But sounds like you have all the potential documents with you that can prove your innosence, but check out more information if you can, based on what John has asked you to gather.
That will strengthen your case more.

Other than that i can only see that the HO has failed terribly on their part to have not bothered to check on your WP, LTR and ILR documents all through the 5 years.

One quick question - are you sure you had applied for the LTR after getting the WP from your employer?? (i.e. if that is required from you). Because this thing about separate LTR application by the WP employee is a rather recent one (2+ years back) and if you had not applied for that then it could be an issue.

But then that could not be an issue, since they must have checked that when issuing your ILR though.

Totally confused with your situation.

But i am sure the HO has miserably failed on their part to check things straight from the start - i.e. when they issued your first WP and LTR, which they claim was invalid.

[Dawie]

British, the most likely scenario is that this company was investigated and blacklisted by the Home Office after the OP obtained his ILR and that's why the HO never picked up on it when he applied for FLR. In fact it's probably a safe bet that the Home Office only blacklisted this company sometime between the OP's second last entry into the UK (where he successfully entered the UK without any problems) and his last entry into the UK (where he was served the deception letter).

The problem with this kind of case is that the although the work permit holder has acted in good faith throughout his stay in the UK and has all the documentation to prove that he has done so, it still does not change the fact that the Home Office considers the last company he worked for under a work permit to be dodgy and obviously considers all work permits issued to this company to be obtained by deception.

The best that the OP can do is to prove that he was not party to the deception and is an innocent victim.

[John]

The best that the OP can do is to prove that he was not party to the deception and is an innocent victim.

I totally agree, that is the way to proceed.

...... so will the above mentioned documents help in any way as i dont have any other documents which may be needed

Personally I think that those are just the sort of documents that will help you, but clearly you need to be guided by your "legal team"!

[British]

I too totally agree that that is the way to proceed now that there is a court date , but on a side note (not applicable to the OP) i am worried that this may end up thousands or millions of work permit holders from teh last several decades (who are innocent of course) to end up in UK court cases just because the HO finds (may be ten years from now) that there were several of these WP sponsoring comapnies that were invalid companies.

No dis-respect meant to anyone or to the HO, but if this practice of HO sleeping over things for years together is encouraged, then the UK courts will be busy only dealing with this sort of cases, that too involving millions of WP holders (many of them possibly innocents) , possibly from several decades ago.

Anyway...

[Sesha]

Hi All,

I would like to thanks each and every one of you for responding quickly.

As mentioned in my previous messages, I had 3 work permits

first was issued in 2002 - on which i arrived to UK.

second was issued in 2003 - My then employer gave me an approval letter which i took to home office and the visa was endorsed to my passport.

third was issued in 2005 - to which i applied for FLR along with the approval letter.

finally in 2006 i went personally to croydon office for the ILR which was duly stamped.


Mr.JHon : did you ever visited their office.?
Yes, i was in the office for initial 1 week to attend the induction and understand how this company works and later on i was assigned at a client location.

Although i explained all of this to the Immigration officer at the airport about all my different work permits with dates, he still comes out with a letter saying that i was working with my last company for 4 years.

so in this kind of situation what's the worst i can expect so that i can get mentally prepared.

Any sugestions are most welcome and will bring me a sigh of relief.

Once again thank you all for time and patience.

Regards
Sesha

[British]

So you have WPs, LTRs via 3 companies (in the past 4 years) and HO has been stamping LTRs happily (from time to time for various of those WPs) and now the HO has a letter saying you worked only for one comapny for all 4 years.

To sum up, the HO, will have in their office, documents to prove (to your favour) that they indeed signed off 3 WPs and LTRs and an ILR based on all these, and the Immigration officer at the port has a letter (based on which they are trying to prosecute you!) saying you had worked on only one WP/LTR and for only one company for 4 years!!!!!

This has been the funniest case i have ever read about HO!!!!!

You know what is happening here... the HO documentation seems to be in complete mess!!!!

And, i think your case, once it comes to court for hearing, is going to be a whistle blower case that would have spotted the HO's mess!

I think they are going to thank you for letting them spot their mess, once your case enters the court.

You are going to be in BBC soon (in a good way, i mean - as a whistle blower!)

[antontony]

I would not be so optimistic.

I have been to the court and saw very strong cases lost.

I would probably offer you free professional representation, should I learn about your appeal earlier.

Good luck anyway.

Anton

Imm. Lawyer

[Sesha]

Hello All, (Again)

Have any of you heard or dealt with this kind of case? Please help with any suggestion or atleast some articles on this kind of cases. My barrister seems to be a very busy man and keeps on postponing the appointment, but i dont blame him for doing that cos the home office has not despatched the bundle yet. My hearing date is on 27th of February 2007.

Please enlighten me on this.

Thanks and Regards
Sesha

[Sesha]

Hi All,

I attended the hearing today and the appeal has gone in my favour and the home office representative has said that " there has been a big mix up at the office".
so if any one of you can suggest what will happen next.. or the normal procedure.

Thanks and Regards

Sesha

[British]

HA!

Did I not tell you that this will be the result!

Relax. The best that can happen is that you can be in BBC news like i said. But that is very rare

Why can't they have hte basic courtesy to at least send to you an apology letter, considering that you have been put to trauma all these days, inspite of the fact that you were legal in this country.

HO - please grow up!

Now, with this level of documentation/records talk to up, they are talking about ID cards???? Ha! Ha! I am 100% sure they are not capable of keeping our IDs/critical information safe!