alivingnightmare wrote:Please advise
My family qualified for entry to the UK via ancestry visa on my mothers side. I have 6 brothers and sisters and we have all lived in the UK (originally from Zimbabwe) since 1996 bar my one brother. HE initially came to the UK like the rest of us on the ancestry visa but he failed to meet all the critieria, got himself involved in drugs and eventually got arrested and Zim passport confiscated from him by the police which was subsequently sent to the Home Office. After his release from serving a 2 month prison sentence for theft of alcohol he started to get back on his feet, however, as he had no passport and with his drug history he didn't have a NI number so struggled to get work for obvious reasons. Eventually we wrote to the home office to plead with them to forgive him and grant him leave to remain, but they advised that he should return to his home country and apply for re-entry from there. Stupidly, and for all the right reasons, that's what he did and now he is stuck in Zimbabwe with no family or job or anyone to help him. He is 37 and has lived most of his adult life here in the UK, so to have gone back to Zimbabwe on the advice of the Home Office, we felt was a trap. He is literally now living on the streets with no relatives or friends that he can call on. We recently applied for the Visa as the Home Office advised, but they refused on the grounds of his criminal record.
Please can someone help and advise me on what we can do to help him. Our family is devasted and we cannot rest easy knowing that 8 of us are here and he is all alone and down and out in what is now, a foreign country.
There is not just the problem of the conviction however. He would also be required to intend to work and be able to work.
http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/visas ... -ancestry/
Can you apply?
You can apply to come to the UK in this category if you can show that:
you are a Commonwealth citizen;
you are aged 17 or over;
you are able to work and you plan to work in the UK;
you can adequately support and accommodate yourself and your dependants without help from public funds
How to apply
To apply on the basis of your UK ancestry, you must be outside the UK. You cannot apply to 'switch' into this category if you are already in the UK in a different immigration category.
I understand why you haven't given too much detail. However, if he spent quite a time in the UK without working, and then due to a drug problem he turned to crime, then his visa ran out some time after (or before?) his release from prison but before he left the UK I can see him having problems returning.
You don't say how long it was after he arrived in the UK before he went to prison. However, even if he had got work afterwards, you cannot assume with a conviction resulting in a prison sentence he would have been able to extend or get ILR anyway. A two month prison sentence for theft (shoplifting?) seems harsh for a first offence. Had he got other non custodial sentences before and/or cautions?
The Home Office were right when they said he would have to return to Zimbabwe to apply for UKA once his initial visa expired. It CANNOT be granted in the UK to someone with no immigration status or to someone who wants to switch from something else.
It is a sad situation but if he has lived most of his adult life in the UK without working, and is perhaps not working in Zimbabwe, unless he has a guaranteed job in the UK, I can't see him getting UK Ancestry again.
You also say he is living on the streets, so it seems that he would not be able to show he has the funds to hand to maintain and accommodate himself in the UK either. I am assuming that his UK based family aren't in a position to help because otherwise he wouldn't be on the street, or he has refused help.
