I am a Chinese national who currently resides in mainland China. I married to a British national in August 2006 in Hong Kong. My husband and I have been living mainly in mainland China (and sometimes Hong Kong) since then. And now we would like to move back to the UK as we discovered that we are going to have our first child.
The complications are:
1. My husband is a religious worker in China and Hong Kong for many years (which also means he has been physically away from UK for many years), obviously he doesn't have an income in the UK. Though the religious organization in the UK does transfer him £1800 per annum (not taxed) to China. I believe the UK immigration authorities will count that as next to nothing...
2. I am a freelance professional in China and do not have any stable income.
3. We do not have assets in the UK.
4. Even if I could be granted for a spouse visa to enter the UK, we will still need to come back to China for substantial time for private reasons.
5. I choose not to mention anything about my husband's profession in my visa application to avoid unnecessary troubles.
The strengths are:
1. I consider my immigration history in the UK a fairly good one. I was on continuous student visas between Sep 2001 and May 2006, never breached immigration rules and no convictions. I was also in the UK together with my husband last september on a family visit visa.
2. Our relationship is bona fide and we have lots of evidence for that:
Various photos including the ones taken on our wedding and honeymoon
Air tickets
Substantial bank transactions
Marriage testimony on our church's website
Joint bank account in Hong Kong
Pregnancy confirmation for a local hospital
p.s. In china it is very difficult to collect proof of living together and this is already the best we could manage.
3. Our family in the UK are very supportive. My husband's sister offered us a two-bedroom flat to live in free of charge. And also agreed to act as a third-party sponsor. She has provided us a bank statement of over £600K. (I was very dissappointed to understand from Victoria's post that third party sponsorship is no longer recognized... Is it still the case?)
4. I have a rather impressive C.V. with very decent masters degrees from top UK universities and various UK and European working experiences including internship in the European Parliament. I believe most people would consider me as a potentially valuable immigrant to the UK.
Ideally, we would like to move back permanently to UK only after three or four years. But we need to go back to UK for the child delivery in the next few months. I find it very hard to explain you why we must have this child born in the UK. To claim a British passport for the baby would certainly be a bonus. But the major concern is not this.
Please read on... this is really a dilemma for us... It's all related to the very strict one child policy in current China.
When a baby is born in China, there must be a birth certificate issued from the hospital. Only government owned hospitals are authorized to issue birth certificates. However, unless the parents can produce the so-called 'baby permit' from the neighborhood committee which authorized the pregnancy, the hospital cannot issue a birth certificate. With a birth certificate, there are two options: Chinese hukou or foreign passport. Without a birth certificate, there is only one option: a foreign passport. It is not possible for us to get a 'baby permit' for we do not have an authorized pregnancy by the neighborhood committee, and it's not possible to claim the Child a Chinese hukou (household register book). Without a Chinese hukou, it is impossible to claim a Chinese passport for the baby. My husband was not born in the UK and that means we cannot claim the child a British passport either if we cannot have the baby born in UK.
And that means my child will really got stuck! It cannot have any passports if it cannot be born in the UK!!
I hope I have presented our case clearly as I have tried to. To sum it up, we have to go back to UK in the next few months. I have already submitted a spouse visa application in Guangzhou consulate but really concerned about the future. If I'll be issued with a spouse visa, which we'll very possibly treat it as a 'honorable visit visa', what shall we do next? Britain is always home in our hearts and we really wish to return to Britain after a few years...
I am very perplexed and please do advise me! I know there must be a way out. So please....
Many many thanks!!
p.s. I have edited the post a bit for private reasons. Thank you archigabe
