lilcatz144

Hello,
I am a US citizen married to a British citizen. We lived in the UK for many years but moved to the US about 5 years ago. When I returned to the UK once the immigration officer at the airport told me I needed to return every 2 years to maintain my visa. We have a trip planned for April but due to the Coronavirus we are reluctant to travel. I cannot reschedule our trip to return before the 2 years is up.
Does anyone know if there is any sort of exception being made in the case due to exceptional circumstances we are all facing or can anyone point me to a phone number or web chat where I can verify this? I have not had any success so far.
Many thanks!

SanDiegogirl

What visa do you have? Indefinite Leave to remain?

If so, and you have been living in the US for 5 years, then unless you have maintained strong ties to the UK (home, financial) and have spent time living in the UK - not just visiting - your ILR will have lapsed (Just like a Green card lapses if one leaves the US for a year or more).

It is a myth that just visiting maintains your ILR. Should you wish to return to the UK to LIVE, then you are probably looking at getting a Returning Resident visa.

Pulaski

Returning can (sometimes, but not always ... or at least it did in the past, but rules may have been tightened - and if they have it certainly wouldn't surprise me) allow you to maintain ILR status, but the longer you carry on the charade, the less likely it is to be effective, and honestly, unless LilCatz is contemplating a return to the UK within a year or two, and assuming that her ILR status hasn't already elapsed, she'd be better off accepting that a Returning Resident visa is the appropriate route, rather than hoping that returning to the UK every couple of years will enable her to game the system and maintain her ILR status.

culloden13

We are in the same situation I am a UK citizen married to a US resident and we are also scheduled to fly home to UK in April as my brother is seriously ill and we have no idea if flights will be going there or not I imagine there would be exceptional circumstances Don't even know who to ask about this

Pulaski

With all due respect to you and your family, your "exceptional circumstances" don't really register on the scale of "things that are important" when there is an on-going global pandemic that is killing 3.6% of the people infected. .... And aren't you concerned that you could be a vector for the disease and indvertently infect him?

In any case if most people are prohibited from travelling then the airlines will stop flying (it makes no sense to fly a plane with only 10% of seats occupied), so you may not be able to fly in practice even if, for whatever reason you are somehow "exempt" from the travel ban.

SanDiegogirl

What has this got to do with the OP's question regarding maintaining a UK visa... ? according to earlier posts you have been living in the US for 25 years.