Successful ARD Application (4L)
Sep 7th 2023, 11:37 am
#1
Forum Regular
Thread Starter
Joined: Oct 2022
Posts: 64
Successful ARD Application (4L)
Hi - just posting positive ARD-related news. My ARD application was successful. My grandmother was born in England, and my mom and I were born in a foreign country (US) between 1948 and 1983. I applied under 4L and 4C of the 1981 BNA and Section 5 of the 1948 BNA, citing historical legislative unfairness (gender discrimination). The application took just over 7 months from biometrics and I received my decision by email (I did have to chase it). Now waiting on citizenship ceremony invite!
Sep 8th 2023, 6:27 pm
#3
Forum Regular
Thread Starter
Joined: Oct 2022
Posts: 64
Re: Successful ARD Application (4L)
Sure - is there anything particular you're wondering about?
In general for the process, I sent my original passport and don't recommend that because it took so long to get it returned. You can send instead notarized color copies of every page of the passport including covers. Don't send any documents you can't replace - send notarized color copies instead. Make sure however you mail the documents has tracking because UKVI won't tell you when they receive them and that's stressful to wonder about. It can take a couple months before they take your payment and contact you about biometrics, another stressful wait. If you are doing biometrics in the US, you will need your original current passport or to have the Home Office tell the USCIS you can use your driver's license as ID (but they'll probably forget like they did for me, so just keep and use your passport). They will send you a letter for biometrics if you're doing them in the US that instructs the facility to accept your biometrics form and you need to take that with you because the facility will think your form is wrong (they're looking for a different one for visas and will argue). Email furthernationalityenquiries as soon as it hits six months if you haven't gotten a decision and then wait a couple weeks possibly for them to reply... I got my decision about a week after they finally replied to me.
For my application, I sent original certified copies of relevant vital records - births and marriages. Since my case was based on my grandmother's citizenship but I didn't have her passport, I sent some other things to show she was a UK citizen when my mother was born. I sent a notarized copy of her green card, which wasn't dated but it did have a form number on the back of the card that had a 1972 revision date on it, so that showed she was still an alien in the US in 1972, well passed when my mom was born. I later got my grandmother's A-File from USCIS but ended up not needing it and the HO never asked me for more info beyond what I sent them. I also included some archival documents showing two trips my grandmother made to/from the UK in the 1940s and 1950s that showed her old passport numbers, though I doubt they were useful to them. I told them about a trip she took via Heathrow in 1974 and gave the dates too, but again, I don't think they can look that stuff up. I think her birth certificate from England and her green card copy were enough. The National Archives has a list of renunciations of citizenship that you can ask them to search for your ancestor to show that they didn't renounce - I had this done after I submitted my application, but again, I didn't need to and never sent it with my app. But if you need something like that, ask the Archives.
I wrote a cover page for the application that very briefly said why I was applying and gave all my contact info including email, and I wrote a longer document (about 4 pages, half of which were tables) that described my case in detail. For the application, one of the first questions, maybe 1.5, asks you to describe your claim to citizenship. I matched one of the 'probably successful' examples in the caseworker guidance (not the guidance that goes with the application, but the guidance for caseworkers, which is longer), so for that question I basically wrote the example in the guidance and swapped out my details for the ones in the example. Not sure if that's smart, but I figured if they compared my case to their guidance and it matched then it would help them to determine mine should be successful too! For my longer case description, I typed up the laws that applied to my case, briefly listed the facts of my family (names, births, marriages, places), then did a summary of how those laws applied to my case, and then a longer discussion of what the laws/sections say and how they specifically apply to me. Because I overthink and like to be thorough, I then made a table with two columns - one for each law section that applied to me, and another for how it applied to me. Lol, it was all either very helpful to the caseworker or overwhelming.
Read the laws carefully and make sure you really feel like you understand them and any relevant subsections, etc. The table I made really helped me break the legalese up into manageable parts so I could make sense of it for myself better. The laws I used for my case were 1948 BNA section 5, and 1981 BNA sections 4L and 4C. I also had to know the Immigration Act from 1971 section 2 and I showed how I qualify for right of abode.
If there's anything I left out, just ask.
In general for the process, I sent my original passport and don't recommend that because it took so long to get it returned. You can send instead notarized color copies of every page of the passport including covers. Don't send any documents you can't replace - send notarized color copies instead. Make sure however you mail the documents has tracking because UKVI won't tell you when they receive them and that's stressful to wonder about. It can take a couple months before they take your payment and contact you about biometrics, another stressful wait. If you are doing biometrics in the US, you will need your original current passport or to have the Home Office tell the USCIS you can use your driver's license as ID (but they'll probably forget like they did for me, so just keep and use your passport). They will send you a letter for biometrics if you're doing them in the US that instructs the facility to accept your biometrics form and you need to take that with you because the facility will think your form is wrong (they're looking for a different one for visas and will argue). Email furthernationalityenquiries as soon as it hits six months if you haven't gotten a decision and then wait a couple weeks possibly for them to reply... I got my decision about a week after they finally replied to me.
For my application, I sent original certified copies of relevant vital records - births and marriages. Since my case was based on my grandmother's citizenship but I didn't have her passport, I sent some other things to show she was a UK citizen when my mother was born. I sent a notarized copy of her green card, which wasn't dated but it did have a form number on the back of the card that had a 1972 revision date on it, so that showed she was still an alien in the US in 1972, well passed when my mom was born. I later got my grandmother's A-File from USCIS but ended up not needing it and the HO never asked me for more info beyond what I sent them. I also included some archival documents showing two trips my grandmother made to/from the UK in the 1940s and 1950s that showed her old passport numbers, though I doubt they were useful to them. I told them about a trip she took via Heathrow in 1974 and gave the dates too, but again, I don't think they can look that stuff up. I think her birth certificate from England and her green card copy were enough. The National Archives has a list of renunciations of citizenship that you can ask them to search for your ancestor to show that they didn't renounce - I had this done after I submitted my application, but again, I didn't need to and never sent it with my app. But if you need something like that, ask the Archives.
I wrote a cover page for the application that very briefly said why I was applying and gave all my contact info including email, and I wrote a longer document (about 4 pages, half of which were tables) that described my case in detail. For the application, one of the first questions, maybe 1.5, asks you to describe your claim to citizenship. I matched one of the 'probably successful' examples in the caseworker guidance (not the guidance that goes with the application, but the guidance for caseworkers, which is longer), so for that question I basically wrote the example in the guidance and swapped out my details for the ones in the example. Not sure if that's smart, but I figured if they compared my case to their guidance and it matched then it would help them to determine mine should be successful too! For my longer case description, I typed up the laws that applied to my case, briefly listed the facts of my family (names, births, marriages, places), then did a summary of how those laws applied to my case, and then a longer discussion of what the laws/sections say and how they specifically apply to me. Because I overthink and like to be thorough, I then made a table with two columns - one for each law section that applied to me, and another for how it applied to me. Lol, it was all either very helpful to the caseworker or overwhelming.
Read the laws carefully and make sure you really feel like you understand them and any relevant subsections, etc. The table I made really helped me break the legalese up into manageable parts so I could make sense of it for myself better. The laws I used for my case were 1948 BNA section 5, and 1981 BNA sections 4L and 4C. I also had to know the Immigration Act from 1971 section 2 and I showed how I qualify for right of abode.
If there's anything I left out, just ask.
