Brook

As far as am aware you don’t need a passport to get the spousal visa.

Brook

Thanks guys I wasn’t aware of this.
Victor the kettle is on..time for light reading.

typical

But in general you need to apply for the spousal visa from outside the UK - and if the process takes longer than the UAE let her keep her passport, how's she going to travel?

Brook

Here is the crazy part..she can stay here without passport .
As for the travelling, she can travel with the visa alone.

Millhouse

I'd like to see the receiving country let her in without a passport.

typical

Indeed.

When someone becomes "stateless" a whole lot of things suddenly change, wrt immigration.

captainflack

Interesting, I will take a look - any pointers as to how far in the discussion on Surinder Singh is?

My wife is from Brazil, we're actually planning on moving to Portugal next year anyway. My business is largely conducted via the internet, so I can kind of locate myself anywhere and have no intention of ever living in the UK again and will be working in Portugal (probably declared as self-employed initially though plan to set up ltd company). The UKBA won't even allow my wife into the UK to visit, the rules they enforce are published on their site, but they still just completely ignore them and slap on bans they know have no justification just to force you to appeal (which we're currently doing). Once we are living in portugal and my wife has residency there, my understanding is there is nothing the UK can do about us coming in. I will have fun testing it.

My UK company had an employee from Sri Lanka who we employed as he could stay and work for couple of years after completing a degree. Eventually the various visas he was able to work on were closed down, so he ended up applying for 'Skilled Migrant' status. He wasn't a particular great programmer, didn't earn enough to qualify, but put forward rental income in Sri Lanka on properties he claimed to own there to bulk up his earnings. Unbelievably, he got the skilled migrant status. He seemed very confident he would, despite the rules implying he didn't qualify - he had friends stacking shelves at Tesco who'd done the same. He said it's all about 'who you know' and not what you know.

Basically, if you've had UKBA dealings or dealt with the home office in Croydon or the tribunals in Leics, you'll notice that there are a large number of people from immigrant communities working there, from countries which have a culture of corruption. Sri Lankans simply need to find the right bent Sri Lankan guy to take a bribe, and their application succeeds.

If they want to crack down on abuse, they should start with investigating every highly-skilled migrant visa issued in the last 5 years, and not start bashing honest British people who just want to bring their families in to the UK with them. The reason they won't is that the UKBA big wigs are not going to be the ones to tell them how utterly corrupt and incompetent a service they've been running all these years.

At some point in the future, this will be one of those 'Jimmy Savile' type scandals that hits the headlines, and then everyone asks why this was going on for so long with nobody doing anything about it, and there will be public enquiries and so on to find out why what was an open secret to so many was never public knowledge and why newspapers and media never bothered to investigate.

archie159

So, on the one hand they say that Emirati women married to foreigners will lose their UAE passport.

On the other hand, they announce that Emirati women married to foreigners are now eligible for state housing. Is it just me who finds that a little bizarre...

http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-n...-state-housing

Millhouse

only fair given they won't be allowed out of the country

Beakersful

So, with the increasing barriers, what happens when a Brit marries a non-EU woman abroad, spends 5 years with her out there and then tries to move back to the UK if the situation in the originally employed country becomes too dangerous to work in? If there is no confirmed job to come back to, and savings are lost getting out of the country, are the wives shown the door? I'm struggling to understand how the UK government is supporting the sanctity of marriage.

captainflack

Yes, the wives are shown the door.

Our relationship is quite obviously genuine - we're similar age and have been together for nearly a decade, and now have a kid with another on the way. My wife has a good job in Dubai, legal residency, we have a decent apartment and car and a good standard of living. She's been to Europe several times with me, including Portugal (same language as Brazil) and she's not done a bunk to join the underground economy. Yet they seem utterly convinced that as soon as she enters the UK on a visit, she'll disappear, leaving me and her kids behind, take a room in some rickety house full of illegal immigrants and do low paid restaurant and cleaning work, knowing that she cannot visit her home country again (and return) and could face deportation at any time.

The UKBA are quite evidently completely bonkers. There really is no reasoning with these people.

Brook

According to our great embassy here, she can enter the UK with the spousal visa only.

Millhouse

I'd also check with the airline to see if they will carry her.

Brook

Funny rules mate. This is her home country so they can’t deport her to another country. Also she can still work for her firm, however she won’t be eligible for bonus/profit share.

Brook

All the best with your expected new arrival, we are expecting our second as well.

In our case she completed her further studies in London, so she didn’t faced any issues with visit visa.

It seems to me we are getting punished for our honesty. I still can’t get my head around the whole thing. How do you explain this to your parents…sorry dad/mum it looks like we won’t be coming back anytime soon.