Received my wife's "Certificate of Application" a while after submitting and decided to call in. They pretty much told me on the phone that her EEA2 will be processed sometime "after" 6 months.

She needs to go to Thailand (her home-country) for 5 weeks in June this year. I don't know if she would risk coming back in and trying to re-enter the UK with the COA and Marriage Certificate, which may not work, since her student visa expires this month...

Can she apply for a EEA Family Permit, entrance clearance, here in the UK, before she goes?

THANKS!

Alexandros

 

Article 11 of The Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2006:

Right of admission to the United Kingdom 11. (...) (2) A person who is not an EEA national must be admitted to the United Kingdom if he is a family member of an EEA national, a family member who has retained the right of residence or a person with a permanent right of residence under regulation 15 and produces on arrival— (a) a valid passport; (...) ( 4) Before an immigration officer refuses admission to the United Kingdom to a person under this regulation because the person does not produce on arrival a document mentioned in paragraph (1) or (2), the immigration officer must give the person every reasonable opportunity to obtain the document or have it brought to him within a reasonable period of time or to prove by other means that he is— (...) (b) a family member of an EEA national with a right to accompany that national or join him in the United Kingdom; or (c) a family member who has retained the right of residence or a person with a permanent right of residence under regulation 15.