Fellow Expats

We have a slightly difficult situation here, and every office we asks gives us a different answer. So I wonder whether you have any experience with this?

I am a German citizen, working in the UK, and my wife is US American. Her EEA family permit is about to expire. We have applied for a residence card, but I expect the processing to take a few more months. Now we urgently need to travel to the US, and we are slightly worried about reentering the UK.

From a legal perspective, there seem to be four options, but they all have some question marks attached. Do you have any idea whether one of these options is very promissing?

1. She has a valid "Residence Permit" from Holland. According to Directive 2004/38/EC article 5(2), this should be sufficient to enter the UK without a visa. However, the UK law (Immigration (EEA) Regulations 2006) requires a residence permit issued in the UK. So will they refuse my wife because they got the law wrong?

2. We have a "certificate of application". The home office implies that this is not sufficient to enter the UK, but the British consulate in the US said that it is "probably" ok. We know that both in Holland and in Germany the equivalent is sufficient, but it also looks a bit more elaborate than the simple letter we got here. So I guess the consulate is wrong, and this is a no go?

3. My wife is going to apply for an EEA family permit in the US, but again we did not get a clear answer whether it would be granted. Obviously she is not a resident in the US any more, and according to the web page of UKvisas this is a requirement for the application. By email we got the recommendation to "try it anyway". Assuming that they actually process it within a few weeks, this is probably the best option.

4. If everything else fails, we can also claim article 5(5) of the directive. It basically says that you cannot be refused entry as long as you can prove your status under the directive. I assume that our passports, a pay slip, prove of address and the marriage license should be sufficient. I checked that this article has been properly implemented in UK law, and I found a legal commentary that say we will be granted the visa on the spot. Not surprisingly, the home office refuses to give any advice on this article. So has anybody tried this? How much hassle is it going to be?

Sorry for the long story, but looking at the posts in this forum, it looks like we have a lot of expats in similar situations. Any experience would be very much appreciated.

 

Thanks for this response. We got a lot of conflicting advice, but in the end we decided to "just go for it". And you were right.

The Immigration Officers asked us how long we want to stay, and I said that we are going to Germany soon. He stamped the entry clearance in here passport ("tourist visa"), and that's it.

When we got home we found a letter from the home office asking for the passport and some more documents, which we sent off. A week later we got the registration certificate and the residence card.

Of course we will never find out about the other options. From what I have heard 1 and 2 do not work in the UK. Options 3 and 4 should be fine (just remember your marriage certificate).