Interesting analysis of The Daily Mail article: European family applied for PR following the Brexit vote. Parents were granted PR (Permanent Residence) document but their London-born children weren’t. The point is these children are either British citizens or can be registered as British – and didn’t even need a PR!
A recent Daily Mail
article caught our eye: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4410894/EU-couple-devastated-children-denied-UK-residency.html
A European (Dutch-Spanish)
family made an application to the UK Home Office to confirm their status of permanent
residents in the UK. This application, EEA(PR), has been one of the most common
application since the UK voted to leave the EU in June 2016 Referendum. Many
EU/EEA citizens and their family members panicked and wanted some peace of
mind, hence getting this official document confirming their permanent status in
the UK.
In this case both parents
were granted a PR document. Their children (12 and 15 yo), however, were refused
on the basis that they didn’t send enough evidence of children’s residency in the
UK. Although this makes another dramatic “good” news story headline We at 1st
4Immigration believe it was probably the case of the Home Office just not
ticking a couple of boxes. In other words, there was nothing wrong with the eligibility
(i.e. the Rules had been met) but not enough documents were sent with the visa application.
Such a point would have been well-addressed by an experienced immigration firm
like ours.
The curious thing in this
story, however, - and something the article omits altogether – is that the
children almost likely did not need a PR at first place. It is very likely they
should have aimed for a British passport instead, a completely different thing
from PR. A much better thing some would say!
The article says that
parents have lived in the UK for most of their adult lives, so at 49 years of
age, it makes it approximately 15-20 years. After 5 years of living in the UK
in accordance with the EEA regulations, such as working, in the UK, an EEA
citizen acquires the right of permanent residence automatically (an application
and a visa document is just a paper to confirm that). It is very likely that
after 15-20 years at least one parent had acquired that status.
A child born in the UK after
that point would be a British citizen, hence there might not have been the need
for a PR!
Furthermore, a child born
in the UK before that point can be registered as a British citizen as soon as
at least one EEA parent has acquired the right of permanent residence. “Acquired”
is sufficient, even if they didn’t formally apply for it! “Registered as
British” means an application to the UK Nationality team ( not PR team),
followed by an official certificate of British Citizenship, followed by a UK passport.
No need for a PR again!
Moreover, the technical
side of the law goes even further. In some cases children born in the UK before
2010 became British at birth if their EEA parent was exercising EU Treaty rights
at the point of birth, such as working in the UK (without the need to have done
it for 5 years).
The subject of British nationality
for children is both exciting and challenging indeed – lots of various laws and
policies, lots of application forms, rules and exceptions. Fortunately, we at
1s 4Immigration are very knowledgeable and very experienced in it!
For individual
advice or to make an application please contact us: info@1st4immigration.com
or read testimonials on http://www.1st4immigration.com/testimonials.php
If you are an Immigration Adviser or a Solicitor please visit
our immigration Training and CPD website: www.1st4immigration.com/training We
have a weekend OISC Level 1 course as well as a Points-Based System course and
we also have online training courses, including Online OISC Level 1 course and
courses focusing on Spouse/Partner visas. All our training courses are
CPD-accredited with CPD credit accepted by OISC.
