Overstayers

Our Immigration lawyers are experienced in helping overstayers regularize their status and go from illegal immigrants to lawful in the United Kingdom.

As leading immigration lawyers and solicitors are aware, in recent years a number of new higher court decisions have been issued which provide great opportunity for those who had previously overstayed to become lawful in the United Kingdom.

Our immigration lawyers use best practice to ensure that these decision are used, where appropriate to gain best possible advantage for our clients.
Our good practice approach doesn’t end there. This is how we approach overstay cases:

1. Individual Merits

We believe every case is different, and everyone has a different reason for overstaying. We look at many factors when assessing and winning cases. We ensure that all family, private life, and other compassionate factors are looked at, so the UKBA treat our clients as individuals.

2. Never Giving Up

We strongly believe that the only way of winning these cases, is to work very hard and fight every step of the way. If genuine effort is put into a case, nothing is truly hopeless.

3. Transparency

Once we have assessed your case, we will be open with you about your chances of success. Once you have heard what we think, you can decide if you want to go ahead or not.

Recent developments have assisted overstayers in particular cases: these are:

Couples: Where one partner is British and another partner is a non- British national.

Recent figures have confirmed that the number of British partners in relationships with partners without legal status is high. How do these couples ensure that they can stay together and at the same time become legal in the country?

At the moment, the law is favourable to these couples.

Under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the UK has to consider a migrants right to a “family life” when he or she makes an application to stay in the UK.

This is called an application for “Further Leave to Remain (on other grounds)”.

So if you have lived in the UK legally or illegally but have formed ties with the country such as; work, marriage, children, friends, you can use these factors in support of your application.

Whilst the courts have pushed the home office to consider all factors in private and family life. It is has been found that if there are children of the relationship (especially if they are British), in the vast majority of cases, even those where there has been some adverse history, the migrant should be give legal stay in the country without having to go back to their home country to apply from there.

Other important factors include the length of time in the UK and any compassionate factors such as ill-health in the family.

Proving a Right to Private family life is not as simple as it sounds. The UKBA will require a lot of evidence to prove the truth of the application.

Immigration lawyers should assist you with gathering evidence to prove these facts. This evidence should include pictures, payslips, tenancy agreements, declarations from friends/employers and perhaps most importantly; detailed written representations to be attached to the application form for the UKBA to read and get a better understanding of your situation and why you should be granted leave.

A key to success is to use previous cases that have reached high level courts in the UK to demonstrate how the decisions made in those cases also apply to you. These techniques significantly increase the likelihood that your application will be accepted then had you simply just filled in all the boxes on the form.

Children Born in the UK

Another area where often people don’t realise that they have a good case is around children and nationality.

Children who are born in the UK on or after the 1st January 1983 and spend their first 10 years in the UK as a permanent resident’s are entitled by law to become British citizens, regardless of their parent’s immigration status. This is a mandatory rule and the child is automatically British – even if he has never had lawful status.

The main requirement is that the child has not spent more than 90 days outside of the UK each year. If they have spent more than 90 days away each year the application will still be accepted if it is show that there were special circumstances.

It is also right to note that the application can be made if now the child has turned over 18 but wasn’t aware of this rule previously.

If one or more of the parents was a British Citizen or settled in the UK at birth then the child will automatically be a British Citizen.

Permission to marry for Foreign National

The previous restrictions applied by the Home Office to make it harder for overstayers to marry have been removed. This allows overstayers and foreign nationals to marry at the registrars discretion – this will no doubt assist more claims by overstayers who seek to marry UK or EEA nationals.
This page has focused in on only a few scenarios, of course the opportunities for a person who is an over stayer to regularise his status can be many.

Summing up, whatever the position, if any person is an overstayer or is coming to the end of their visa, then they should contact a lawyer as soon as possible. An application can often be made to regularise status. These applications need a lot of hard work but once successful, applicants can truly enjoy the freedoms that the UK has to offer.

Please contact our leading Immigration lawyers for more assistance or even for a friendly, confidential chat.