HomeOfice have got new updates on EEA1/EEA2/EEA3/EEA4 Appl

[keshgrover]

Hi all trapped fellows,

After all that mess Home Office have decided to take some action regarding EEA applications. They have just updated their website. Here is the link

http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitec ... ns-june-09

[Directive/2004/38/EC]

I am not quite sure what to make of these “changesâ€

[fysicus]

To me it looks really outrageous! I cannot interpret it in any other way than that indeed original passports need to be sent with the application form immediately.
On the other hand I found elsewhere on the UKBA website:

There is currently a backlog of applications, and we are taking steps to address this situation as soon as possible. We aim to be operating back within our service standards from the beginning of December 2009

so only at the end of this year you can expect your passport back within the legal limit of six months!

[keshgrover]

[quote="Directive/2004/38/EC"]I am not quite sure what to make of these “changesâ€

[runie80]

http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/eucit ... ropeanlaw/

The time taken to process your application will depend on the type of application you make and how you submit it. There is currently a backlog of applications, and we are taking steps to address this situation as soon as possible. We aim to be operating back within our service standards from the beginning of December 2009.

If you make your application in person at the Croydon public enquiry office, we will usually process your application on the same day.

admission of failure to process within the stated time

Some hope there.

[keshgrover]

http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/eucit ... ropeanlaw/

The time taken to process your application will depend on the type of application you make and how you submit it. There is currently a backlog of applications, and we are taking steps to address this situation as soon as possible. We aim to be operating back within our service standards from the beginning of December 2009.

If you make your application in person at the Croydon public enquiry office, we will usually process your application on the same day.

admission of failure to process within the stated time

Some hope there.

Robert, It is also interesting that now they have mentioned that they can deal with applications on same day at Croydon Office but on the same time it is not quite clear what sort of applications? Is it all EEA applications or just worker registration?

[Ben]

http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitec ... ns-june-09

Applications submitted from families will be rejected in their entirety unless the necessary supporting evidence has been provided for all of the named applicants.

Illegal. Member States are not entitled to refuse to issue a Residence Card to a person, solely for the reason that a member of his family has failed to correctly complete his own application.

[keshgrover]

http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitec ... ns-june-09

Applications submitted from families will be rejected in their entirety unless the necessary supporting evidence has been provided for all of the named applicants.

Illegal. Member States are not entitled to refuse to issue a Residence Card to a person, solely for the reason that a member of his family has failed to correctly complete his own application.

Unbelievable, no reaction of Home Office's incompetence from any member state? State members are just sitting their **** down and doing nothing about it. And all people with EEA applications are in a Legal Prison from now onwards in UK.

I bet HO will come out some time in December 09 saying we need some more time to get this mess sorted. !!!OUT OF ORDER!!!

[megmog]

Hi,

I have some questions about this, not sure if it's worth starting a new thread though..

My husband sent in his EEA2 application in early Feb. At the time we were aware they were taking ages to process (still are) so we didnt send our passports in... we explained in his cover letter that I have to travel for work and that they can contact us by phone/email/post/whatever to request our passports when the time comes to actually process the application. We received our CoA in March and they didnt mention this was an issue.. based on the update to their website, would his application be refused because we havent sent in our passports yet? Has anyone had any issues because of this?

(Also, does anyone know how long they are taking to process EEA2 applications at the moment (roughly)? )

[keshgrover]

Hi,

I have some questions about this, not sure if it's worth starting a new thread though..

My husband sent in his EEA2 application in early Feb. At the time we were aware they were taking ages to process (still are) so we didnt send our passports in... we explained in his cover letter that I have to travel for work and that they can contact us by phone/email/post/whatever to request our passports when the time comes to actually process the application. We received our CoA in March and they didnt mention this was an issue.. based on the update to their website, would his application be refused because we havent sent in our passports yet? Has anyone had any issues because of this?

(Also, does anyone know how long they are taking to process EEA2 applications at the moment (roughly)? )

New rules will be applicable from 1st of June 09. And as soon as some one challenges the HO's incompetence with EU law in court these rules will be withdrawn. (I hope)

[thsths]

Member States are not entitled to refuse to issue a Residence Card to a person, solely for the reason that a member of his family has failed to correctly complete his own application.

I thought that failure to use the form is not a reason for refusal. But I was looking to find where this was written down, and I could not find it. Does anybody else remember where this is stated? Or is it just the old rules, which are of course now withdrawn?

[DFDS.]

Regarding the changes HO has announced, i did open up a similar thread where i gave my views as to why HO has made that announcement. Its likely HO is trying to cut out a particular category of applicants. As i mentioned it in my thread, previously HO has been accepting all kind of applications as valid, as long as they were made on their respective application forms.Now if HO is to insist on ORIGINAL supporting Doc's, applicants who are out to abuse the system will find it very difficult as there applications wont be counted valid any more. If what i think is right, then HO has taken a major step towards eliminating sham marriages and Multi-Applications as many People had found the EU route easy to legalise there stay.

If you study the case workers instructions under the EU applications very well, you will find that case workers are given clues on how to determine Sham marriages & Multi-Applications.In such clues, they are warned that applicants with out ORIGINAL IDs fall into sham marriages or people who have failed asylum,illegal entrants,over stayers etc and are subject to deportation.Besides, EEA applications are not subject to interviews, neither biometrics and they are postal applications. Am i right or am i wrong?

[86ti]

Now if HO is to insist on ORIGINAL supporting Doc's, applicants who are out to abuse the system will find it very difficult as there applications wont be counted valid any more.

Original documents were required all along. There is no change here. I suppose what HO is after is to have the passports early on. Many people realized that they wouldn't see theirs for a long time and stopped sending it in with the application form or sent certified copies.

[DFDS.]

Well I'll try make it more clear.

1. Lets not narrow the changes to just ORIGINAL Passports. On their website, HO has mentioned all the original supporting Docs as listed on the application form.
2. Lets not look on just one side, but let us also consider HO, & get to know that the application has to take a legal process no matter how much rights EEA family member have, still you have to prove that you are the beneficiary. And if that's right, how do you prove with out Original Docs?

My post was just an opinion among the many reasons one could think of as to why HO is to reject applications with out original supporting Docs.
I can't see a serious EEA applicant submitting an application with just a certified copy of there Passports, just b'se they hard that HO delays the return of Originals. And i cant imagine any immigration adviser telling their clients to do the same.By the time one decides on making an application, am sure they already advised on how long the process takes, & should HO fail to comply, still they know what to do.

If am to be clear enough, i suggested that these changes might be as well aimed to cleaning up the system, as EEA applications are meant to be clean & straight forward applications.Under case worker instructions, such applications lucking original Docs, especially IDs, must be referred to senior case workers only.And now imagine how many will be referred to a senior caseworker if most applicants wont sent there originals due to fear of delays?
If you have been following the forum very well, most successful applications, are those where the applicants have been so organised with all there supporting Docs! How do you expect HO to determine Sham marriages, illegal entrants, multi-applications, Multi-identities if they are to count each & every Tom, Dick & Harry's applications as valid? We' ve discussed this before & concluded that one of the reasons we experience major delays is b'se of some people's abuse of the system.

[86ti]

Well I'll try make it more clear.

Sorry, no offense, but your line of argument doesn't make any sense to me. Actually, I don't understand what your argument really is.

If you have been following the forum very well, most successful applications, are those where the applicants have been so organised with all there supporting Docs! ... We' ve discussed this before & concluded that one of the reasons we experience major delays is b'se of some people's abuse of the system.

The discussions on this board are anecdotal evidence at best. Just speculation unless someone here really knows how the HO works internally.

How do you expect HO to determine Sham marriages, illegal entrants, multi-applications, Multi-identities if they are to count each & every Tom, Dick & Harry's applications as valid?

I totally fail to see what that has to do with sending in original documents at the time of application.

[Directive/2004/38/EC]

It is very hard to speculate about the new regime until they provide more detail. It could be a significant improvement on the current one, or could be even worse. Too bad HO are so bad at communicating their intent.

I would personally rather have the application returned to me as “incompleteâ€

[86ti]

Imagine a process like the following: you submit the complete application. For straight forward primarily family members, they could do the required basic sanity checking and send back the passports and documentation within a week with the Residence Card in the passport. It is not an impossible thing to implement, and a number of member states manage to do it. For harder cases, such as beneficiaries, they could return the documentation and passports at one week (with the acknowledgement letter), and then ask for the passport back after they have done 3 months of extensive checks.

The real problem as I see it is the centralistic approach through postal application. Other countries don't seem to have a problem doing this locally.

[Directive/2004/38/EC]

In fact a number of member states that do it locally seem to do it quite quickly (I am thinking of Germany and Switzerland, though there may be others).

But there is nothing fundamentally faster about that then having a well trained, well organized, specialized European team sitting in remote Liverpool.

The down side of the German approach is you have to go (no appointment!) to the big room at the Rathaus/Kreisverwaltungsreferat/Ausländerbehörde with the ticket machine and all sorts of different people queuing for different sorts of things. It takes at least the morning, if not longer. You learn to dread the hard plastic seats.

[86ti]

In fact a number of member states that do it locally seem to do it quite quickly (I am thinking of Germany and Switzerland, though there may be others).

But there is nothing fundamentally faster about that then having a well trained, well organized, specialized European team sitting in remote Liverpool.

Well, not so remote for me...

The problem is still the CoA unless you accept a delay of a few days or weeks to be 'immediate'. You also have to trust your postal carrier to transport you application safely to its intended address.

I also remember that we sent our documents (well, the ones we still had) for our child benefit application through a Local Link. It obviously does work here in the UK as well but as you said well trained is certainly key here.

The down side of the German approach is you have to go (no appointment!) to the big room at the Rathaus/Kreisverwaltungsreferat/Ausländerbehörde with the ticket machine and all sorts of different people queuing for different sorts of things. It takes at least the morning, if not longer. You learn to dread the hard plastic seats.

One other problem I can see is that applicants are more dependent on the 'opinion' of the local staff.

[DFDS.]

Well I'll try make it more clear.

Sorry, no offense, but your line of argument doesn't make any sense to me. Actually, I don't understand what your argument really is.

If you have been following the forum very well, most successful applications, are those where the applicants have been so organised with all there supporting Docs! ... We' ve discussed this before & concluded that one of the reasons we experience major delays is b'se of some people's abuse of the system.

The discussions on this board are anecdotal evidence at best. Just speculation unless someone here really knows how the HO works internally.

How do you expect HO to determine Sham marriages, illegal entrants, multi-applications, Multi-identities if they are to count each & every Tom, Dick & Harry's applications as valid?

I totally fail to see what that has to do with sending in original documents at the time of application.

86ti i find your respense offensive! In my post i mentioned that this was just an opinion among many. You seem to have a very narrow interpretation of the all subject.
I've no despute with whatever opinion you may suggest as well, & when you fail to understand something you don't have to subject it to nonsense.
I'll repeat this, HO has taken a major step towards combating Bogus applications.

[fysicus]

sorry DFDS, I do strongly disagree with you. Just like 86ti, I don't see how the announced measures would make it easier to detect bogus applications. Residence documents have never been granted without at some point in the procedure submitting original passports and other evidence to HO.
The question is when to submit this evidence. I have no problem in submitting it immediately with the application when I can be reasonably sure to get these documents back within at most a few weeks, but there is nothing in the HO announcement that provides any confidence in this respect, and the current practice is that applications take far more than the legal limit of six months, and I find it totally unacceptable to be without my passport for so long!
And why would an illegal alien make a bogus application in the first place? If I were in the country illegally, of course I would keep a low profile, not attract attention to myself by voluntarily and unnecesarily starting a correspondence with the HO, isn't it?

[DFDS.]

Fysicus you are right, neither do i disagree with any of you. I don't mean to support HO's bleach of the directive in times for processing EEA applications.We have been reading different peoples experiences in the process, & its awful anyway.

I disagree with you when you say that HO does not process applications with out original Docs! Have you read the case workers instructions exhaustively, and found out that HO has no discretion for applications without Original IDs? As i said in my original post, HO has been accepting any kind of application as valid, as long as one could explain the reasons for not submitting the necessary supporting Docs. They have been allowing this as long as you promised to submit them later, & they have been issuing the COAs to the applicants. I wounder when you say that there are no Bogus applications under EEA! Need to take an extensive study of the subject, find a number of AIT & ECJ judgments then this will enhance your knowledge on the current situation on EEA applications.

Reading the directive alone is just not enough! You have to study its transposition into a particular state in question.

When i look at the UK, its even fairer as compared to states like Sweden where they don't even mention Other Family Members on their website.

[keshgrover]

Fysicus you are right, neither do i disagree with any of you. I don't mean to support HO's bleach of the directive in times for processing EEA applications.We have been reading different peoples experiences in the process, & its awful anyway.

I disagree with you when you say that HO does not process applications with out original Docs! Have you read the case workers instructions exhaustively, and found out that HO has no discretion for applications without Original IDs? As i said in my original post, HO has been accepting any kind of application as valid, as long as one could explain the reasons for not submitting the necessary supporting Docs. They have been allowing this as long as you promised to submit them later, & they have been issuing the COAs to the applicants. I wounder when you say that there are no Bogus applications under EEA! Need to take an extensive study of the subject, find a number of AIT & ECJ judgments then this will enhance your knowledge on the current situation on EEA applications.

Reading the directive alone is just not enough! You have to study its transposition into a particular state in question.

When i look at the UK, its even fairer as compared to states like Sweden where they don't even mention Other Family Members on their website.

DFDS good enough in regards to your last point. But if you look at over all situation UK is stuggling to sort immigration problem, specially when it comes to EEA applications. In 2004 they increase the PR time limit from 4 years to 5 years by saying they want to come in line with rest of EU.

But why they did not realise at the first place that they should have 5 years continious stay rather then 4 years. Actually that was the time when UK realised that they are heading for a disaster. And they keep modifing their on guidelines since then to suit themself. They fully ignored EU regulations and treaty when it comes to immigration.

Their own policies have put them into deep trouble. As many state members have put their concerns on UK's capability to handle EEA applications, now Jackie Smith is trying hard get every thing sorted well before next EU meating.

Let see how it goes.

[DFDS.]

KESH i admire your point, as you said lets see where we are heading.But i do foresee more harder times if not disaster! Not forgetting that the UK has always referred to residency Docs as privilege,other than a right.

[keshgrover]

KESH i admire your point, as you said lets see where we are heading.But i do foresee more harder times if not disaster! Not forgetting that the UK has always referred to residency Docs as privilege,other than a right.

Well, I am afraid privilege has turned in to punishment these days. Most people are being treated as second until you fight back. As it was in the case of Gurkhas.