No mother-in-law then

I had a question but don’t need the answer anymore, I would however like to leave a post

For some months now we have been desperately trying to find out about having my mother-in-law (from South-Africa) join us in the UK. She recently got divorced and just wanted to live with us and help raise our 2 children. We are in a good financial position and can comfortably maintain her. I searched the normal official sites that pointed to family dependents visa (under 65) and visitor’s visa. I called a few companies that specialize in this service and they told me they can help and to book an appoint to have my case reviewed – at the same time obviously relieving me of a 100 quid/hour or more.

I happen to find this board a week or so back. I spent two whole nights reading almost every post in the family section, it was like a novel. The stories were incredible – yes you have to wade through some twaddle but most of it gives you an incredible insight into the world of migration.

I now realize that bringing my mother-in-law over is not going to be easy, well impossible really, without at least fabricating some evidence - which I’m not going to do. I considered her just coming over and staying past a six month visitor’s visa – I thought wasn’t a big deal as she won’t work and I can easily support her. I now know that the impact that will have on her future travel and migration prospects will be dire. If she ever does have to go back to SA for some reason we will most likely never see her in UK again and if she stays here it will have to be outside of the system – no right to anything and also technically breaking the law and being illegal.

My wife and I (from SA) came here as WHM’s then WP then ILR then naturalization – we did it by the book and it gave me the opportunity I have today. I read many posts of people expecting the system to treat them fairly even though they lied through their teeth.

I spoke to my wife yesterday and she is bitterly upset but hopefully we can see my mother-in-law 6 months of every year … and leave it at that.

Special thanks to the moderators – some sharp guys amongst you lot.

So much for a system that’s in shambles – they do seem to cover a lot of angles.

ML