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Todays Irish times newspaper

Forum to discuss all things Blarney | Ireland immigration

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mikeruurds
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Post by mikeruurds » Thu Aug 30, 2007 6:33 pm

Hi there

I have dual citizenship (Dutch + South African) and my wife is South African. We met, courted and got engaged in SA before I came here for two years on my own to save up some cash for the wedding and honeymoon. We got married in 2003 and my wife came back to Ireland with me. We've been living and working here for almost four years (I've been here almost 6) and my wife entered the country legally. We registered her with the GNIB on arrival.

Each year we've gone down to Burgh Quay to get her Garda card renewed (Stamp 4 EUFAM) and the one she currently has is due to expire on the 18th Jan 2008. I'm a little concerned that she will be refused the renewal on the grounds that we didn't live in another EU state before settling down here.

Our plans are to get her to become a Dutch national, but the naturalisation process is pretty complex and the earliest she can apply is next year with a 1 year processing period, so that's not going to save us if it all goes pear shaped.

I can't believe that the acid test for marriages of convenience has been deemed to be that the couple must have lived in another EU state. Does that mean that our marriage is a marriage of convenience because my parents decided to move me to SA when I was young? This is ridiculous and I will not take it lying down.

Mike

archigabe
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Post by archigabe » Thu Aug 30, 2007 6:41 pm

It seems the Irish government's solutions to problems are very simplistic in nature...
Marriages of convenience? solution- residency in another E.U country.
Who to deport? solution-People who got married in Ireland.

yankeegirl
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Post by yankeegirl » Thu Aug 30, 2007 6:41 pm

Hi Mike,

You should be ok. The requirement of previous residence in another EU state came into effect around Dec. 06 or Jan. 07. (If I remember correctly). Your wife should be ok. That said, the people who are already/could possibly be affected could probably use all the help they can get! I would urge anybody, not just those affected, to write a letter or do whatever they can to call attention to this.

Dimy77
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Post by Dimy77 » Thu Aug 30, 2007 7:08 pm

yankeegirl wrote:Hi Mike,

You should be ok. The requirement of previous residence in another EU state came into effect around Dec. 06 or Jan. 07. (If I remember correctly). Your wife should be ok. That said, the people who are already/could possibly be affected could probably use all the help they can get! I would urge anybody, not just those affected, to write a letter or do whatever they can to call attention to this.
Actually that directive was put in place in april/may 2006... just nobody seemed to know about it.

mikeruurds
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Post by mikeruurds » Thu Aug 30, 2007 7:51 pm

I'll be joining in to picket the Dail no matter whether this affects us personally or not. It's crazy that the DOJ can discriminate against non-Irish EU nationals and their families. Surely any action of this kind should be taken against all EU nationals with non-EU spouses or no-one. If this action included Irish nationals with non-EU spouses then there would be more of an outcry.

I was on Newstalk this morning for about 3 minutes talking about this issue. It shouldn't be allowed. Dealing with fraudulent residency claims is one thing, but labeling all of us as being in marriages of convenience is discriminatory.

See you in the trenches.

Mike

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Post by archigabe » Thu Aug 30, 2007 9:16 pm

There was a program on RTE 1 Prime Time last night about Eu-Non E.U marriages.The person speaking for the Government said there was a program last year on RTE Prime Time that a large number of Eastern Europeans were getting into sham marriages, therefore all the people who were here without residing in another E.U country were sham marriages...There was no consideration of real cases and the moderator seemed to imply that all such marriages unless they had lived elsewhere in europe were sham marriages. This sort of thinking seems fairly common where they see no irony in asking for Irish illegals to be regularized in the States and then clamour for more deportations in Ireland in the same breath. I wish someone would have asked her if she would have supported deportation of Irish nationals foreign spouses from the UK or the continent.
Denise Charleton, CEO of Immigration council Ireland made a good case that they had atleast 750 people who were married for years with kids and arrived here in good faith. The phrase that the legislation was a 'Sledgehammer to crack a nut' was also mentioned. They gave a audience participation no at the end of the program of 01 208 2941 to call back. Pls call and let them know your opinions.
Last edited by archigabe on Fri Aug 31, 2007 1:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

scrudu
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Post by scrudu » Fri Aug 31, 2007 10:37 am

EDK2007: As yankeegirl wrote, your wife should be applying under Irish domestic law to join you as the spouse of an Irish citizen in Ireland. The EU1 application form would only apply in your case had you been residing in another European country for work purposes and had returned to Ireland. Then you would be "exercising your treaty rights" so you could the EU1 form. Ignore the misinformation you have received. My husband (indo) and I (irish) were actually told to apply via the EU1 by the DoJ one time. Of course, we would have been refused, although it may have taken them 6 months to respond!

Your wife needs to apply for a D-Spouse visa which if granted will get her a Stamp 4 residency permit. This permit allows her to work and travel freely. It is normally 5 years in duration, depending on the validity of her passport. Such visa applications take 6-8 weeks to process. According to http://www.inis.gov.ie/en/INIS/Pages/WP07000279 as your wife is not from a visa required country, she should be able to change her visa status from within the country. You need to check this fact with the DoJ. Persons from "visa required" countries must first leave the country to apply for a change in visa status. If the D-Spouse visa is granted, she should then present herself to the GNIB who will stamp her passport with a Stamp 4 residency permit and issue her with a GNIB card confirming her status. She can then apply for a Re-entry visa so she can exit and re-enter the country freely.

I also read the following at http://www.dfa.ie/home/index.aspx?id=8777#SAR
Persons who are holders of a British Hong Kong Passport who have a right of abode in Great Britain do not require entry visas.

Persons who are holders of a British Hong Kong Passport who have a right of abode in Hong Kong only do not require entry visas but they are subject to full foreign national controls in respect of registration,permission to remain, work permits etc.
I'm not sure if this means that your wife will be treated as a "visa required" citizen in this case. If so, she will have to leave the country to apply for a visa status change.


Read the following:

edk2007
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Post by edk2007 » Fri Aug 31, 2007 12:04 pm

Thanks Scrudu, I contacted the visa section and they told me that because we actually got married in Ireland we would need to apply to the marriage to Irish national section. We have been waiting 6 months now and on the letter they said we would have to wait between 8-10 months.

This whole situation is so crazy because you get told such a variety of information. The department web site is confusing to say the least.

Maybe if members of this forum got together a wrote a guide for immigration matters in Ireland, I would certainly be willing to help out.

scrudu
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Post by scrudu » Fri Aug 31, 2007 1:30 pm

edk2007: I think your wife is then being treated as a "visa required" citizen. It doesn't matter where you married, it only matters where you are when you apply for residency status. If you are inside Ireland and apply for a change of status in Visa because of marriage, you slip into the black hole. Basically your application is shelved in case it is a "marriage of convenience". We were told such applications take 12-18 months to process. The alternative is to leave the country, and re-apply for permission to re-enter as the spouse of an Irish citizen. This process should take 6-8 weeks. Don't ask me where the logic is. We chose the 2nd option as it meant that within 2 months my husband was able to re-enter and get his Stamp 4, whereas the other option meant waiting around for the DoJ.

NOTE: It's not not an automatic process to be granted a Stamp 4, but the fact you have already resided together in Ireland would only make your application more solid.

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Post by archigabe » Fri Aug 31, 2007 6:45 pm

The papers and TV seem to have really caught on this issue.
There was coverage on Irish Times yesterday and today, RTE Prime Time,The Irish independent as well as Radio.
Here's the links to today's stories.

''Emigrant Advice accuses Justice Department over proposed deportations''
http://www.independent.ie/breaking-news ... 69615.html

''Uproar at ruling over refugee in 'sham marriage''
http://www.independent.ie/national-news ... 68728.html

''Many complaints made to Brussels''
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/irelan ... 70502.html

'We want to live a normal life'
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/irelan ... 70553.html

edk2007
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Post by edk2007 » Mon Sep 10, 2007 4:25 pm

scrudu wrote:edk2007: I think your wife is then being treated as a "visa required" citizen. It doesn't matter where you married, it only matters where you are when you apply for residency status. If you are inside Ireland and apply for a change of status in Visa because of marriage, you slip into the black hole. Basically your application is shelved in case it is a "marriage of convenience". We were told such applications take 12-18 months to process. The alternative is to leave the country, and re-apply for permission to re-enter as the spouse of an Irish citizen. This process should take 6-8 weeks. Don't ask me where the logic is. We chose the 2nd option as it meant that within 2 months my husband was able to re-enter and get his Stamp 4, whereas the other option meant waiting around for the DoJ.

NOTE: It's not not an automatic process to be granted a Stamp 4, but the fact you have already resided together in Ireland would only make your application more solid.
Thanks for the info the DOJ letter said 8-10 months. This is month 7 I think so fingers crossed we get some response soon.

exploited
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Post by exploited » Wed Sep 12, 2007 4:00 pm

I think it's high time all of us who have been shafted by this exploitative rule went on the offensive against the authorities! My wife has been sitting around almost a year only to be told to f@*k off after wasting all this time. It has been an extremely difficult and expensive time for us living in Dublin, which is a very difficult place to live if only one spouse is earning. The application just sat on some lazy idiots desk for months and we didn't even know what was going on. Every time I would try to get in touch, months later I'd get a response, saying that they needed this document or that. In the end after wasting all that time they rejected the application for same old reason that she hadn't resided in another EU country before coming here. So anyone who has gotten married outside the EU while living in Ireland would get shafted by this wholely illogical rule! They could have told us that the DAY they got the application instead of wasting a whole year of a persons life! I have a mind to get together with other couples who have had the same problem and sue these bastards for LOST WAGES and causing distress for almost a year! I think we have a genuine case and can hit them for millions if we get a decent lawyer. Thats the only way these rude time-wasting c*@^s will learn how to treat human beings as HUMAN BEINGS! Probably the LAZIEST AND MOST DISRESPECTFUL GOVERNMENT department of them all!

Ben
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Post by Ben » Wed Sep 12, 2007 5:48 pm

exploited wrote:I think it's high time all of us who have been shafted by this exploitative rule went on the offensive against the authorities! My wife has been sitting around almost a year only to be told to f@*k off after wasting all this time. It has been an extremely difficult and expensive time for us living in Dublin, which is a very difficult place to live if only one spouse is earning. The application just sat on some lazy idiots desk for months and we didn't even know what was going on. Every time I would try to get in touch, months later I'd get a response, saying that they needed this document or that. In the end after wasting all that time they rejected the application for same old reason that she hadn't resided in another EU country before coming here. So anyone who has gotten married outside the EU while living in Ireland would get shafted by this wholely illogical rule! They could have told us that the DAY they got the application instead of wasting a whole year of a persons life! I have a mind to get together with other couples who have had the same problem and sue these bastards for LOST WAGES and causing distress for almost a year! I think we have a genuine case and can hit them for millions if we get a decent lawyer. Thats the only way these rude time-wasting c*@^s will learn how to treat human beings as HUMAN BEINGS! Probably the LAZIEST AND MOST DISRESPECTFUL GOVERNMENT department of them all!
@exploited

I know you're angry at the DoJ, you're not the only one by any means, but there is no purpose in copying/pasting the same post on multiple threads.

mktsoi
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Post by mktsoi » Thu Sep 13, 2007 6:50 pm

mikeruurds wrote:I'll be joining in to picket the Dail no matter whether this affects us personally or not. It's crazy that the DOJ can discriminate against non-Irish EU nationals and their families. Surely any action of this kind should be taken against all EU nationals with non-EU spouses or no-one. If this action included Irish nationals with non-EU spouses then there would be more of an outcry.

I was on Newstalk this morning for about 3 minutes talking about this issue. It shouldn't be allowed. Dealing with fraudulent residency claims is one thing, but labeling all of us as being in marriages of convenience is discriminatory.

See you in the trenches.

Mike
the DOJ not only dscriminate non irish eu national. if your certain irish national, you could be in trouble as well. i was down in GNIB few months ago. i was talking to this libyan guy in gnib. he has been living in ireland for 10 years. naturalized as irish long time ago. he went back to libya and married to a libyan gal. as most of the people know. libyan passport holder needs a visa to get on to the plane. he told me that the irish embassy in libya wont issue a visa for her wife to get enter ireland. so it is not only the non irish eu national having problem! he is very smart tho. he went to london and said to home office that her wife wanted to visit him in london. the british embassy issued her a visa to go from libya to london. they took the ferry across back to dublin. gnib gave her a stamp every year and couldnt say no to them once when they are in the country. but still this is pretty bad about the DOJ.

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