Family members of a mobile EU citizen, visa. Has anyone heard of it ?

I am a UK national, and I have been living and working in Germany for 7 months, my Kenyan wife has been living with me there for the last 3 months. In early December, I was told that my contract would not be continued beyond 31st December, so we started a Surinder Singh application for her to accompany me back to the UK.
That application was eventually refused on the highly contentious "centre of life" requirements.

We didn't have time to go through the appeals procedure as I had found a job in the UK, and in any case it would by no means be certain to be found in our favour, so we decided to just "rock up at the border" last weekend, and try and get onto a ferry to the UK.

To cut a long story short, we were refused 4 times (Holland, Zebrugge, Calais x2), the last but one time, we were held by Border Force for 7 hours, and questioned very aggressively, I had informed them my wife was 3 months pregnant, but they didn't seem to care, she was so upset by this that she was admitted to Calais hospital that Friday evening with stress and anxiety attacks.
Never the less, we still decided to give it one more try on the Saturday, and ended up being held for another 7 hours.

The Border Force officer handling our application on the Saturday, was a lot friendlier than the 2 nasty pieces of work on the Friday, and he told me that he could see we were genuine, and he wanted to let us in, but he had to go by the HO requirements, so his superior would have rejected it anyway.
While we were talking to him, he mentioned that there is a visa that we could have applied for, that he would have been unable to refuse, and she would have been "given it on the spot" (his words).
I asked him what it was called, and he told me he was sorry, but he couldn't tell me, as it would be classed as giving out immigration advice, and that was more than his job was worth. He went on to say that I should just go away and search really deeply, and I might find it.

I spent most of the day yesterday looking for anything I could find about it, until eventually, I stumbled on this page:
https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/t ... ard-doc-no

Near the bottom of the page I saw this:

"Arriving at the border without an entry visa"

"It is always best for your non-EU family members to be well-informed in advance and have all the necessary documents before starting their journey.

However, if they arrive at the border with their passport but without an entry visa, the border authorities should give them the opportunity to prove by other means that they are family members of a mobile EU citizen. They can do so by providing proof of their identity and family ties with an EU citizen and, if travelling alone, proof that the EU citizen is already living in the host country. If they manage to prove it, they should be issued with an entry visa on the spot."

Nowhere on the page does it say anything about it not applying to UK citizens, and I searched for ages but could find no reference at all to it on any of the official .gov or UKVI pages.

This morning I finally found a working phone number where I could call UK Border Force (Birmingham Airport), and spoke to a very nice friendly woman. I told her my situation, what i had been told by the last border guard, and mentioned the visa I had found" She told me that she had heard of it, she didn't know if it was applicable to UK citizens, but that she had seen nothing about it in any official manuals saying that it was not for UK citizens to use.

I have tried again this evening, but still cannot find any reference to it apart from the page I listed above, so.....

Has anyone here heard of this visa, and if so, do you have any more information about it ?

Or am I clutching at straws here ?

Hello

Sorry for what you are going through

Did you apply for an Article 10 card for her in Germany? That would have made the Surinder Singh easier if German authorities had delivered a card under EEA rules. As your wife, she is not supposed to apply or have a card, but officially is helps demonstrating her status. That's the theory. In practice, it's a different story... You will often discover that the mobility on the paper and in practice is not really the same.

What kind of leave does she have in the EU now? Any visa or residence card?

I never heard about a family member of a "mobile EU citizen". You can read EU Directive 2004/38/EC. Its official name is: "DIRECTIVE 2004/38/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 29 April 2004 on the right of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States"

There is nothing regarding "mobile EU citizen". But the entire thing is about offering mobility options. That's to say the right to move with your family members / depends and establish yourself in other EU countries.

Zerubbabel wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 21, 2020 9:39 pm

a family member of a "mobile EU citizen"

Possibly the IO meant "frontier worker"?

Even if so, the OP does not seem to meet the requirements for being a frontier worker, which is that they reside in one member-state, but work in another member-state, and return to their home member-state at least once a week.